Pants On Fire

 

Rep. Anthony Weiner says he’s not going to resign. The New
York congressman has been caught, literally, with his pants down by the online
tabloid snoops who keep their eyes peeled for this kind of stuff.

After several days of indignant denials, Weiner finally
stepped up to the mike on Tuesday and admitted that he did in fact transmit
several revealing photos from his Weiner collection to at least six young women
he claims he never met.

Weiner also claims this is a private matter, even though he
posted his money shot on Twitter. The last time we checked, Twitter was
designed to make a statement to the entire Internet planet at the same time.
Stay tuned for the public hearings that will determine whether said Weiner
photos were distributed using government property, a.k.a. the laptop in
Anthony’s office on Capitol Hill.

This has been a championship season for lying by public
officials. Everybody wants to get into the act, even former public officials
yearning to again feed at the public trough and celebrities pretending they want to hold public office.

Down in North Carolina, we have former Sen. John Edwards indignantly denying he did anything illegal when he received $1 million in unreported campaign contributions from a 99-year-old heiress. Edwards used the money to
keep his mistress and their baby in luxury digs while his wife was dying of
cancer and he was busy trying to con the country into electing him president.

Edwards claims this is a private matter, but has yet to
explain why a successful malpractice lawyer worth an estimated $200 million
needed to borrow money to keep his baby mama silent. Apparently, there was some
money left over from the hush fund, since Edwards appeared in front of the
federal courthouse sporting another one of those $400 haircuts he favors. 

No
word on whether Arnold Schwarzenegger will appear as a character witness for
Edwards. During his entire tenure as governor of California, Schwarzenegger secretly was supporting a love child sired with his housekeeper. Arnold recently revealed this unfortunate fact to his wife, Maria, who moved out of their mansion. The Governator reportedly has gone into hiding in Idaho.

Over in Japan, the latest version of the Japanese government
quietly admitted this week that three of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima
power station did in fact experience a “full meltdown” in the days
after the earthquake and tsunami struck. This statement was issued after weeks
of denials in which officials maintained the reactor cores were only
partially damaged, the problem was contained and produce grown in the Fukushima
prefecture was safe to eat. In fact, the leaders of Japan, China and South Korea
recently posed for a photo op munching local strawberries.

Fruits also played a role in this month’s whopper from the
German government, which blamed a deadly e-coli outbreak on cucumbers grown in
Spain. A few days after widely publicizing this lie–during which 18 people
died and Spanish farmers got clobbered with a global boycott–German scientists
now say they are close to nailing down the real cause of the problem.

Turns out some organic bean sprouts grown in northern Germany may
have spawned the epidemic. Das ist nicht gut, Angela.

Down in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, the TV impressario and
prime minister, is running the country from a seat in a courtroom. He is
trying to convince a magistrate that he sprung a 17-year-old female from jail
and gave her thousands of euros because he felt sorry for her, not because she
attended several nightlong orgies at his palatial villa. Berlusconi also claims
he will solve the garbage problem in Naples, where rat-infested refuse has been
piling up on city streets for three years.

Back in the U.S.A., the geniuses who run the college
football Bowl Championship Series announced they are stripping USC of its 2004
championship because star running back Reggie Bush was ineligible to play.
Bush, you may recall, was stripped of his Heisman Trophy after lying about some
gratuities he accepted while posing as an amateur athlete. The BCS bigwigs also
decided they will not award the 2004 title to USC’s opponent in the game
because, well, that just wouldn’t be legitimate.

Sarah Palin, meanwhile, has been busy using campaign contributions from
her unannounced presidential campaign to rent a huge bus and take her family on
a vacation tour of some of America’s East Coast historic sites. After
visiting the Old North Church in Beantown, Palin announced she has learned that
Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride was undertaken “to warn the
British.”

Informed that Paul Revere played for the Yankees, not the
Tories, Mama Grizzly indignantly claimed she had been victimized by a
“gotcha question” from the media types following her bus around. This
was the question: “What did you do today and what did you see?”

During her non-campaign tour, Palin stopped to share pizza
in New York with another famous non-candidate, reality TV host Donald Trump. In his recent non-campaign, Trump claimed he never filed for bankruptcy in
his storied business career, during which several Atlantic City casinos he
owned went into receivership. He also said he combs his own hair. Then he
demanded to see the president’s birth certificate and SAT scores.

In the middle of Trump’s mini non-campaign, former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich emerged with his third wife, draped in rented Tiffany
diamonds, to announce he is mounting an actual presidential campaign.
Gingrich’s third wife also is his second former mistress. Newt says his campaign
will revolve around “family values.”

Clearly, it’s time to open an International Hall of Shame
for the great liars of our time.

Entire wings will be needed at this new Cooperstown of Dissembling for baseball’s steroids cheats, Wall Street’s investment bankers
and a gallery of dictators from the Middle East. We envision special
stand-alone exhibits for the cast members of Jersey Shore, none of whom are
from New Jersey, and the Pakistani intelligence service, which claims it didn’t
know Osama bin Laden was living down the street from the Pakistani army’s
biggest training academy.

The International Hall of Shame no doubt will be a major
tourist attraction. Dozens of locations will compete to host this facility.
Perhaps Athens, GA, Rome, NY and Stockholm, NJ will put in bids. We can see it
now: “Come to Athens and see the Parthenon of Fib-Telling!” They’ll
serve Greek food in the cafeteria and the cab drivers will dress in togas.

If fundraising efforts to build the Hall of Shame falter,
there is a plan B: We can put up a museum honoring the public officials and celebrities who always tell the truth.

It won’t cost much. The whole thing will fit in a toll booth
on the Jersey Turnpike.