Originally published at: George Santos says his mother was in 9/11 fire, but records show she wasn't in the U.S. | Boing Boing
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The 3rd Congressional district on Long Island has a lot of residents who knew or were related to someone who was in the WTC on 9/11. It’s yet another reason the local party wants him out, another example of depraved and desperate for power the national party is.
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I had a camp counselor who claimed to have been an olympic swimmer, and indeed a medal winner. He had been hired to manage the waterfront. Turned out that he didn’t even have the basic credentials for being a lifeguard (red cross certification) and may not have been able to swim. After he was fired, it turned out that most of the other things he told us about himself were also lies. I keep thinking about him when Santos is in the news — two people who seemingly cannot refrain from constantly telling big, provably false lies, and who never seem to think that these lies will catch up with them until of course they do. One gets the impression there is a miswired circuit in their heads, where by telling the lie they develop a belief in it themselves.
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Heck, he may not even be a citizen:
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@frauenfelder When I lived in Boulder in the 1980s, there was a Rastafarian homeless guy who used to hang out down on the Pearl Street Mall. I can’t remember his name. But he used to spin these crazy stories about his life. The difference is he actually seemed credible. Whereas George Santos simply seems like a nutter.
ETA: Norman? maybe
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This just in: notorious Pinocchio cos-player and man trying to give Donald “I cannot tell a truth” Trump a run for his money now found to have not actually been in Cats on Broadway as he so recently claimed.
“Meow,” he said when reporters asked him about the discrepancy. He then broke into a rousing chorus of Memories and pranced back to his office.
Kevin McCarthy refused all questions, but issued a statement. “The man was elected, can you just let it go? God’s sake!”
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The longer this goes on, I keep thinking “this has to be some elaborate put-on, right??”
Like Andy Kaufman on steroids or something.
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When I worked retail I used to get lots of folks who would tell lots of nonsense about themselves. One guy was telling me about his career as a scientist/engineer/not sure what else inventing and building cool stuff for the government, for which he was paid $40million a year. While wearing an outfit that might cost as much as $40 and smelling like he was unfamiliar with soap. The thing that made him a bit different was where he got offended that I wasn’t visibly impressed by his fictional profession. Telling him I thought he was a liar wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere so I just told him I don’t care what my customers do for a living- I care what they want to buy. Which was mostly true.
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I have in my life encountered a few pathological liars, one basically at the same level of dishonesty as this guy. The one who was at that level didn’t end up in Congress though. He ended up dropping out and working at a basic retail job. Everyone laughed at him as his stories got more and more ridiculous but thinking back it was a lot more sad than funny. But still, he didn’t end up in Congress.
The Republicans are not having much success with their diversity candidates lately.
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A high school friend, I eventually realized, was this way. Nice guy, funny, and I enjoyed hanging out with him until he started telling amazing stories of things he had–a high quality motion picture camera, a vacation house on a lake–that no one else ever saw. He also talked about places he’d been, with detailed descriptions, but, again, no one could confirm any of this. He ended up frustrating some people, stringing them along for months with promises of assistance he could provide only to say, at the last minute, that circumstances beyond his control caused the plans to fall through.
People accepted so much of what he said, at least at first, because he was so sincere. I can’t laugh at the George Costanza line “It’s not a lie if you think it’s true” because I think my friend genuinely believed the things he said were true. That’s what made him so convincing.
The saddest part of it is I don’t think my friend had any malicious intent, and I don’t know of any case where he benefited materially from his lies. It just seemed like he couldn’t help himself.
Santos, on the other hand…
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Yeah, that’s the same case with the guy I knew, he gained no benefit from his increasingly ridiculous stories. And it’s much the same with Santos. Does his claim about 9/11 help him? Maybe, perhaps his claim of being Jewish helped, but most Jews would have been skeptical (come on, last name Santos, “saints”, seriously), and all his other crazy claims are neutral at best.
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They were named in honor of all the famous Jewish saints. Just ask him.
(/s, obviously I hope)
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I’ve known two such people in my life:
The first was a family friend when I was growing up that apparently had been everywhere, held an amazing number of jobs, and been involved in some really outrageous events. He claimed, as I recall, to have taught country singer Ronnie Milsap, who is almost completely blind, how to drive. (“I tapped him on the left shoulder to turn left …”) He went so far as to claim they were pulled over and the cop failed to detect that Milsap was blind. Questions about license and other paperwork went unanswered, of course. Another family friend observed that the first must be somewhere around 300 years old, considering how long he claimed to have been living in various locations and doing various jobs.
The claims of the second were no less extraordinary and far more likely to have been things the teller thought happened to some degree. This one was more about his associations with numerous different SF/F authors, game designers, and artists, and his influence in various projects by these different people. Now it is true he had met many of them in passing through being staff at conventions, and did know a smaller number of them in social situations, he may have had a little less to do with their various works than he claimed. At least his experiences only totaled perhaps twice his age instead of the former persons four or five times, but he was still relatively young when I knew him.
Of course the worst either of these ever harmed anyone was causing mild discomfort from the strain of rolling your eyes at yet another outrageous claim to fame. To my knowledge, neither of them sought public office, nor even tried publishing a memoir about a million Reeses Pieces (or something like that, anyway.)
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His poor mother died in the Jonestown massacre before he was born.
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I had heard she was shot at Altamont…
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I don’t have the expertise to get into someone’s psyche, but I too have known a few who were pathological liars, and it always seemed like a crutch for their ego (which sounds obvious), they needed to feel important or valuable, or just impress people. Maybe that’s what drives George Santos, and the fact that he managed to get into congress is still buoying his inner self-worth at this point. So he’s not going to just give up, he’s going to dig in hard and use his new connections as long as he can.
However like Trump, reality comes calling eventually. You can’t lie yourself out of a crisis, and Santos’ campaign was so sloppy that the FEC could hit him hard, or Brazilian authorities could nab him, and either way next election he will be gone because people are on to him.
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George Santos says his mother was in 9/11 fire, but records show she wasn’t in the U.S.
At this point I expect further records will show she wasn’t even his mother.
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No worries, if you don’t find that surname credible he also has several others to choose from.
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Hence…
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All these people making up implausible stories about the pathological liars they used to know…
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