Lance
Armstrong confesses to Oprah Winfrey in a televised interview that he
used performance-enhancing drugs, reversing more than a decade of
denial.
Photograph by: George Burns, Harpo Studios Inc., The Associated Press, Postmedia News
Suffice
to say the reviews of Lance Armstrong's performance on Oprah Thursday
night were not good. Commentators debated whether it was more accurate
to describe him as a sociopath or a psychopath. "He's got no morals and
he's a disgusting human being," said a champion British cyclist.
Arrogant, smug, evasive, he was all these things, it was said, and less.
All
this, after an interview in which he admitted most of the major charges
against him: that he had cheated his way to seven Tour de France
victories, lied about it for years, then harassed and bullied those who
called him out. I don't mean to say he laid himself completely bare: on
several points he fudged, or refused to answer, as if an invisible
lawyer were whispering in his ear, warning of the lawsuits and
investigations to come.
But by the standards we have come to
expect in these things it was relatively candid, blessedly free of
self-pity. He'd told a lot of lies. Now he was telling the truth. Yet if
he was expecting this confession to staunch the flow of vitriol, it
appeared to have the opposite effect.
Because if there is one
thing we expect of professional cyclists, it is that they will compete
fairly and stay clear of drugs. And if there is one thing we expect, no
demand of our public figures, it is that they will tell the truth.
Oh
really. Listening to all this high dudgeon, I was carried back to last
September's Democratic convention, and the rapturous reception given to
Bill Clinton, the former president and noted perjurist in the matter of
Jones v Clinton.
That may have been the most famous of his lies,
but it was hardly the first. Clinton was well known as a liar - an
"unusually good" one, according to Bob Kerrey, the former senator - long
before he ever reached the White House. As early as 1992, the question
posed by his candidacy, as defined by Michael Kinsley, was not is he a
liar, ''but is he too much of a liar?" By the end the lies and abuses of
power had piled up so high that Christopher Hitchens was forced to
title his scathing account of the Clinton presidency No One Left To Lie
To.
To be sure, this was very nearly his undoing at the time. But
in the years since the impeachment drama, he has paid no price of
consequence, beyond the temporary suspension of his membership in the
Arkansas Bar Association. His books are best-sellers. His speeches pay
six figures. He has become a revered figure in some circles, even as the
word "Clintonian" has entered the language to describe an answer so
precisely framed as to allow a claim of factual accuracy, while
remaining fundamentally misleading. Talking of Brian Mulroney, he, too,
is having a lovely time of it, is he not? Never known for his excessive
devotion to the truth - "In office," wrote Mordecai Richler, "Mulroney
lied regularly, even when it wasn't necessary, just to keep in shape" -
the former prime minister only really hit his stride after he left
office.
I speak, of course, of his clandestine receipt of $300,000 in
cash from the international arms dealer, convicted fraudster and
self-confessed briber of politicians, Karlheinz Schreiber. Mulroney has
never adequately explained any of this business - what he did for the
money; why he took it in cash; why he kept it in cash; why he did not
declare it on his income taxes until years later; why the whole business
was conducted without invoices, receipts, expenses or paper trail of
any kind etc. etc. etc. - and each time he has been obliged to try has
left more people convinced he was lying.
These
eventually came to include the judge appointed to conduct an inquiry
into the affair, Jeffrey Oliphant. Not only did he find Mulroney had
given misleading testimony in deposition for his celebrated libel case
against the government of Canada - wherein he claimed he "had never had
any dealings" with Schreiber, beyond "a cup of coffee ... once or twice"
- but that he had done the same at multiple points in his appearance
before the inquiry.
Again and again, Oliphant's report dismisses
Mulroney's testimony as literally unbelievable. "I must view with
skepticism Mr. Mulroney's claim ... (I) question seriously the
credibility of Mr. Mulroney's testimony ... I found Mr. Mulroney's
evidence on this issue to be troubling at best and, at worst, not worthy
of any credence ... I do not accept the reasons proffered by Mr.
Mulroney." And so on.
To repeat: this is the former prime minister
of Canada, testifying in a judicial proceeding, on the issue of his
financial relationship with a man who had been in and out of his office
as an unregistered lobbyist while he was prime minister and who had been
paid $20 million in secret and illegal commissions by a European
aircraft manufacturer for the sale of planes to Air Canada. And what
have been the consequences of his repeated untruthfulness? None that I
can see.
As Maclean's describes it in its current issue ("He's
Back"), Mulroney is on a roll, feted as a statesman, in demand as a
speaker, a member of several prestigious boards of directors and partner
in the law firm of Ogilvy Renault. They're even naming halls after him.
Throughout, Mulroney is lauded for his charm, his magnetism, even his
"aura." It all sounds eerily like Clinton, to whom he is explicitly
compared. So let us drop the pretence that we're all so scandalized by
Armstrong because he lied. Granted, he lied about cycling, rather than
mere financial dealings or affairs of state. But the reason he is in
such obloquy, and Clinton and Mulroney are not, is not because his lies
were worse, but because he's not as good at it: because he is not as
charming - shall we say manipulative? - as they. Frankly, when it comes
to conning the public, he is not in their league. Anyone can pull a con
like Armstrong's. You just lie and keep on lying until someone catches
you. It takes a master to keep the con going even after you've been
caught.
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