Not a hotcake. Definitely selling like a hotcake.
There are times when I miss the David Manning Liar of the Month, a regular feature on my old Ethics Scoreboard reserved for flagging a breed of lie that I find the most annoying of all. These are the lies that even the liars know are unbelievable from the moment the dishonest statements leave their mouths. Then, when they are inevitably caught, the liars argue that the lie wasn’t really a lie because nobody believed it in the first place. Such lies tell us that the liar doesn’t think lying is anything to be ashamed of. Beware such people, especially when they dwell in high places. The lie may be trivial, but the attitude toward lying is not.
Spared the indignity of being a David Manning Liar by the Scoreboard’s dormant state is Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, who took umbrage at Mitt Romney’s statement that the Chevy Volt was “and idea whose time has not come.” Dingell protested, isssuing a press release that said,
“Romney is the only fellow in the United States who appears to think that the Volt is an idea whose time has not come. Clearly it has not come to him. The Volt is selling like hotcakes.”
The Volt, most recently in the news for bursting into flames in a garage days after a minor accident, is definitely not “selling like hotcakes.” The Volt’s most devoted advocates don’t argue that. The current debate is over whether the Volt is a flop or not, since it missed its 2011 sales target by a wide margin. Many observors feel that the Volt has not had enough time to prove itself. But “selling like hotcakes” menas that Volts are flying out of the display halls as fast as they arrive, and nobody…not General Motors, not the Obama Administration, not green consumer advocates, are claiming that. Dingell is from Michigan—he knows that. Why did he lie?
He lied because he figured it would work with people who don’t pay attention and who are inclined to believe him, a Democrat, rather than Mitt Romney, a Republican. Romney’s statement, however, is an opinion. Dingell’s statement is framed as a fact….a fact that could be easily checked, and was obviously untrue.
The mark of a David Manning Liar was that he or she regarded lying as just another tool in the tool box, useful for stalling, distracting and muddying the water, but nothing to be ashamed of. Rep. Dingell would have been perfect.
Damn.
Ethics Alarms 
Who sells hotcakes anymore? Who buys hotcakes anymore? I say that what he said was perfectly apt! That’s why all my cliche phrases talk about things that are in the past, like “the best thing since sliced bread.”
Well, John Dingell is just following in the tradition of fine Michigan congressmen like Carl Levin. It is the same shameless “I am looking out for what’s best for my district an who cares about the health of the country” attitude that has gotten us into the messes we are in.
Unfortunately, a lot of politicians follow this formula on both sides, and seemingly, there are no consequences — we keep electing them to peddle their dissimulation, even though we know perfectly well they are spouting nonsense.
Dingle is the worst kind of liar. When will we care? When will we say that ideological soundness is no substitute for honesty? Never, it seems.
Full disclosure: I have voted, and probably will vote for liars in the future. It’s a disease often best characterized as “the lesser of two evils.” Perhaps if we had a choice of more than two evils, we could find an even lesser evil. Alas …
Blatant, conscienceless lying- for whatever purpose- is one of those fundamental character flaws that invariably vanguards a host of others. Treachery and perversion are two such others. When these are spotted in people, it’s time to beware. When they’re seen in public officials, it’s time to take action. When they’re seen in ELECTED public officials, it’s up to that electorate to vote them out or share in the crime of their being in authority by the voters’ leave.