Lying in politics is no different than lying throughout life – nearly everybody does it at one time or another. We have “white lies” designed to prevent embarrassment or simply to be polite. We have functional lies to get annoying callers off the phone or to create other excuses in circumstances we’d rather not face. For the longest time, I can remember going into ecclesiastical interviews where I was asked if I am “honest in all things” and replying “You know I work for Congress, right?” My interviewer inevitably would smile, laugh uncomfortably and move on to the next question.
People lie all of the time, even when they don’t think they are. Consciously omitting important information is a lie – and so is stating facts while giving a false impression of the whole picture. Author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “To tell the truth, rightly understood, is not just to state the true facts, but to convey a true impression.” Utah’s honesty guru, Quinn McKay, is fond of an insightful ploy he uses in his professional seminars. He will ask audience members to raise their hands if they’ve ever lied. Of course, all hands go up. He then singles out someone and asks if it would be truthful for him to say that this audience member is an admitted liar? When the person inevitably pauses, Quinn says, “You admitted to me that you’ve lied. Why would it be wrong for me to tell the world that you are an admitted liar?”
I’ll leave you to answer that question. But you get the point.
Integrity is important to me as it is for many people. In my 35 years in politics I have heard many lies, met many liars and have lied myself. If my congressional boss didn’t want to take a phone call, I might tell the person on the phone that the congressman isn’t in – not unlike how we might handle sales calls at home. Maybe I’m too sensitive about such things but even those moments were lies in my mind, though I guess I wasn’t sensitive enough to stop doing it.
I’ll preface what I’m about to admit by saying that memory fades over time but a guilty conscience does not. I’ll tell people, matter of fact, that I’m not a liar. In fact, I’m told that’s what most people like about me. People can trust me. I’m not a liar to get gain or to harm another person. But while I’m sure I would lie to protect innocent people from harm (think hiding Jews from Nazis), there was one time I actually lied to protect the guilty. I once had a colleague who obtained outside political information the colleague wasn’t authorized to have – the colleague didn’t steal the information, it was provided willingly, but the colleague did ask a friend for it knowing sharing the information was against the rules. I knew about it after the fact but I still used that information and lied about it to protect the colleague and the project. That’s the one time in my 35-year career I can remember consciously and willingly lying.
I should add that I’m often accused of lying by people who oppose my politics. They think mere disagreement means that my motives must be sinister too. I won’t forget a few years ago when I ran television ads against antidiscrimination laws and, as it turned out, one of the ads was factually incorrect. I didn’t know it when I ran it, much to my personal embarrassment, but opponents were sure I knew the ad was incorrect when I released it. I just missed the error, as did everyone else on my team. As soon as the error was pointed out to me, I apologized publicly and immediately pulled the ad.
I think what makes lying in politics so unseemly is that lying violates the common good. If we can’t trust the people, elected and unelected, whom we appoint to serve in governing capacities, our free society is in jeopardy. It’s like uncovering a dirty cop or a yellow journalist. It’s the lowest of the low. But it happens in politics, not infrequently. Now, before we assume all politicians are liars, we should take comfort knowing that lying would occur in politics even more often than it does without all of the checks and balances our founding fathers built into democratic processes, including rights of free speech and freedom of the press.
These checks and balances don’t assure honesty in politics but they do ensure that there are processes to uncover lies. Unfortunately, there is nothing besides intuition and experience to reveal liars. The lie is one thing, a liar is quite another. There are some former colleagues I will never work with again because they are liars. There are some politicians in this state I wouldn’t trust with someone else’s money. And currently there is at least one presidential candidate I’ll never vote for because I know he’s a liar.
In my mind, integrity and trustworthiness are two of the most important character traits in politics. Ironically, I don’t care if the story about George Washington and the cherry tree is true or false. But it is a good lesson for all of us to remember.
I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.
