I read Jonathan Turley’s piece this morning about George Santos. Read it then come back here. I’ll be here when you are done.
Read it? Good. As you may have already known, George Santos is a serial liar (or, in polite company, a ‘fabulist’) who ran for Congress, lied his ass off, and won the seat. He beat a Democratic hack who ignored his constitutents, Robert Zimmerman (who pathetically demands a rematch).1 Prominent Democrats are demanding that Santos step down or even be expelled from Congress because his pants are on fire. Professor Turley writes on how this would violate the constitution, and is a bad idea in general.
I think Professor Turley gives short shrift to the idea of expelling elected officials for lying. Maybe we should come at this from the opposite direction: maybe lying should disqualify a person from holding office.
Let’s start with the Democrats: the party pushing to expel Santos. Perhaps they should shut their gobs given the level of lying in which they engage. President Biden has a distant relationship with the truth. Remember his meeting with Nelson Mandela? Of course not, because he lied about it. The same with his three undergraduate degrees (he has one) or his graduating at the top of his law school class (he was close to the bottom). How about Presdident Biden lying about marching in the civil rights movement? He is in good company here with former “Goldwater Girl” Hillary Clinton telling the same lie.2 We even have Biden’s biggest lie: that he supports organized labor. Just ask a railway worker. President Biden also owes me $600.00. But then the Democrats have given us our first Native American Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren (not really a Cherokee). We also have our fightin’ Vietnam vet Democratic Senator from Connecticuit, Richard Blumenthal (never served in Vietnam).
But what about our friends, the Republicans? They have some problems too, do they not? We can start with the biggest liar, former president Trump. The light of his firey pants obscures the night sky in our hemisphere.3 We also have Bush II and Dick Cheney with their lies about “weapons of mass destruction” that lead to the deaths in the hundreds of thousands. Bill Clinton with his lies that free trade would benefit blue collar workers (or was Bill Clinton a Democrat? I forget …). And who can forget Lyin' Ted Cruz - this may be the one of those times Trump told us the truth!4
So I don’t know. George Santos seems like a real piece of work. Maybe we should leverage outrage over his lying to send the Bidens, Warrens, Clintons, Blumenthals, Bushes, Trumps, and Lyin’ Ted Cruz to the private sector too. Maybe lying should be a complete disqualifier from holding office.
The word I’ve heard from people on the ground in NY-3 is that Zimmerman lost because he ignored his constituents, leading to Santos riding a “throw the bum out” sentiment to victory.
On the other hand, Bernie Sanders did march in the civil rights movement, even if the late John Lewis “didn’t see him.” I lost all respect for Lewis when he threw Sanders under the bus to bolster Clinton. Integrity matters.
Then again, see this Dave Chappelle bit from SNL discussing Trump’s run for president.
You might be asking why I don’t make mention of Gov. DeSantis. I cannot think of a lie he has told. He says he is going to do something fascist and then does it. He may be a true WYSIWYG in politics.