“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Anonymous Prisoner in the Nobles County Jail Circa 1985
Have you been following the story about George Santos? With the wild week that we had in the U S House of Representatives and the wild election cycle that we have just been through, you may have skipped past it. But it was a picture of Representative Santos in the floor session last week that got me thinking about him again. The series of photos show the congressman being summarily ignored by his colleagues in the House. No one was talking to him, no one was counting on or trying to change his vote. He was just sitting by himself not really engaging with or being engaged by anyone. Being a duly elected new representative from the Third District of New York, why was he being ostracized like this?
Here is a quick recap on the last year of Santos’ political life, starting today and working backward. Just today a federal watchdog urged the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to investigate him, accusing him of concealing the true sources of campaign donations, misrepresenting campaign spending and illegally using campaign funds for personal expenses. Well hell, most of our congressmen do that, don’t they? What has got everybody’s shorts in a bundle? It’s all a matter of degrees. My Pop used to say that everything goes along pretty well as long as everybody is REASONABLE. His definition of reasonable there was akin to being MODERATE. When people get unreasonable or immoderate, trouble ensues. Most of our office seekers seem to fudge on their resumes a bit while trying to get elected. The problem with Candidate Santos was the DEGREE to which he lied.
Santos has admitted that he made up most of what he purported was his record during his campaign.
• He lied about attending the prestigious Horace Mann prep school (the school has never heard of him).
• He didn’t really graduate from Baruch College as he claimed, in fact he probably never even attended there.
• It doesn’t appear that he is Jewish at all. He alleged that his Jewish family name was Zabrovsky. He apparently did however use that name for fundraising for a pet charity. He later clarified that he meant he was “Jew-ish”. Not sure what that means!
• It doesn’t appear that his mother “fled socialism” from Ukraine. She was actually born in Brazil. And she wasn’t actually killed in the 9/11 attacks, she died in 2016. Interestingly Brazilian authorities are now interested in him as well.
• He didn’t work for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup as he stated. In fact, the conference at which he says that he criticized these former employers has no record of his attendance!
• It doesn’t appear that he actually earned millions of dollars from his consulting business that he started in May of 2021 as he claimed, although those urging the FEC to investigate are claiming that he illegally funneled $705,000 into his campaign fund. The money had to come from SOMEWHERE!
There is more, but you get the picture. As many of you know, my older brother Les, is the source of much of my wisdom. He served as the County Sheriff in my home county. From time to time, he would sit down to talk with some of the prisoners incarcerated in or awaiting trial in the county jail. He once asked one of the miscreants, accused of armed robbery, why in the world he would resort to this dangerous and destructive act. The prisoner responded with the above quotation.
So, when Candidate Santos was contemplating these fabrications, I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time. But how in the hell did he reason this out? Did he not think that somebody would check things a bit? Then again maybe he wasn’t so crazy after all. We seem to have developed a tolerance for a great deal of foibles in our politicians. I mean Herschel Walker came within an eyelash of being a US Senator for SIX YEARS. Senator Dick Blumenthal lied about the extent of his military combat experience. Elizabeth Warren fudged a bit about her Native American background. Joe Biden many years ago claimed that he graduated at the top of his law school class, which wasn’t exactly true, well actually wasn’t true at all. And sometimes politicians lie not only about themselves but about others – remember the “Birthers” or those who questioned John McCain’s war record as a prisoner of war? And in the interest of brevity, I couldn’t even start on the list of prevarications by Former President Trump. The shocking truth in the case of Santos, was that a local newspaper in the Third District broke the story of his lies weeks before the election and he STILL got elected.
So, what is all of the ruckus about? It goes back to what my Pop said, Santos wasn’t REASONABLE in his lies. He was immoderate. And it is making even fellow Republicans uncomfortable, uncomfortable to the extent that there may even be an ethics hearing in the Republican-controlled House. What is MY beef?
I am not surprised that we have a liar in the US House of Representatives, we probably have about 434 others besides Santos and about 100 in the Senate. (Ohhhh OK, that is too harsh, they don’t ALL lie ALL of the time.) And I’m not even too surprised that there are questions around his campaign finance records. I guess what really bothers me is that we have this guy in the governing body of our country. Setting his ethics aside I question his JUDGEMENT – his DECISION-MAKING abilities.
• Did he really think that none of this would ever be discovered?
• Did he really think that any of this was even necessary? In his district all he needed to say was “I hate liberals and I love Donald Trump” and he would have won by a landslide.
• And why weren’t his lies more REASONABLE?
I’m afraid my cynicism says, I can live with you being a liar and a crook, but I hate that you are a fool, making decisions for the greatest country on earth.