Lying now a part of daily life

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Columnist

There are lies, damn lies and the Aloha Spirit. Lying these days is so much a part of the fabric of our daily lives that we can't even get excited by the most egregious examples.

• A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian is caught lying to his students about his involvement in the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War? Ho-hum.

• The city is going to "improve" one of our most spectacular natural places with $1 million of fake rock? Par for the course.

• A journalist admits he lied about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings? Page B7 news.

• A prosecutor says either City Council member Andy Mirikitani or his accusers are lying under oath in court? Naturally.

• A movie studio is caught making up glowing reviews about one of its films and placing them in the mouth of a fictitious Connecticut journalist? Who was really hurt?

You can trace this acceptance of lying to an event that occurred 30 years ago this month. That was the day the New York Times started publishing the Pentagon Papers, which proved beyond any doubt that the government repeatedly and systematically lied to the American public about our military involvement in Vietnam.

For a lot of us, it was the beginning of the end of innocence. It was when we started to say "trust no one." It was also the beginning of our national cynicism. Today we just assume people are lying, one way or another, all the time.

We knew all along Mayor Harris was going to run for governor. We re-elected him mayor anyway. Clinton said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," and his popularity ratings soared anyway. We believe former Bishop Estate trustee Dicky Wong lied but think it's time for the government to stop harassing him about it.

There's a great sliding scale of lies. They range from fibs, fabrications and falsehoods to shams, slander and swindles.

Many of the lesser lies are told with the best of intentions, a sort of honesty hypocrisy; these are the kind of lies you tell your mom so she won't be hurt by the truth.

For that matter, they're the same kind of lies mom tells to her children so that they won't be hurt by the truth. This sort of pleasant cover-up keeps the world spinning happily along when the truth would grind it to a halt.

Here's where the Aloha Spirit comes in.

Even when we don't agree in Hawai'i, we pretend like we do. We go along to get along, even when it's not always in our best personal interest. We turn a blind eye to the worst sort of government ineptitude and mismanagement. We've learned to mask our true feelings in the name of toleration, which we've raised to an art form and call aloha.

In some sense, it's all a bunch of lies. But we wouldn't have it any other way.

Mike Leidemann's columns appear Thursdays and Saturdays in the Advertiser. Call him at 525-5460 or send e-mail to mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com