Michelle Kaplan

Long before Oprah Winfrey tore author James Frey into a million little pieces in front of a national audience for lying about his so called life experiences of addiction and recovery in his best selling book, A Million Little Pieces, we’ve been witness to a million little lies coming from all around us, centrally Washington D.C. It’s gotten so we just accept lying as part of the status quo of life.
Let’s face it. We’re a nation of people that actually enjoy being lied to…most of us lie to ourselves on a daily basis. This statement needs no explanation, you know who you are and you know just what lies you’ve told yourselves to make life, well…easier.

Is there just plain old comfort in burying our heads in the sand and hoping things will just blow over? Is the truth just too hard to deal with, or just too exhausting and complicated? To understand lying, I thought I’d classify it for you. That way, we can all rest assured of the category with a classic and more recent example, hopeful outcome of the lie, and the eventual actual outcome. Let’s see if lying does pay.
Lying by Delay: (no, not Tom Delay, that’s another story.)
Classic example: Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick
Hopeful Outcome: Time Heals All Wounds, or at least may soften the blow.
Actual Outcome: Liar, Liar…coward. This favorite son lost his shot at the White House.
Recently: Dick AKA “Elmer Fudd” Cheney shot a hunting companion (ok, he WAS a lawyer after all, extra points, score!) and reported it a mere 22 hours later. Dropping it in the local yokel press, so it would, what? Ease the blow? And just for the record, who on earth would go hunting with Dick Cheney? He wears coke bottle glasses and has a heart condition, not a guy who should be walking around with anything, loaded.
Actual Outcome: New theme song sung to Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun”…need I spell it out??
Lying for Money:
Classic Example: Those bastards at Enron
Hopeful Outcome: obscene displays of wealth to impress all of your friends.
Actual Outcome: Federal Prison, Thousands of hard working Americans lose their life’s savings. One four-hour video tape of a birthday party complete with men in togas, rock on – price tag: $2 million. Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday!
Recently: The United State Congress. Now why do we actually feign outrage when we hear that some of the folks sent to Washington to represent you and me are taking bribes? We’ve known it forever and have a name for it PACs, Political Action Committees.
Lying to your Face:
Classic Example: “Read My Lips, No New Taxes,” said George Bush Sr….are we kidding?
If noses really did grow for lying, then George could stir your martini from wherever he is in
Texas.
Hopeful Outcome: Your vote and winning the 1988 presidential election
Actual Outcome: Winning the 1988 presidential election…and,oh yeah, lots of new taxes added in the 1990 budget agreement.
Recently: We’re over there looking for weapons of mass destruction. Even if they found them, we know damn well how they got there…we gave them to them.
Actual Outcome: No weapons of any destruction found. Over 2,000 American’s dead in a war we’re not really able to figure out yet.
Lying to Plain ‘ol Save Your Ass:
Classic: Bill Clinton, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
Hopeful Outcome: Not getting decked by Hillary.
Actual Outcome: Impeachment for breaking some right-wing Christian majority morality law but really, while giving sworn testimony in his 1998 deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. Five year suspended law license in Arkansas and a $25,000 fine.
Recently: Well this could actually constitute as pre-lying, but it is to save one’s butt.
Dick Cheney, again for trying like the dickens to keep the executive branch of our govern-
ment out of the watchful eye of Congress and the press and the public, by limiting access to
documents by trying to undo limitations placed on the executive branch by the system we’ve
come to love and depend on, checks and balances.
These documents that they’d like to say to us, MYOB; memos that run the gamut from dis-
cussions on the limitations of torture and surveillance during wartime, the domestic spying
program, the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and the records documenting the devel-
opment of the energy task force, to which certain Enron executives received special access to panel members.
Hopeful Outcome: Keeping us in the dark.
Actual Outcome: Ahh…we’re still sitting here in the dark.
Lying for spying:
Classic: Richard Nixon wiretapping average American war protesters in the name of
National Security.
Hopeful Outcome: Ending his paranoia
Actual Outcome: Impeachment, plain and simple, Dick, you broke the law.
Recently: Our beloved President George W. Bush was found spying on American citi-
zens. Using the National Security Agency to spy on phone calls and emails that they
“believed” to be linked to al Qaeda, (whatever that means) without a warrant.
Hopeful Outcome: Finding Osama bin Laden working at a local 7-11 in Fargo.
Actual Outcome: hmmm…none…too bad this ain’t the 60’s.
Somehow we all seem to go with the notion that our president is above the law, instead
of the fact that he’s supposed to be the prime example of law abiding citizen…okie dokie
Does it pay? Sometimes it actually does. In the long run the liar lives with the lie, so it
does pay if you can still look at yourself in the mirror, very subjective, based on the con-
tent of the liar’s character, indeed.
Who among us can stand up and be counted for not being a liar — raise your
hand…that’s what I thought.