Stories show it's not just wrong to lie; it's dumb
By Georgie Anne Geyer
Newspaper commentators are not known for writing about lying. Such reproaches are up to our beloved mothers, who somehow never ... ever ... let go of warning us about the horrors of not being truthful.
So it seemed a little strange and even off-beat that, in this last week the papers have been full of stories about people being punished for lying that would have done my mother's heart good.
One is forced to wonder: Could this actually be one of those "teachable moments" the Obama folks often refer to -- one of those events that can be employed to change human behavior?
First on the block we have none other than the talented Ryan Lochte, who has won no fewer than 12 Olympic medals, which puts him second among American swimmers to the super-legendary Michael Phelps, and who would seem to have not a care in the world. When Lochte went to the Rio 2016 Games this summer, he was a hero of advertising, from the swimmer's Speedo to the fashionista's Ralph Lauren. Muito dinheiro, amigos! He had been the subject of a 2013 reality TV series called "What Would Ryan Lochte Do?" The world lay at his feet, which ploughed the water everywhere like magic fins. And then, the supposedly blessed Ryan Lochte LIED.
Did he actually decide to, or did it just come out? We don't know yet. But we do know that his first story -- that he and his compadres were robbed by gun-toting men wearing police uniforms, with one putting a gun to Lochte's Olympian head -- soon turned out to be false, as many of these tales so often do.
At the same time, in mid-August, I happened to be visiting my hometown of Chicago, where it was announced by Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson that seven officers should be fired for their response to their colleague's fatal shooting of a young African-American man, Laquan McDonald, in 2014. It now turns out that the city fathers, its police department and its well-known Mayor Rahm Emanuel had stood back two years ago, after Officer Jason Van Dyke fired 16 shots at the 17-year-old McDonald, killing him. The officer at the time claimed that the boy had moved menacingly toward him with a knife, a story contradicted by the video of the shooting. The police officer is now charged with murder and is awaiting trial, but until now, the other officers had supported his original story and, as the Chicago Tribune worded it last week:
"To the (police) department's critics, the significance of the video of Mr. McDonald's shooting was not just in showing how wanton and unnecessary his killing had been, but in starkly demonstrating how blatantly and casually police officers had lied about the circumstances of another officer shooting a man."
There's that word again: This time, the police officers LIED.
Now, there is much more to say about both the Rio and the Chicago stories, but essentially both involve lying while trying to cover up a malfeasance. And so one has to ask, what if they had told the truth? In the Lochte case, if he had admitted to being in an "altered" state and apologized, it would have been over in half a day -- and forgotten. Instead, he is deeply humiliated, his swimming glory days are over, and his financial glory days are REALLY over, as his sponsors drop off, each one faster than the other. Americans in Rio were so embarrassed, they left notes of apology at the Rio airport for the Brazilians.
In Chicago, one man is dead and another is being tried for murder, while seven police officers who could have told the truth, or even stopped the killing, are facing dismissal. The infamous Chicago "code of silence," both among the police (about each other) and among black Chicagoans (about neighborhood gang killings), is ironically self-destructive.
Our mothers tended to tell us that lying was wrong because it was morally wrong. It is! But on a larger level, lying is not only wrong, but it is dumb. Good mamas, please tell that to your kids, too!
Email Georgie Anne Geyer at gigi_geyer@juno.com.
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