James Stewart: "Tangled Webs"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-04-26/james-stewart-tangled-webs
Lying is as old as civilization itself. People tell lies for many reasons, often with few or no consequences. But in a judicial system based on people telling the truth under oath, lies can ruin lives. In a new book, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and lawyer argues that perjury has become commonplace. And it's being committed by people at the highest levels of business, politics, media and culture. He examines the high-profile trials of Martha Stewart, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Barry Bonds and Bernie Madoff. And he explores why people with so much to lose by lying do it anyway. A discussion with James B. Stewart on how lies can harm people and societies - and why loyalty almost never trumps honesty.
Guests
James Stewart
Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter and author of "Blind Eye," "Den of Thieves" and other non-fiction works.
Author Extra: James Stewart Answers Questions
Mr. Stewart stayed after the show to answer a few more questions.
Q: My question is: Do we lie more today, or are we more aware of lying? Has the Internet made us more aware of lies that have always occurred throughout the long timeline of Humanity?
- From Will via email in Massachusetts
A: My sense is that incidents of lying and perjury— especially in high places — are surging. Can I prove that? There aren't any statistics, unlike murder or car theft. But every prosecutor I interviewed told me that it was an epidemic, or close to it, and it was getting worse. Anecdotally, I examined dozens and dozens of cases before choosing the four in the book. And why wouldn't it be an epidemic, given the role models at the top? President Clinton committed perjury and only grudgingly apologized for it and President Bush condoned it when he commuted Scooter Libby's sentence.
Q: Uncovering lies seems like it can be a complicated process. What's the best way for journalists to combat lies? What should they read, think about or do differently in order to discover and expose lies?
- From Michael in Michigan
A: As a journalist, I assume someone is being truthful until I encounter evidence to the contrary. I like to think the best of people. But I'm always alert to the possibility. And in my experience, it isn't that hard to detect. None of the liars and perjurers in my book turned out to be very good at it. This has also been true of many people I've interviewed as a journalist who lied. They always seemed to think I wouldn't check or go to sources who could refute what they were saying. That’s a problem in journalism today. Access seems to be valued far too highly. The result is stories that simply restate whatever the celebrity source wants to say, no matter how far-fetched. And then people swallow It. I mean, Bernie Madoff is now giving prison interviews. I know for a fact that much of what he’s saying now is a lie.
Q: How does one teach a child not to lie? My 7 yr old lies quite readily, sometimes wildly fictitious stories, to garner attention, no doubt, and sometimes little stretches of the truth. How do I teach her the importance of her own integrity? - From Kimberly
A: Combating perjury starts in the home. Children are going to lie. They're going to test the responses. This is a great learning opportunity. They also watch to see how parents react to others who lie. I learned valuable lessons as a child: my parents wouldn't tolerate lying, and the burden of living with the lies and telling more to sustain them was intolerable.
Read an Excerpt
From Tangled Webs by James B. Stewart. Published by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright © James B. Stewart, 2011:
Comments
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Censorship is alive and well at "The Book Bench," The New Yorker, where James Stewart is a staff writer. It is shocking that my comments on James Stewart were deleted. Is this America with First Amendment free speech? The deletion of my comments was appalling censorship by the New Yorker. Apparently, they didn't like that I called James Stewart a lying propagandist and that his vendetta of lies on Martha Stewart evidences he lives a parasitic existence abusing and misusing his First Amendment rights.
I'll be tuning into this program. I don't know what James Stewart is supposed to have said about Martha Stewart (are they related?); but her insider trading is why I won't purchase any of her products or watch her shows. Although she "did her time", she owes the public an apology. I'm sick of the "haves" trying to get one up on the "have nots".
If you were counting on barrel necked Barry Bonds or crepe paper saleswoman Martha Stewart as role models (or if you still are) you are a terminal case of the celebrity worship malaise necessary for modern consumerism and sheep-herding. Bernie Madoff is the little nurse shark that was caught in the sewer we call Wall Street. Scooter Libby fell on the grenade to protect his fascist superiors, and is probably now suckling at the fountain of largesse to keep his yap shut. All this is the result of jackpot thinking: "I'm gonna be famous and rich tomorrow just like them" and "People with money and fame are better than me." Here's a question:"What does the Royal Wedding have to do with your personal circumstance?"
And why should we care what James Stewart has to say about anything? He is no one. He knows nothing. Celebrity is a smokescreen that allows a few crooks to waltz away with the fruits of our labors. Get real early and often. Why resort to garbage picking, Diane?
Bernie Maddoff was only doing what our Government has been doing for years...running a giant ponzi scheme.
The fish stinks from the head down.
Evaluate the events of 9/11, a washed out investigation that ignored valid testimony but accepted remarks totally unsubstantiated and then claimed its work was obstructed, hence leading up to stated WMDs and the invasion of Iraq while blaming 9/11 on bin Laden .... Richard Hoagland frequently states that the "lie" is different at every level. The system worked during the Nixon administration and totally broke down under the Bush administration. This nation appears to be living under a lie while knowledgeable individuals turn a blind eye. What determines an acceptable lie verses an unacceptable lie? Functions much like a cancer......
Bill Clinton was the highest profile and worst case of lying as he did when he perjured himself in the Monica Lewinsky case. Supporters of Bill Clinton dismissed this perjury as oh it's no big deal since this was a personal issue. They missed the larger point that he lied under oath and this gave a green light to young children and others that lying was okay.
So here is the big lie.
You have now spent one half hour discussing Libby, Martha Stewart, Madoff and how they destroyed lives. But have not discussed the BIG BIG lies told to the American public by the Bush administration and a very complicit main stream media about WMD's in Iraq. Those lies resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, injuries and displaced in Iraq. As well as the deaths of 4500 American soldiers and tens of thousands of injured American soldiers some damaged for life.
This show is confirming the twisted focus put on the results of Stewarts, Libby lies but you have nott touched the WMD lies and those cost. Your unwillingness to talk about the most costly lies in lives and treasure over the last 10 years is an obvious avoidance of how even your effort to look at the reasons for this spiritual and moral breakdown in the US is a lie
Will you or will you not get on to the most costly lies
Please address the common misinformation, distortation of the facts, and outright lies currently used by highly visible and influential political figures and controversial pundits. Thank you!!
Perhaps the host should look around in her backyard (show) for consistant lies and half truths, before digging elsewhere.
This whole show will go by without this author or Diane talking about the most costly lies over the last 10 years. The Bush administrations lies in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. The complicit MSM.
Will he or Diane talk about the most costly lies of blood and treasure. The WMD lies that we have not witnessed anyone held accountable for.
This show is pretending to deal with lies and is avoiding the biggest and most costly lies.
proving once again that this country is morally and spiritually bankrupt
Mr stewart is being way too critical of Barry bonds. I was shocked at first until revelation after revelation revealed that steroid abuse was rampant in baseball at the time. The fact is that Bonds, Mcguire, Sosa and the rest were hitting against pitchers who were as juiced as they were. This is an awful period in sports history. Bonds was much more than just a power hitter. Pitchers were afraid to even pitch to him. His status should not be revoked unless you wipe out 10 years of baseball history.
What's the point of being wealthy and powerful if you can't do things other people aren't allowed?
After awhile, just having (if you're discerning enough) better food, shelter, medical care, and security than other people starts to pale. All these advantages, plus a couple of decades of a subsidised ideology that sounds like Calvinism by way of Ayn Rand, tell you that you are a better sort of person, a more worthy sort of person---one of the Elect, who should be denied _nothing_. The efforts of people acting for some chimera called 'the common good'---which has always been invisible to you---must just be the actions of petty and venal looters who want to pull down we creative dynamos who _really_ hold up the sky (just like Atlas).
The State, for its own part, is both the victim of this scurrilous morality and of its own horrible missteps, from Vietnam to the ridiculous Drug War to torture to Iraq to cozying up to the privileged. In the eyes of many it has lost the legitimacy which helps produce compliance---when it is seen as illegitimate, as in much worse régimes than ours, people _applaud_ those who defy it.
"Privilege" means "private law".
Come on you just avoided discussing the lives lost as a direct consequence of the "tangled web" that the Bush administration told in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Diane just said that many people would disagree with these as being described as "lies" The shows avoidance of the monumental cost in lives in Iraq demonstrates that even your conversation is a big lie
I agree, even though I'm glad Mr Clinton was President rather than Bush Major, Dan Quayle, Bob Dole, or H. Ross Perot.
The President should set a good example; the only mitigating factor, in my view, is that Lying About Sex is a much older institution than the Presidency, and so might merit some grudging respect itself. (Most "monogamous" animals turn out to sneak around on each other---this is not normative, but it shows how respectable the practice is even if not moral, and how hard an habit to break.)
The continuing "Birther" issue, espoused by the likes of Donald Trump, continue to sow seeds of division within the country. Lying about the facts and deliberately misleading the gullible directly contributes to the decay of our social relationships. Indirectly, prominent politicians who fail to speak out about the lies are passively condoning them. What does this say the moral integrity of our leaders?
Discussing the results of Bond, Stewarts, Libby, Clintons, tobacco industry, etc lies. But even Diane objected to the Bush administrations WMD lies being called lies. This guy will not talk about the lives lost in Iraq, they will not even call them lies.
Not one person has been held accountable for those devastating lies. No one has had to testify under oath. Our system has not even held any of these liars accountable.
The show" illustrates the problem" Not even talking about the most costly lies in the last 10 years. pathetic
What is with the screener only letting males through. Are only males calling? This has become a problem on the Diane Rehm show
Does Mr. Stewart comment on Richard Nixon in his book? Mr. Nixon destroyed the trust the American people had in the institutions of government and did not receive any punishment for what he did. He used the Attorney General's office to lie and a do criminal acts. Mr Mitchell went to prison for what Nixon asked him to do. Nixon also used the FBI and the Justice Department for illegal acts. In my life he was the one who started the destruction of integrity, honesty, and trust in our country. And he was not held accountable.
I was in front of a Federal Judge who had ruled a document inadmissable due to priviledge. In the e-mail the defendant stated clearly to their lawyers that they were going to lie about the issue at hand and the lawyers concurred. Although she knew that the defendants were lying we were not permitted to raise the issue about the lie and the defendant calmly lied to the jury... with the Judge looking on.
A dear friend who lives in Thailand who is listening to the show just sent this
"Ok Martha Stewart lied, nobody died. How about Bush's lies, people died. let's talk about the whoppers."
Bingo
Bill Clinton did not commit perjury when he said, "I did not have sexual relations with" Monica Lewinsky. Check any contemporary dictionary and you will find the definition of "sexual relations" is "Coitus." The definition of coitus hasn't changed and requires the male to ejaculate into his partners vagina. The lawyerly, literal truth.
He acted with intent to deceive but he didn't perjure himself.
Just finished listening to the James Stewart segment when I stumbled across this news item in the New York Times regarding colleges lying to circumvent Title IX: http://tinyurl.com/3f2qofl
And remember a Judge in D.C. refused to hear the Plame and Wilsons appeal. Cheney never had to testify under oath. I believe they were told that he would.
What a twisted and pathetic justice system and they expect us to believe. Do they think we are idiots
http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/CIA/lawsuits/case_files/plame.htm
Come on a woman who had put her own life on the line for her country endangering her life every day for US national security and the Bush administration purposely outs her and not one does time. Bush spits on Fitzgeralds findings. Plame and Wilson are denied and appeal and they want us to believe in what?
Pelosi takes "impeachment off the table" for the Bush administrations lies in the run up to the invasion. The Niger Documents no one held accountable. Torture in our name.
No one believes. They would be idiots to believe.
They need to provide solid evidence "no one is above the law" to believe.
The system is rotting from the inside out
My youngest daughters roommates all three of them with parents who made over 300,ooo a year (all Doctors, lawyers) all lied to get in state tuition at Univ of Colorado. All lied and said that they were borrowing money and that their parents were not giving them money. All lies. All three received in state status. While my daughter lived in state for a year working established residency because we could in no way shape or form afford out of state tuition. She played it right down the line. They cheated.
When I confronted them about these lies they all answered with some form of "well our parents work very hard for their money" and should not have to pay 35,ooo a year. We argued about privilege etc. These young adults were being groomed in lying and privilege. Trickle down
Lies under oath about bj's =impeachment
WMD Intelligence snowjob = hundreds of thousands dead, injured, millions displaced...No accountability
And Mr. Stewart did not even discuss these huge cost in blood and treasure based on lies. No one held accountable
Diane even tried to soften the one time it did come up saying 'well some people would not consider these lies"
Come on Diane...more lies
Listening online through WFYI.org, love all your topics.
The President Clinton trouble isn't that he lied in court. He never answered the question. Bill's mantra- "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." -isn't a yes or no. THAT is why he got judged after he was out of office. He out lawyered the people that insisted on taking him to court, as I see it, so he couldn't focus on his job. The real lie in this case was to the fidelity of marriage, and we should never forget that. See how an office quicky threw Our entire nation off focus.
When it comes to some of the events that Mr. Stewart degrades so harshly into lies, that implies intent and also contemplation. This judgement ruins the very idea of reality! No. You can not dictate to me what I was thinking. Not even IF I was thinking. Too often people want to place THEIR way of thinking, plus hindsight onto the acts of others.
Deception by telling the precise truth is a classic political skill. Finding lies requires careful listening by an audience willing to challenge the speaker.
Why have we been so plan dumb to believe that the rich and educated are more honest than the poor and poorly educated.
the attitude that is seen among all these people of upper class is no different than the attitude of all people of the lie. I have seen honesty in rags and lies in velvet . There is the attitude among all that lie that if I am clever enough they will not find out. The difference is the money. And friends in high places . You can talk to the poor person in prison and they say the same thing the rich or the middle class do. They think in the same way.
I have a right to do this I am just smarter to have done this to you instead of you doing this to me.
How ignorant their prey is and smart they are.And how they deserve to be able They do not see that others feel differently then this.
honesty start and ends with each of us. If I am honest that leaves one less dishonest person.
Great show today. I wonder how much of this breakdown in truthfulness is related to education. If children learn that it is easier to accept an apparently illogical truth (say 2+2=5) from authority (school) than it is to think through problems (e.g. counting on their fingers), wouldn't it follow that they will understand that authority and power have nothing to do with morals, ethics, or justice? And when these children grow up to be adults, will they not view the world through the warped lens of social darwinism, where the only path to success is through undermining and deceiving others? Will those on the losing end of this equation calmly accept these deceptions as simply "the way it is"?
myrna: How does one become and stay rich and famous? Audacity. Our top budget cutters advocate the objectivist egoism of Ayn Rand where the winner is a sap if he fails to take all. Ayn Rand admired the "Superman" child murderer William Edward Hickman when he said "What is right is what I feel is good for me." Seems like the guys (mostly men, many with Paul in their name) in charge agree, because at a time when the greatest number of our citizens in history are depending on government assistance they are ready to cut the food, heat and tiny checks first, before corporate welfare and militarism. Yep, people will die just as they did after the Iraq War lies. And we worship the character of the sociopaths who can mass-murder without blinking. If our children are to be successful, there's their role model: The cold-hearted selfish executioners. And who said video games don't teach them anything? (Clinton killed too when he ended welfare. How many died from rotten teeth or house fires?) We're broke! We're broke! No joke. We're broke!
Talking about lies that directly affect lives:
Did Mr. Steward in his book “Tangled Webs”, covered the obvious lies that send a regular amount of innocent people to prison or even to the electric chair, by the very people from ohm one would expect the highest integrity: the people that staff the system that investigates ones ‘alleged’ case?
And it appears that they always seem to get away with it, because ever since DNA proved many of the accused to be innocent, I have not heard of anyone in the system, being prosecuted for perjury.
PS: Why was President Clinton asked THAT question? What justification did the special prosecutor have to ask THAT question? What was he trying to establish and how would it help the scope of his investigation of a land deal in Arkansas? By the way, THAT lie cost no one’s life.
As to Bush’s WMD lies… we are still counting the number of lives lost on both sides of the conflict and as the nation chose not to prosecute any of the people involved in that BIG lie, we as a nation can join the ranks of any banana republic, that is how it is done in places like that, impunity prevails.