There are a number of constants in life: death, taxes, the devotion of a good dog and the lies of politicians.

Let鈥檚 face it, nearly all politicians lie at some point or another: lies of omission, misdirection, redirection, spin and good old outright lies. Sometimes they even have good reason to do so.

Local politicians don鈥檛 have much cause to lie outright. It seems like the bigger the politician, the more likely they are to be caught in a lie which would have to make U.S. President Donald Trump the biggest politician of all, considering the whopper he tried to sell last week.

By now, most of the world is aware that after his sycophantic performance at the Helsinki summit with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Trump tried to walk back his craven acceptance of the dictator鈥檚 assurance that Russia didn鈥檛 meddle in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Trump now says he misspoke, that he meant to say he couldn鈥檛 see any reason Russia and Putin 鈥渨ouldn鈥檛鈥� meddle in U.S. elections, not 鈥渨ould.鈥�

Too bad everything else in his speech, his body language, his tone of voice, were shouting 鈥淚 believe you, Vlad.鈥�

Trump鈥檚 fawning over dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-un is disgraceful enough, and it鈥檚 good to see the (somewhat bipartisan) condemnation of the Helsinki performance.

What鈥檚 even more disgraceful is that Trump thought he could stand up in front of the world and deny the Russian interference that has been made very clear through the work of multiple U.S. intelligence services and investigations.

Then he sunk even lower by expecting people to believe that it was just a matter of saying the wrong word.

If Trump didn鈥檛 already hold the record for stupendous lies, this would ensure his hold on the trophy. Which, considering his normal narcissistic behaviour, would probably make him happy, hearing that he really was best at something.