More than half a century ago, when I was both taller and smarter, the honor code at the University of Virginia was a simple affair. Roughly stated, the code read: "A gentleman," (for women undergraduates were yet to be admitted to the "College of Arts and Sciences"), "does not lie, cheat or steal" or "tolerate" the presence of those who do.

In the Fall of 1963, a student accused by a fellow student of any of the offenses was honor-bound to leave the University within 24 hours, or request a trial before his peers. Only students served on the Honor Committee. Decisions were final.

Of the three "honor" offenses lying was first among equals and a close corollary to cheating.

Many of our professors were veterans of the Second World War. Some were veterans of both. Though they played no role in either accusing or expelling liars from the "college" they strongly supported the ethic.

They taught, and we learned to distinguish between bald-faced lying and what West Pointers still call "quibbling," essentially weaseling out of a lie. "It depends upon what the meaning of "is" is, for example, or "Many agree with me that x or y is true."

We learned, in a thousand ways, the prices paid by those lied to.

We learned that Rudyard Kipling, now arguably best known from Disney movies, but then as the foremost apologist for the British Empire and the glories of death on the battlefield, changed his mind when his own underage son, Jack, inspired by his father's work, volunteered and was killed on the Western Front. In 1915 Kipling, heartbroken, wrote a short poem:

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

From William Faulkner's biographer, and Faulkner's The Reivers," his last novel, written at UVA we learned that:

"A gentleman accepts the responsibilities of his actions, and bears the burden of their consequences, even when he did not himself instigate them, but only acquiesced to them, didn't say no, though he knew he should."

Now, it seems, lying has become an infectious norm at the highest levels of government, practiced in both the bald-faced extreme and in the clumsiest forms of quibbling, daily, even hourly, by our accidental President, his minions, and those who support and enable them.

The great historian of the Second World War's battles against Japan, John Dower, has described one of the most prevalent forms of Trumpian prevarication as " . . . a kind of historiographic cancellation of immorality—as if the transgressions of others exonerate one's own crimes"

Were he a gentleman, which he most certainly is not, Mr. Trump might well leave the White House in disgrace. How sad it is that he is both a liar and no gentleman . . . that so many of us continue to support and defend him . . . and worse, that so far, no one with the power to do so will "ask" or compel him to leave.

And thanks again to Middleburg's Police Chief, A.J. Panebianco, for his special emphasis on personal integrity, what was in a semantically less reticent age referred to as "honor," as a core principle for those who protect and serve our community.

Middleburg is unique in requiring that its police officers swear a special oath, aptly named an Oath of Honor, before their families, friends, and the people they serve before their badges are pinned on them formally.

The oath is re-affirmed when officers are promoted.

Our Police Chief brought the Oath with him to Middleburg. The officers who have sworn that oath while serving under him have done us, and him, proud.