On the Lies Our Politicians Tell: Why Some Are Offensive and Others Are Despicable

            I have just about had my fill of lying politicians. 

            I wrote that sentence in the immediate aftermath of the Anthony Weiner press conference earlier this week, wherein he admitted he had lied repeatedly about the Twitter photo of his genitalia that he claimed he hadn’t but finally admitted he had sent to a young woman he had been twittering with.  (That sounds just how I want it to sound, whether the verb is grammatically correct or not.)

            I’m sick of politicians who lie, and the fact that this one’s politics are in line with my own doesn’t make it any less sickening.  Weiner is as pathetic in this regard as all the rest.  When it comes to personal integrity, they all stink (all, here, meaning those that lie, which probably includes the great majority of them).

            I probably sound like some still-wet-behind-the-ears college kid who’s never seen the dark side of the reality that our democracy is, but in fact, I’m quite the opposite.  I’ve worked as a paid campaign consultant, toiled in the Legislature as a policy analyst, lobbied for a major trade association, and followed politics almost as closely as I follow baseball for almost 50 years.

            But enough is enough.  Lying cannot be acceptable conduct in those who seek to represent and lead their constituents, and it is time to identify the lies and indict those who make them.

            Like so many others before him, Weiner accepted “full responsibility” for his actions in one breath, and in the very next declared that he would not resign, which raises what should be an obvious question:  Just what is their definition of responsibility?  In my book it certainly means owning up to the transgression, but it also means bearing the consequences “like a man,” as used to be the fashionable term.

            Weiner more or less owned up.  He acknowledged some of what he had done, and sidestepped/avoided a lot, too.  What, for example, was he doing with the “six or so” women he twittered with?  Were any underage?  Did he initiate the twittering or did they?  Does he have a psychological problem that needs counseling?  Did he violate any laws or rules of the House?  And why after ten days of lying was he finally coming clean now?

            All in all, his performance in the lengthy press conference he submitted himself to, so far as owning up is concerned, probably merits a C+, at least compared to similar press conferences by others caught with their, er, pants down.

            But in the bearing the consequences department, Weiner gets an F.  When you are elected to Congress, you can’t twitter photographs of your penis to young women.  It doesn’t matter that it isn’t a crime.  It matters that you are serving the people of your district and of the nation.  And when you engage in that conduct, let alone lie about it, you forfeit your right to hold that office. 

            At least, that is the way a “man” would understand and accept the consequences of that kind of action.

            But, Mr. Weiner, like so many before him, wants to have it both ways.  He wants to accept responsibility and then be immediately forgiven, without even asking to be forgiven.  It’s an interesting sense of integrity, which is another word these folks don’t really seem to understand.

            But in American politics, there are offensive lies and there are despicable lies.  The Weiner lies (and the conduct he attempted to cover up) are offensive, especially with respect to the extent to which he pressed them to the entire country for over a week.   But they do not reach the same degree of repugnance as the lies that politicians tell that directly affect the course of our nation. 

            In other words, let’s keep things in perspective.  Weiner, with his twittering, his apparent psychological issues, the likely troubles in his marriage, and his public humiliation and shame, is just a pathetic human being who has disgraced himself and his office.  But nothing he has done is adversely affecting the country in a significant way.

            The kinds of lies that are far worse, that are not just offensive but are despicable, are those that our politicians tell us in furtherance of their political or ideological pursuits. 

            I’m speaking here of the kind of lies that, for example, claim that a war must be initiated against a foreign country because that country is a threat to the United States, when in fact the country is no threat at all.  Lies like those that claim that the war will pay for itself, when instead it will end up costing the nation nearly a trillion dollars.  

            I’m speaking of lies that claim that the entitlement programs that are a lifeline for many of the nation’s seniors cannot be sustained and that they must, therefore, be dismantled, even though they can be sustained if taxes on the wealthiest are raised. 

            Lies that claim raising taxes will destroy the economy, when the goal is really to “starve the beast” of New Deal and Great Society programs.  Or lies that assert that increasing marginal tax rates even to the level they were at before the wars were started would lead to higher unemployment and a double-dip recession, even though those same tax rates, when they were in effect, coincided with the longest sustained economic growth the country had enjoyed in fifty years. 

            I’m referring to lies that claim that more effective government regulation of the financial industry is not necessary even though lax regulation led to the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.  Or lies that now claim that the country needs less regulation, not more, even as the same financial industry continues to engage in the same shenanigans that led to the economic collapse just three years ago.

            I’m talking about lies that claim a health care reform law is socialistic, when it does not nationalize any industry and in fact increases the profitability of the nation’s insurance industries.  Or that claim that a bailout of the auto industry is socialistic, when it instead saves that industry and returns it to profitability at no net cost to the government.

            Those kinds of lies are harder to identify than the offensive lies Anthony Weiner told, because they are said in the guise of legitimate political discourse.  They are cloaked with the shield of intelligence reports or empirical studies or are said to be nothing more than personal opinion.

            But stripped of all the niceties of “free speech,” they are lies, because the speakers know that they are said to cover the truth.

            A democracy like the one we in the United States have can withstand the lies of those of its public servants who are imperfect stewards of their personal lives.  It can even survive the lies those seeking elective office tell to persuade voters to cast their votes for them. 

            But when those public servants lie about the policies and laws they are or are not enacting, when they lie about the economic and foreign policy decisions they are implementing, when they lie to further their own political or ideological pursuits, then their lies are beyond offensive.  They are despicable, and they must be exposed as the threat to the democracy that they are.