ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.” — Often attributed to Mark Twain

“All of your children are poor unfortunate victims of lies you believe. A plague upon your ignorance…” — Frank Zappa

A common definition of “speak with a forked tongue” means to tell lies, to not be truthful, to be deceptive.

At the risk of arousing the ire of the dominant strain of political animals in Allegan County, I hereby submit County Clerk Bob Genetski has demonstrated this troubling trend by spreading falsehoods in public, at least on three occasions.

His most recent example has come in the last couple of months in which he has appeared at meetings of local township boards and the Wayland City Council. He has told these public officials he is adamantly opposed to moving the clerk’s, treasurer’s, registers of deeds and other offices to the County Services Building at Dumont Lake.

He has made a case for keeping clerk’s functions operating in the county building in the City of Allegan. He has argued that township clerks shouldn’t have to bring election ballots to the clerk’s office at Dumont Lake, where there is little security, late on election night.

Though it’s a good point, it’s not true.

Allegan County Commissioner Gale Dugan Thursday night presented Watson Township Board members the architect’s drawings showing the clerk’s office remaining at the county building to continue election and court services.

Yet Genetski as recently as Feb. 20 was telling the Wayland City Council the clerk’s services will be at Dumont Lake, and he was not pleased.

This is not the first time Genetski has spoken publicly with a forked tongue. The other cited here are downright embarrassing.

One was at a Leighton Township Board meeting in which he flatly stated that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, a scam more likely to be associated with corporations such as Amway (Alticor), in which people are lured into becoming distributors rather than buying the products.

With Social Security, which we working stiffs spend a lifetime paying into, we get the reward after we turn a certain age. I know personally because I, my wife and many in my family are collecting from that system. That reward is earned and paid.

On another occasion, Genetski suggested publicly that the students murdered at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., actually were “crisis actors.” If you believe that, I’ve got some swamp land I’d like to sell you.

The point here is that though Mr. Genetski is a nice man who seems competent in providing services as the county clerk, he too often has demonstrated serious and troubling shortcomings in spreading truthful information. It has a lot to with lies he believes, and I don’t know why.

But, as folksinger Tom Paxton sang so long ago, “…we elect ‘em again and again.”