https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/31/lies-for-me-but-not-for-thee/
“Do as I say, not as I do.”
That obnoxious diktat uttered by obtuse authority figures everywhere is working overtime in the case of George Santos, the Republican Representative-elect from New York.
Santos is scheduled to take his seat next week. As of this writing, however, his political future is mostly cloudy, with a distinct chance of stormy weather—not to mention the boot.
Why? Because Santos was exposed as a liar, someone who (I am looking for the right word)—how about “embroidered”? Yes, let’s go with “embroidered”—his history.
Actually, the emollient word Santos used when caught out was “embellished.” “My sins here are embellishing my résumé,” he said in an interview with the New York Post. “I’m sorry.”
Among his “embellishments” was the claim that he held a degree from Baruch College. In fact, as he admitted, “I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning.” You might think, as I do, that that is a plus since most so-called “institutions of higher learning” are moral sewers and left-wing indoctrination camps whose chief achievement is corrupting the young. Still, Santos should not have lied about this, just as he should not have said that he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs when, in fact, he did not. (Though, once again, asked to choose between two candidates, I’d be inclined to go with the one who never set foot in Goldman Sachs rather than the one who had worked there.)
In an effort to display a little moral street cred, Santos claimed his grandparents had “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII.” Reading that, most readers would assume that Santos was Jewish. But no. “I never claimed to be Jewish,” he objected. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’” Not hungry, merely “peckish.” Not short, merely “short-ish.” And not really nice, merely “nice-ish.”
But “Jew-ish”?
Let us draw a veil. A year and a half ago, Santos tweeted that “9/11 claimed my mother’s life.” It must have taken a while, though, since, in fact, she did not die until 2016. I don’t advise trying to visit Santos at his Nantucket home, either. It seems he doesn’t own one, though he claims he did.
That song from “HMS Pinafore” comes to mind: “Things are seldom what they seem/Skim milk masquerades as cream.”