Lies? We don’t need no stinkin’ lies

Here's the 5th (maybe the last -- we'll wait and see) installment in the we don't need no stinkin' series.  This one is about lies.

Like fingerprints, no two lies are identical.  Same goes for liars.  

A)  Some liars lie for self-protection.  Consider political cover-ups.

B)  Some liars lie to whitewash things they say (or write) whenever they get loaded.  Consider the congenital lushes you've known.

C)  Some liars lie because of a pathological affliction that compels them to create false/ fabricated/ fallacious responses to just about everything.  Consider the manchurian (I have a friend who calls him manchesturian) candidate Carl DeMaio.   

            

Let's explore this more closely. 

A) Self-protection category: Five years ago I wrote about Mayor Sanders lying on the beach in Hawaii, in total denial of having participated in the scandalous Sunroad land-abuse episode (a high-rise development project across from Montgomery Field airport in Kearny Mesa that exceeded FAA height restrictions).  The scandal precipitated the departures of the mayor's respected COO Ronne Froman, the city’s respected city auditor John Torrell, and the deputy COO for land use and economic development Jim Waring.  

The Sunroad project was eventually scaled back and the mayor survived.  But the public lost big, in legal fees and bad publicity.  There are many more stories where that one came from but for now we'll let bygones be bygones and move on to more recent events. 

B) Loaded category: By now, everyone knows who Doug Manchester is.  But how familiar are you with his pal and partner at the U-T, John Lynch?  

John Lynch -- former CEO of the Broadcast Company of the Americas (BCA) and former president of Catholic Radio Network -- is unabashedly as unrepentant and pugnacious in his (ab)use of the U-T newspaper to promote his political and personal agendas as he was in his (ab)use of the public airwaves.  

“Over the course of his career,” touts a blurb from the San Diego Harvard Business School Club, “Lynch has raised hundreds of millions of equity and debt to build several companies.”  The blurb fails to address a long list of legal actions against Lynch for breach of contract, financial misappropriation, mortgage default, property foreclosure, reneging on debts, and other unsavory business practices.  Two years ago he was fired from BCA, the firm he founded.  Then he went into partnership with Doug Manchester.

Lynch's erratic behavior made the news again the other day with some threatening emails he admits writing… no he didn’t… okay maybe he did… no, someone else used his computer to write it… fine! so what if he did write it... Lynch stands by his threat to use his newspaper to destroy the Port of San Diego (and anything else that gets in his way, I might add).   Click here to see what a loaded lie sounds like when Lynch, the perpetrator, has to cover his tracks because he doesn’t quite remember…

C) Pathological category: Click here to watch a mechanized mayoral candidate answer your questions -- it's an experience you won't forget.  It's what pathology looks like in real time.

Then scan the following list and take your pick -- lies come in all sizes.  

• Carl DeMaio falsely announced that Democratic former-congresswoman Lyn Schenk endorsed him for mayor -- hardly his first spurious claim of support by people who didn't support him.
• DeMaio claimed responsibility for numerous cost-saving reforms in the city budget.  You can click here to see Mayor Sanders laying into him for misrepresenting the facts with “political calculations” to distort and falsify the truth (the pot calling the kettle black? maybe not in this case).  
• Then there were DeMaio's assertions of innocent ignorance about the midnight water-gun shooting spree in Balboa Park, coupled with his duplicitous defense of his boyfriend Johnathan Hale, who played a role in promoting the destructive, unlawful party.
• Not content with his own practice of manipulating the truth, DeMaio gave City Auditor Eduardo Luna clear instructions this past summer on how to falsify an audit report: "I’d rather have you come back and say, ‘Your know, we looked at this department and they did a really good job...’ "  Lies are preferable to the truth.
• What about DeMaio’s insistence that he supported the families of police officers killed in the line of duty when he actually voted against their continued benefits?  
• Throw in DeMaio’s bald-faced public statements that he opposes Doug Manchester’s land-grab proposal on Port property at the 10^th Avenue Marine Terminal when the opposite is true.  
• Or that he opposes plans for a bypass bridge and paid parking lot in Balboa Park – only to vote in favor of the plan.  
• Or his smooth talk about government 'transparency' – and his vote for hefty fees for citizens when they request public documents.  
• Or his trumpeted contempt for greedy downtown "insiders" and his welcoming  embrace of the same people as bosom buddies and partners.
• Or that whopper that he had NO meetings or correspondence with his protectors and patrons Doug Manchester and John Lynch, despite published proof that he did? 

Finally, if you have the stomach for more, click here to see a KPBS synopsis of the scheming exploits of San Diego's three musketeers, DeMaio, Manchester, and Lynch.

Now consider these three final questions:

Does anyone out there disagree with syndicated columnist Amy Goodman when she says:

Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government.  We’re supposed to be holding those in power accountable.  We’re not supposed to be their megaphone.  That’s what the corporate media have become.

Does anyone find fault with the words of Joan Konner, former dean at Columbia University School of Journalism, when she says:

There is a civil war in our society today, a conflict between two American cultures, each holding very different values.  The adversaries are private profits versus public responsibility; personal ambition versus the community good; quantitative measures versus qualitative concerns.

Then ask yourselves, is this what we want for our city -- a future where the people in charge are self-enriching, pathological manipulators with no compunctions about selling the city to the highest bidders?

Your answers will be soon sealed at the ballot box.  Vote wisely.