It might be that some political leaders might be claiming that they are trying to give "public lessons cloaked in the guise of lying." I.e., they might say something, and the critical thinkers out there are supposed to "crack the code" and figure out the truth hidden behind the lie. The "truly smart," as you're supposed to feel (and you really might be--you're not one of these political bozos), are supposed to "read between the lies" and learn the truth--the lesson within the "fiction."

The problem is, if I've described the setup properly, the "lesson" hidden within can be a lie too. Is the political leader giving you food for thought that you must analyze your way to? If so, why don't you just buy a $10 novel and read that? You could probably just read the first paragraph and learn more than you would from Joe's cryptic lies.

If it isn't just food for thought, then basically you're supposed to "decrypt a hidden sentence"--find the secret plaintext decryption of Untrustworthy Joe's lies, and accept it. The problem is, has he told you how many layers deep--how many "decryptions" you have to do--before you will be done with the lies and will have found the truth? What if there are five layers of lies, and the sixth layer is the truth? What if Joe lied and said that it was the third layer that was true? What if there are no layers that are true, and it's literally all an attempt to build a crafty strategy game to benefit Joe and colleagues while adding literally no value to anyone else?

These are speculative thoughts, to be sure, but my point is: Beware of "edu-lying." Simply and clearly stated truths and novels/non-fiction are going to give you more truth than political code-comments in the media, regardless of how stimulating it might be to "feel like you know Joe and he's talking to you and teaching you a secret thing in code because you're so awesome." That feeling often comes better and more healthily from textbooks, except for feeling like you know the author (you just tend to feel a sense of "I think this person gets me a little bit without even knowing me because we're both interested in this subject.")