Liars and Cheats

I’m getting worn down from being lied to so much.

From Democratic Underground*Mitt Romney lies so often that there are websites devoted to his lies, like http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/.  He lies about his past record (eg on gay rights, coal, health care).  He lies about what Obama has said and done (Romney’s campaign ads are often given “Four Pinnochios” by fact check agencies).  He often says Obama went on an “apology tour” overseas.  He lies about the date when he left his lucrative and destructive job at Bain Capital.  He lies about his taxes and overseas tax shelters.  He lies about what he did to “save” the Olympics (lobby for a huge government bailout of the kind he opposed for his home state’s auto industry).  He even lied about his first name (at a debate each candidate was asked to give his first and last name; Mitt said “Mitt Romney.”  It’s Willard Mitt Romney.)  The list goes on…..

Those are the outright lies.  Then there is the obstruction of truth; as he leaves a job he regularly orders all files and records destroyed; Governor of Massachusetts, Salt Lake City Olympics “rescue”, Bain Capital, all records gone, so that it takes a bit longer and more hunting to detect the lie.  He has refused to make public his tax records, as is customary for national candidates; when his father ran for President he made public 12 years of taxes.

Then there are the “look snidely at the camera and rewrite history” lies; he wrote a NY Times Op-Ed piece against the auto industry bailout, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” Then when the bailout turned the auto industry around and made it profitable and they paid back the loan early, with interest, Romney said to the camera, “I take credit for that.”

From Chevy Chase**I can chalk all these lies up to American politics.  Obama has stretched the truth a few times in political ads as well.  Spin, they call it in Washington, truthiness.  Just part of the game.  There is now a whole cottage industry of groups and websites that fact check political ads and speeches and lobbyists, with ratings graded from “One Pinnochio” to “Pants of Fire.”

But hearing all these lies day after day is turning me into a very cynical citizen, and a reluctant voter.  What difference does it make?  I do still vote.  I do still hopefully hold up that half full glass.  But I am lonelier and lonelier in my reluctant optimism; the percentage of eligible voters who actually go to the polls drops each election.

And I am appalled at my fellow citizens who buy this crap; if Fox says it, it must be true.  And those blind ignoramuses actually do vote.  Jefferson said a democracy can only survive with an educated electorate.  Our survival is in doubt.

Then this week the public lying got even worse, took an even deeper toll on my tortured optimism. Not in politics, but that other favorite American pastime, baseball.   My favorite baseball player, Melky Cabrero of the San Francisco Giants admitted that he used performance enhancing drugs.  He was suspended for the rest of the season.  This wasn’t just a great player and cute guy who inspired all kind of “milk” related puns in t-shirts (Got Melk?) and fan costumes (old fashioned milkman suits and caps.)  He was also voted Most Valuable Player of the All Star Game this summer, won that game with amazing hits and home runs; that win gave home field advantage for his National League in the World Series.  Melky’s juiced up state affected the future and record of the whole league.

From SFGate***Melky is a liar.  He signed a contract to play clean and then he cheated.  He lied to me and to Giants fans and to Major League Baseball.   He especially lied to kids who are told that honesty is the best policy and that crime doesn’t pay.  Crime did pay for Melky; his batting average and fame and salary went up and up.  It paid well.  Until it didn’t.  A common theory is that juicing up is widespread among players, but they mask it with markers that make for a clean test; Melky, they say, was just careless.   Whatever; kids saw his success and now they know that these drugs really do enhance performance.  How far will they go to break into the majors?

Romney’s lies make me cynical and angry and tired.  I just turn the radio off now as soon as he comes on.   Cabrero’s lies make me outraged and then sad, for him, for the team, for the game.  These days I spend more time following baseball than I do following politics.  I’m stuck in bed recovering from surgery.  Rooting for a winning team (til they lost Melky) passes the time and I think it aids in my healing – good vibes make for good muscles.  Romney and politics seem bad for my health; I get depressed and cynical and don’t do my exercises.

Is politics so much about winning (as opposed to making a society better) that it has become a game, like baseball? Are both our great American pastimes, politics and baseball, rotten to the core?

I remember taking an ethics course in seminary and reading a book by Sissela Bok called Lying: Moral Choice in Private and Public Life.  It contrasted “teleological ethics” (ends justify means; white lies aren’t so bad) and “deontological, Kantian” ethics (lying is wrong, so don’t do it) and the then newish “character ethics” (what matters is not so much is an action moral, but is a person virtuous, what makes an ethical character?)  Romney and Cabrera both think the end justifies the means.  What people will do to win includes all kinds of dirty tricks.  Just ask that other great presidential liar, Nixon.

Maybe I have come to expect that lying is a part of the essential character of any politician; there is no such thing as a virtuous politician. And I guess I had naively forgotten about the siren song of power and money and prestige in baseball as well – Melky’s salary was already a lot higher than the president’s.  (If you don’t count off- shore tax shelters.)

“Fighting a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American Way!”  That’s the boldly proclaimed mission of Superman, our iconic American comic book superhero.

The American Way seems increasingly to be about untruth and injustice.  Let the poor and the honest suffer.  Let the rich and the mendacious triumph.  Mitt and Melky – the American All Star team of liars.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah Streeter

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* Democractic Underground

** Chevy Chase

*** SFGate