{"id":3283,"date":"2019-08-02T09:20:27","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T13:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3283"},"modified":"2019-08-02T09:33:38","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T13:33:38","slug":"its-not-a-lie-if-you-believe-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3283","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Not a Lie If You Believe It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"412\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/JPA199.jpg\" alt=\"It's Not a Lie If You Believe It\" class=\"wp-image-3284\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/JPA199.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/JPA199-300x221.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I hesitated to draw this one because not everybody may know the George Costanza character from the 1990s sitcom\u00a0<em>Seinfeld<\/em>. But the odds against that are pretty good \u2014 <em>Seinfeld <\/em>was  one of the last TV shows that everybody watched, it has been in  constant reruns since, and of course its catch-phrases live on forever  in memes (&#8220;No soup for you!&#8221;).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All\n you really need to know is that the Jerry Seinfeld character comes to \nhis friend George \u2014 who has &#8220;the gift&#8221; of being able to lie without \nconscience \u2014 to find out how to beat a polygraph test. At first George \ndemurs, &#8220;I can&#8217;t help you. It&#8217;s like saying to Pavaratti, &#8216;Teach me to \nsing like you.'&#8221; But as Jerry gets up to leave, George offers him the \nadvice I drew in the cartoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I take no pleasure in equating the  President of the United States with a congenital liar. There is no fun  here at all. With George, his lies eventually unravel and in spectacular  fashion, and that is funny. The same unraveling will eventually happen  with Trump, but there is a whole country, a whole world, that will pay  the consequences. That&#8217;s not funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, all politicians lie, \njust as all people do (except for the very young and the very pure). But\n the difference with Trump is twofold:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A matter of scale: By \nApril this year the Fact Checker at the Washington Post had tallied \n10,000 false or misleading claims by Trump during his presidency. And \nthe man had a well-established pattern before being elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And a\n matter of audacity: After his rally in North Carolina where his \nsupporters chanted, &#8220;Send her back!&#8221; there were some negative reviews, \nwhat with the racism and all. So the next day Trump unabashedly claimed \nhe was &#8220;not happy&#8221; with it and had tried to stop it by &#8220;starting \nspeaking very quickly.&#8221; No. No he didn&#8217;t. He absolutely didn&#8217;t. He stood\n there for 13 seconds and basked. Millions saw it live. Many more saw \nthe recording.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can only imagine his excuse. &#8220;Should I have not \ndone that? Was that wrong? Because if anybody had said anything to me \nwhen I first started&#8230;&#8221; <em>Seinfeld <\/em>fans know how that bit ended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hesitated to draw this one because not everybody may know the George Costanza character from the 1990s sitcom\u00a0Seinfeld. But the odds against that are pretty good \u2014 Seinfeld was one of the last TV shows that everybody watched, it has been in constant reruns since, and of course its catch-phrases live on forever in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andrewheller-com","category-editorial-cartoon","category-michiganpress-org","category-michiganradio-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3286,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283\/revisions\/3286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}