Lying and Cheating

Lying and Cheating By Jane Smiley. Copyright by The Huffington Post

It seems evident that Bush and Cheney lied and cheated so that they could attack Iraq. It seems that we can agree that Abramoff and DeLay controlled Congress through a mixture of bribes, lies, and cheats. Almost everyone agrees that Enron was busy cheating and defrauding the State of California in the 2001 energy crisis (and lying about it, and

my electric bill shows that I am still paying costs that Enron cheated me out of). Bush, who has had close ties to both Enron and Abramoff, has repeatedly lied about them. And, of course, the seminal example--many would say, and I am one of them, that the 2000 election was stolen by means of an elaborate cheat in Florida in the run-up to the election, followed by another cheat when members of the Supreme Court with open conflicts of interest stepped in to stop a recount that could have easily gone to Al Gore. Lots of lying, lots of cheating by the Republicans, and now their defense has shifted to two old stand-bys: that everyone does it, and/or it's necessary to lie and cheat to one's own people when the enemy is so dangerous (though Bush's and Cheney's actions don't clearly show who the dangerous enemy is--the terrorists? the Democrats? the citizenry?)
My grandmother once caught me cheating at cards. She said, "Cheaters never prosper". She didn't say that she was angry with me, or that I should be ashamed of myself, or I that I had sinned. Rather, she pointed out something that is objectively true about cheating, and so while the pundits debate about whether a consistent pattern of unrepentent lying and cheating is okay or not in the abstract, I think we should also notice where the lying and cheating has gotten this country. Yes, the Republicans have been caught and held to a (minimally) higher ethical standard, and yes, they clearly resent it. But what is the real price to be paid for a pattern of consistent lying? It is this: we are in deep trouble in Iraq, and with regard to the economy, and with regard to climate change, not because the Republicans have been caught by their fellow citizens, but because they have been caught by reality. Bush and Cheney can lie about Iraq day after day and week after week, and none of their lying changes the fact the the war has been a disaster, for the Iraqis, for the US Army, for the middle east, and for this nation. The same is true for the economy (though we might dodge that bullet), and the same is true for climate change. Bush and Cheney have lied and cheated about the science of climate change, and the climate has changed, anyway.

Anyone with common sense has to wonder about these people. Read my lips: there is a practical cost to lying and cheating and it is that liars and cheaters become deluded about what is really taking place and then are handicapped in their response to events. The Iraq war is not a disaster IN ADDITION to the fact that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice lied about it and cheated to get us into it, it is a disaster BECAUSE they lied about it and cheated to get us into it. Rumsfeld cheated by thinking he could go to war on the cheap because he had never been to war and didn't understand war. Rice cheated by using PR that she knew to be untrue, and now no one will ever believe her again. Even if she herself doesn't know it, she has become simply a laughingstock. It doesn't matter what she does now--her job is to have authority, and she surrendered it with that mushroom cloud remark. Bush and Cheney, it would seem, have lied and cheated every time they have opened their mouths, and everything that they have declared to be true has been shown to be untrue almost as soon as, if not before, they have said it. By pursuing policies and then lying about how the policies are working and then continuing to pursue them, they have actively created and accelerated the tragedy of Iraq, the potential tragedy of an economic collapse, and the tragedy of climate change.

The Republicans have endangered our democracy and our security by lying and cheating. Even if they had fooled us completely and never been caught or exposed, the illusions they created by lying and cheating would still be merely illusions, and would still cause havoc and destruction. Of course, we can and do feel insulted by their lying and cheating, since they have repeatedly transgressed basic morality, but over and above the insults are the injuries that they have caused. Pointless deaths, dismemberments, blindings, woundings, orphanings, widowings. Parents bereft of their children. Homelessness. Impoverishment. Infrastructure destruction. Sectarian hatred and violence. Scandalous waste of money and resources. Profoundly corrupt government in both Washington and Baghdad. Crippling of our army. The list, of course, goes on. The reason we expect our leaders to be straight with us is not only because we can handle the truth, but also because they can't handle the lies.