Lying liars and the lies they lie

   

     A lot of writers who win the Pulitzer Prize let it go to their heads. They preen and strut. But I've always managed to stay the same humble scribe that I was when I joined the newspaper. Similarly, being a big New York Times best-seller author can inflate an author's ego until it pops. Though I try to keep myself grounded in solid Midwestern values of family, decency and hard work that are my guiding stars.
     Do you see what I've done above? It's not a lie, as such. I never say I won the Pulitzer Prize — I didn't. Nor have any of my books gotten anywhere near best sellers. 
     Rather, the opening graph is the kind of deceptive self-puffery that a lot of people seem compelled to indulge in, that is when they just don't flat out invent stuff. Originally, I was going to just outright lie — claim to have won a Pulitzer, to being a best-selling author. But my fingers wouldn't do it.
     Just as well. I wouldn't be good at it; honestly, I'm confused by liars. I just don't get it. It's obvious why they commit their fabrications. To puff up their shriveled little souls. To impress others. They feel the truth about themselves, whatever it is, is not sufficient — even when that truth is that they're a former president of the United States, rich and famous, with a good chance of returning to office. Obviously they need more. Constantly more. More than any version of reality can provide. They're trying to fill a bottomless pit — some gaping wound in their soul — and rather than do the hard work to close the hole, repair the void, be satisfied with what they've got, they keep shoveling stuff in. It's never enough, which is why the lies keep increasing: more and more, bigger and bigger. Because the hole keeps getting bigger.
      Now that I think of it, maybe I'm not confused by liars. Maybe it's their supporters who I really don't get. How do they not perceive the deceit? It's so obvious. Why are they not disgusted? It's so pathetic. To me, even a few small lies are enough to turn me off on a person. It only takes a little spit to spoil the soup. I read a recent New Yorker profile of NYC's new mayor, "Eric Adams Administration of Bluster." The story wasn't only about his lies, though they kept popping up, and stood out. Everything else fell away. Adams claimed to be a vegan, but when called out for eating fish, he first denied he had eaten any, then denied he had ever said he was a vegan. He claimed to have been a boxer; then denied having claimed to be a boxer.
     Small shit. But the pivot of the piece was this:

     "The Mayor apparently reserves the right to mix incidents from his own life with material from his quantum lives: things that could have happened, or almost happened, or happened to someone he once met. All potentials exist simultaneously. An Adams untruth will not be outrageously grandiose and grifty, like those told by Representative George Santos. But Adams doesn’t just polish anecdotes. He is unusually ready to repeat things that are confirmably untrue, or that — in their internal contradictions, or avoidance of specifics, or mutability from one telling to the next — seem very likely to be untrue."

     I finished the profile with one thought: the man's a liar.
     Period, full stop, end of story. I don't know what kind of tangled end is waiting for Adams, but when it shows up in its screeching, slo-mo train wreck glory, I'll be there muttering "So what did you expect?"

      Although, when that end comes, it isn't very satisfying either. Yes, watching the George Santos  finally get the heave-ho from Congress Friday — only the sixth man in the history of the United States to be ejected from the House, and three of those were for supporting the Confederacy — carried with it a faint note of satisfaction. About time. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

    But only a muffled note. A gentle "ping." As much as I wish I could spin Santos being hocked into a handkerchief as some kind of turning point, I really can't. It wasn't his continual, ridiculous prevarication that did him in, but actual crimes, albeit unproven ones. The man is accused of stealing his own campaign funds to pay for porn. Roll that sentence around in your mind. He didn't deny it, just conjured up some imaginary rush to judgment while the more shameless Republicans, who had voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, talked about the risk denying the voters their sacred mandate. A shame that hypocrisy isn't poison; they'd keel over dead on the spot.

     No, I think Santos was so insanely over the top that even as lame an organization as Congress was prompted to finally get rid of him — plus he isn't particularly popular. That's key. If only he had created a strong base for himself before his lies came to light, we'd probably be stuck with him. 

      Heck, maybe Santos isn't through yet. All he has to do is show up at the Capitol Monday morning, declaring nothing unusual happened Friday and he is still in office. A certain percentage of people would buy that. The same slice who will buy anything. There are so many of them. I get the upside for the liar — he basks in undeserved praise. But what benefit do the dupes derive? The right to admire an undeserving hero? How satisfying could that be?