Townhall...
Normalizing
Deviance
By Cal Thomas
6/21/2011
In
the aftermath of the exposure and
resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) from Congress, his
colleagues, some
journalists, ethicists and pundits are trying to sort out what it
means. Has a
new standard been created in Washington? How can Rep. Charles Rangel
(D-NY)
remain in office under an ethical cloud about money and Weiner be
forced to
resign because he had fantasy sex? It wasn’t even “real” sex, like Bill
Clinton
had. Clinton also lied about sex and was impeached for lying (but not
for the
sex because as actress Janeane Garofalo told Bill Maher recently,
“everyone
lies about sex”). Some wondered then if standards had fallen for
occupants of
the Oval Office, or whether the behavior of Clinton and some
Republicans mirror
a national moral decline?
The
Washington Post ran a front-page
story last Friday, the sub headline of which said, “Had congressman not
lied,
colleague says, ‘it could have ended differently.’”
So
it isn’t what used to be called
moral turpitude that did Weiner in, but lying about it? If he had not
been
exposed, would he have been any less morally guilty? Who decides? Not
the
voters. Democratic Party leaders forced Weiner out. They were
embarrassed by
his behavior and they wished to discuss other things.
A
University of Maryland student
friend of mine tells me one of her classes last semester discussed “the
normalization of deviance.” In an age when what is normal is determined
by
culture and opinion polls and when “orthodoxy” is regarded as something
to be
avoided, deviance has ceased to have meaning. That’s because there is
now no
nationally accepted standard by which it can be measured and, thus, be
used to
hold people, even members of Congress, accountable.
If
lying is now the unpardonable
political sin, we may at last have found a way to limit congressional
terms. If
lying is sufficient reason to expel a member, then the halls of
Congress may
soon be vacant of all but the janitorial crew who empty the trash and
mop the
floors at night.
All
politicians lie at some level,
even Jimmy Carter, who promised during the 1976 campaign and in the
aftermath
of Watergate, “I’ll never lie to you.” He did though. Google “Jimmy
Carter
lies” and read for yourself. According to the list, he’s still telling
lies, 30
years after leaving office.
George
H.W. Bush promised, “Read my
lips. No new taxes.” We read his lips, but were they lying lips? He
caved into
Congress, which raised taxes during his single term. Bush signed the
legislation.
In
1963, before cynicism replaced
skepticism in the press, Pentagon spokesman Arthur Sylvester spoke
about
government’s “inherent right to lie.” Granted, it was in the context of
“to
save itself when facing a nuclear disaster...” but as we know from the
Pentagon
Papers, lies from government became commonplace during the Vietnam War.
More
than 58,000 Americans, whose names appear on the Vietnam Memorial Wall
in
Washington, are victims of those lies.
President
Obama’s lies about many
things are catalogued on various websites and increasingly in
mainstream
newspapers. Some who led cheers for him in 2008 are now finding his
lies
difficult to ignore. Glenn Kessler, who writes the Fact Checker column
for the
Washington Post, recently awarded the president “three Pinocchios” (out
of
four) for his claim that “Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of
what it
owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency.”
There
are many, more examples. Sure,
Republicans lie, too, but if lying about something, rather than bad
ideas or
bad behavior, is the new standard in Washington, D.C., someone had
better tell
the politicians.
Thomas
Jefferson did in an Aug. 19,
1785 letter to Peter Carr: “...he who permits himself to tell a lie
once, finds
it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it
becomes
habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the
world’s
believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart,
and in
time depraves all its good dispositions.”
Read
it at Townhall
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