.....and Statistics

In 2005, the London Times published a leaked secret memo written by a top aide to Tony Blair. It revealed that the Bush administration had lied through its collective teeth about its intent to invade Iraq (vs. diplomatic efforts) and had persistently lied about Iraq’s threat to anybody outside its own borders. Almost the entire U.S. news media met this account of impeachable offenses with something equivalent to closing its eyes, plugging its ears, and humming the Flintstones theme very loudly. It seems that every piece of evidence of presidential prevarication before and since has been met with similar indifference.

It makes me back nostalgic for the days when the name Monica Lewinsky was being driven into my forehead like a tent peg. Remember when all we had to worry about was whether the prez got something extra with his pizza? The contrast between the cries of moral outrage from people who had always disliked Bill Clinton and the cynical indifference of everyone else now starts me thinking. Just who are we to judge either of these guys? I did some research.

According to a University of Chicago study, about twenty percent of married Americans have cheated on their spouses. A University of Michigan study gave a range of 26 to 75 percent. The UMich respondents must have had the same difficulty as the former President in defining a sexual relationship. Other university and government studies reveal that sixty to seventy-five percent of Americans have cheated academically, ten percent admit to cheating on their income tax, about a third have used illegal drugs, twenty eight percent have driven drunk, and virtually everybody has exceeded the posted speed limit. Twenty percent of teenage boys have shoplifted. I haven’t found the stats on teenage girls, but I’m not optimistic.

Let’s face it, we're a nation of lying, cheating petty criminals, and one of us is the president. Tom Delay’s and William Jefferson’s freewheeling approach to campaign funding indicate that some of us are in the House of Representatives as well.

A study on children and lying found that about half of the five year olds tested would lie about doing something wrong, and five percent would persist in the lie, even when shown a videotape of their actions. A follow up study ten years later found that this persistently lying five percent became the leaders in their peer groups. It seems that lying in the face of damning evidence is an indicator for leadership, not a disqualification.

So how do our recent presidents compare as liars? Clinton denied having a sexual relationship with Monica. Bush Senior and Reagan denied all knowledge of the Iran Contra affair (Refresher: Secretly and illegally selling missiles to Iran as ransom for U.S. hostages and using the proceeds to illegally finance terrorist attacks on Nicaragua). Reagan got caught lying about Libya back in the early eighties, admitted it, waited a few months for America's political memory to clear, and started again. Then he bombed them. Carter seemed pretty straight, for a president. He admitted to "lusting in his heart," but kept his hands to himself. He wasn't reelected. Ford had neither the time nor the wit to do much lying to us. Nixon? Ah, Nixon. For Richard Nixon, lying wasn't an incident, it was a lifestyle choice. From the Checkers speech, to the bombing of Cambodia, to Watergate, he was untainted by the truth. And so on back, with lies about the Gulf of Tonkin, the Bay of Pigs, Gary Powers, and Truman's whopper about the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, “a military target”, "so as to minimize civilian casualties."

And now we have Dubya. I’ll spare you the prose: Air National Guard service, insider trading, the Clear Skies initiative, the Healthy Forests initiative, the Taliban’s offer to hand over Bin Laden, pre 9-11 knowledge, post 9-11 air quality in Manhattan, every excuse for invading Iraq, torture as policy, Social Security, and more things than there is space to write.

So Clinton was a piker when it came to presidential lying. Denying adultery in a case that had been dismissed just doesn't measure up to dropping bombs on people, subverting democracy and running secret wars. It's strictly minor league.

The American people recognize this. We are used to being lied to by politicians and each other. We have lowered our expectations to the point where corruption doesn't shock us, treason doesn't surprise us, and adultery doesn't even register. Whatever our personal crimes, deep down we realize that the only difference between us and Bill Clinton is that he got caught. Americans in general and the news media in particular seem to be extending this forgiveness to the lies of the Bush administration. Not to do so would be a perilous step towards holding ourselves to a higher standard.

No, officer, I didn't realize I was speeding.

Comments

[Roz]

Yeah, I agree (I want to know how you got through the whole article without mentioning Enron. Must have been deliberate). I'll add some ranbling comments that are an unedited stream of thoughts and questions, mind you, not a crafted essay...

Lies aren't limited to our culture and our times (your article covers the latter), so we need to look at it on the human scale. Why do we do it, and what is beyond forgivable? Do we look to religion to guide us on that one? Or can religion, esp. religion that imposes puritanical standards, perpetuate lying?

Lying is a way out of taking responsibility, a means to do something that we know we're not supposed to. From where do we get our code of ethics that tells us that if we are bad, we must take responsibility for being bad? Volumes have been written. Enforcers of moral values can include family and community, which have both been disintegrating for decades in this country. Not that things were perfect before then.

Underlying (pun intended) it all is the act of manipulation, the desire to control, which is triggered by fear of not having control. And the fear of what might happen if we admit we messed up, which we all do. When you look at it this way, it all comes down to what's going on in the little brains of people like George. He not only must have missed out on the love he needed from day one, but he was taught some really fucked up ways to respond to that emptiness.