Comey’s testimony reminds us of the importance of honesty
Other than perhaps jabbing a sibling with a sharp object, the worst thing a kid could do in our house growing up was tell a lie. I can still hear my father explaining, as I sobbed uncontrollably, that the really bad thing I just did to my little sister wasn’t nearly as bad as the lie I told to cover it up.
Eventually, it sunk in. Hitting, yelling, refusing to share — all of that could be forgiven. But lies are more powerful, more dangerous, because they erode trust.
That lesson has stayed with me. It was with me when I left a note a couple of months ago after I scratched a car outside my daughters’ school. And it was with me Thursday, as I tuned in to watch fired FBI Director James Comey testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Like many Americans, I was lured by the political theater, the historic significance, the train wreck appeal. And also by truth. I wanted to see somebody tell the truth. I wanted the ceremony and the spectacle of it, too. The raising of the right hand. The chorus of clicking cameras. The nationally televised vigil. The bumping of the regularly scheduled episode of “The Price is Right.”
I wanted to see a bunch of powerful people in their Sunday best gathered in a crowded room under the auspices of seeking truth. I wanted to see a tall man with an expertly dimpled tie speak in complete sentences, look people in the eye, and answer the majority of questions without obfuscation, pivoting or an insupportable load of bull.
In this “post-truth” era of American politics, as it’s been called both in jest and in despair, I needed to see at least the appearance of somebody in Washington giving a damn about truth. I needed to know that regular Americans — at home, on cellphones, playing hooky from work at a bar serving cocktails called “Paid Protester” and “Frozen Covfefe” — were paying attention to their government.
And this week, for three hours, we did.
What Comey said is well known by now, and I won’t rehash it here. But one moment that struck me came near the beginning, when he responded to President Donald Trump’s disparaging comments of him and the FBI — that the organization was in disarray, poorly led and lacked confidence in leadership.
“Those were lies, plain and simple,” Comey said. He later cited a conflicting reason Trump gave in a TV interview for firing Comey: the FBI investigation into the ties of Trump associates to Russia. Everybody lies
It occurred to me that this is what sets Trump apart from other presidents. The nonchalance of his lying. Most of the time, his falsehoods aren’t woven carefully, or woven at all. They are random shreds, casually strewn as he moves along.
Not that intricate lies are morally acceptable. But at least the liar shows enough concern for truth, and for his audience, that he’s taken the care to craft them.
I imagine Richard Nixon put a lot of thought into his deceptive Watergate narrative that he was not “a crook.” Bill Clinton went above and beyond, even parsing the word “is” in denying an affair with a White House intern.
The point is, lying — for most of us — takes a good reason. It’s more complicated than I understood as a child. Everybody lies, good folks and bad. We do it on purpose, and without thinking. We do it to protect people we love and to avoid awkwardness. We do it to make the holidays magical and to avoid exercising.
But most people draw a line somewhere — somewhere short of lying about the big stuff, short of hurting somebody, short of eroding sacred trust.
Where is the line with Trump? Indeed, where is the rhyme or reason? His lies aren’t told out of cover-your-butt desperation. Many seem absurdly pointless. Why, why, why?
If you win an election fairly, as Trump did through the electoral college, why concoct a story about “illegal” voters depriving you of the popular vote? Why claim thousands in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks when they didn’t? Why say there’s no system to vet refugees when there is? Why repeat that America is the highest-taxed nation in the world when anybody with a smartphone can just Google it?
And why call an intelligent, well-respected man with lots of intel on you and your associates a “nut job?”
Then, after he testifies under oath that you tried to thwart a criminal investigation, where do you get off tweeting that you’ve been “vindicated?”
We may never know the answer. The emerging theory, based on the earlier work of philosopher Harry Frankfurt, now a professor emeritus at Princeton, is that Trump is not so much a classic liar as a bullshitter. Frankfurt wrote that BS was a greater enemy of truth than lies are.
While honest people respect truth and liars acknowledge its authority, in as much as they’re trying to persuade others to accept their creative version of it, Trump appears not to care about truth at all. He’ll use it, if it serves his purpose, and drown it out with more noise — alternative facts — if it doesn’t.
Look, I understand why people voted for Trump, at least part of his appeal. It was a desert-parched thirst for authenticity that drew them to a mirage of straight talk. All they got was talk. Corrosive style
Whatever Trump’s motivations, his style is corrosive in a country built on handshake deals, and to the kid in me who grew up with the adage about honesty being the best policy.
We disagree on every other policy today. But Americans must hold tight to this one. It comes before immigration, the environment, health care or anything else. We can’t allow a bedrock of our culture to be attacked and disregarded to the point of irrelevance.
Truth matters. And at least for one glorious morning last week, it was center stage.