How can you tell when a politician is lying?

[Fred Shapiro]

On Sun, 19 Mar 2000 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> "The good news is, he only lies when his lips are moving."
> --Peter Vecsey on the squandered talent of recently released NBA player J. R.
> Rider, NEW YORK POST, 19 March 2000, pg. 103.
>
>    It's an old joke.  "Q: How can you tell when a politican is lying?  A: His
> lips are moving."
>    Incredibly, it's not in SAFIRE'S NEW POLITICAL DICTIONARY (that I could
> see).
>    I remember the line from before the ADS voted "Bushlips" as the Word of
> the Year.
>    I'll probably check Joey Adams's works on Monday, but does anyone have any
> clues?

I don't know whether this was first used about politicians or lawyers.
The Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations has the following:

How can you tell if a lawyer is lying?
  His lips are moving.
        Los Angeles Times, 9 July 1986, at 3.


Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2