Monday
12/03/03
Fibs And Fessing Up
Not a day goes by that it doesn’t occur to me how skilled little kids are at certain things. Things like absorbing all the dialog from a whole season of Jimmy Neutron without even trying, or like being squishily adorable; again without even trying.
Of course there are things that kids are notoriously bad at: lawn maintenance, string theory, and remembering "socks first, then the shoes". Another one is lying. Thank goodness my boys are too young yet to do anything really worthy of a well crafted lie, but of course if they turn out to be anything like me, they’ll be terrible liars anyway. From when I was a little kid right up to the ostensible adult that I’ve become, I’ve never been good at lying, mostly because I’m not quick enough to manufacture plausible alternate versions of reality on demand. And worse, premeditated lies just make me feel vaguely nauseous.
So anyway, the point of all this is that I’ve always of been kind of fascinated by those who are not only unafraid to lie, but seem compelled to do so. Like whom? Well, say, for instance, how about everyone in the White House. To wit: my favorite Misleader entry in a while is about an embellishment of Bush’s secret Iraq trip that’s amusing because it’s a lie as easily exposed as it was unnecessary in the first place. (The Misleader archives are, by the way, just chock-full of fibbing goodness.)
This little episode still doesn’t eclipse the ridiculous affair of the "Mission Accomplished" banner, but it sure does say something about the petty nature of an administration that can’t bring itself to be truthful about things that don’t even matter in the first place. And how about all the issues that do actually matter? That's a blog for another day.
Well, at least I’m still comforted by what goes on here at home. My six-year-old doesn’t even bother with a story when he races out of the bathroom and makes eye contact with me. He simply fesses up and goes back to wash his hands. Hell, I bet Bush doesn’t even flush.
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Fibs And Fessing Up
Not a day goes by that it doesn’t occur to me how skilled little kids are at certain things. Things like absorbing all the dialog from a whole season of Jimmy Neutron without even trying, or like being squishily adorable; again without even trying.
Of course there are things that kids are notoriously bad at: lawn maintenance, string theory, and remembering "socks first, then the shoes". Another one is lying. Thank goodness my boys are too young yet to do anything really worthy of a well crafted lie, but of course if they turn out to be anything like me, they’ll be terrible liars anyway. From when I was a little kid right up to the ostensible adult that I’ve become, I’ve never been good at lying, mostly because I’m not quick enough to manufacture plausible alternate versions of reality on demand. And worse, premeditated lies just make me feel vaguely nauseous.
So anyway, the point of all this is that I’ve always of been kind of fascinated by those who are not only unafraid to lie, but seem compelled to do so. Like whom? Well, say, for instance, how about everyone in the White House. To wit: my favorite Misleader entry in a while is about an embellishment of Bush’s secret Iraq trip that’s amusing because it’s a lie as easily exposed as it was unnecessary in the first place. (The Misleader archives are, by the way, just chock-full of fibbing goodness.)
This little episode still doesn’t eclipse the ridiculous affair of the "Mission Accomplished" banner, but it sure does say something about the petty nature of an administration that can’t bring itself to be truthful about things that don’t even matter in the first place. And how about all the issues that do actually matter? That's a blog for another day.
Well, at least I’m still comforted by what goes on here at home. My six-year-old doesn’t even bother with a story when he races out of the bathroom and makes eye contact with me. He simply fesses up and goes back to wash his hands. Hell, I bet Bush doesn’t even flush.
