HOW SHE SEES IT Political lying carries few consequences

By JILL PORTER
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
A red-faced Vice President Dick Cheney apologized the other day to the American public for the "inexplicable mistake" he made when he claimed he'd never met Sen. John Edwards before their Oct. 5 debate -- even though Cheney presides over the Senate every week.
Ha ha ha.
So much for wishful thinking.
Sure, it's true that Cheney told a whopper during the vice presidential debate: Not only has he met Edwards several times before, but he rarely presides over sessions of the Senate.
Still, Cheney hardly apologized. His camp stood steadfast:
"While the vice president may have passed the senator in the hall or been at the same event at some point in the past 31/2 years, the fact is that Sen. Edwards has one of the worst attendance records in the U.S. Senate," a spokeswoman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Not only did Cheney fail to retract this latest bald-faced lie, he continues to peddle another obvious untruth -- that he's never linked Iraq and Sept. 11 -- even though there's oft-replayed videotape of him doing just that.
And you can be sure that if brazen lies were told at last night's debate between President Bush and John Kerry, truth squads will expose the liar -- who will remain unrepentant.
And why not?
Political lying carries no shame and incurs no consequences these days. So what's the downside?
The Bush administration is so notorious for lies and distortions that at least a half-dozen books have been written about it -- and yet Bush may well be re-elected.
But we don't have to look to Washington, D.C., to see that intentionally misleading statements can be made with impunity.
Other races
During Philadelphia's mayoral election last year, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady was among the local Democratic officials who claimed the federal probe of John Street was a political dirty trick designed to bring down a righteous black man.
Did he actually believe it?
"Nah, I was just spinning ...," he said in a Philadelphia magazine article published in August, "and it worked."
Brady tried to clarify his comment in a subsequent interview with Philadelphia Daily News reporter Dave Davies, but still acknowledged that he had been willing to spin the events because he had been "worried we'd lose the election."
Is he fighting for his political life because of his confession? Hardly.
And, speaking of the bug, the mystery about how it got discovered is still unanswered.
Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said at the time that no one had asked him to search the mayor's office, but he did it as a part of his regular security efforts -- an explanation that came into question when other police officials said they knew nothing about routine sweeps.
Top mayoral aide George Burrell subsequently testified to the grand jury that he had been warned the office might be bugged and asked Johnson to conduct a sweep. According to a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, based on an anonymous source, that's exactly what Johnson told federal authorities himself.
But is Johnson besieged with a public demand to explain the discrepancies? Not at all.
Blame cynicism
So why can people supposedly endowed with the public trust violate it with such impunity?
Because, one professor theorizes, the public has grown so cynical that we don't expect any better from our public officials.
"Trust in government has been plummeting since Vietnam," said Julian E. Zelizer, history professor at Boston University.
"We're distrustful and cynical about our leaders. Part of the ironic consequence of the Watergate revelation is that eventually you become numb to it whether it's small lies or big lies."
So President Bush's big lie about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction has hardly ended his political career. And his vice president's little lies during the debate will have no impact on his future.
Because much of the public thinks John Kerry and John Edwards are liars, too.
So you can be sure that if gross misstatements are made by any candidate, they'll make no difference in the campaign.
Don't expect any apologies like the one I made up from Cheney or anyone else. The more lies elected officials get away with, the more lies they feel free to tell.
"It's an endless cycle," Zelizer said.
And an outrageous one, too.
XJill Porter is a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune.