by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service People Writer
If lying was an Olympic sport, President Ronald McDruhitmumpf would win the gold medal. And, if he didn't, he would say he had anyway.
Almost six months into his presidency, McDruhitmumpf has lied 397 times, averaging 2.2 lies per day (2.357 lies per day in metric). He lies about small things: like the time he said, "Rebuque babies are the cutest, most gorgeous in the entire country!" at an Ugliest Baby in Iowa Contest. (It could be that he honestly has no affinity for children, but the name of the event, as portrayed in a 20 foot long banner hung over the fairground in which it took place, should have been a clue.) He lies about large things: like the time he said, "We will make health care so cheap, having a heart transplant will cost you less than buying the greasy burger that contributed to your need to have the operation in the first place!"
He lies about medium-sized things, like the time he tweeped, "Pres Bushbamclintreagbush tapped my phone in McDruhitmumpf Tower when he should have been working on a better health care bill. #slacker." He lies about things that lie somewhere between medium-sized and large, like the time he said, "Fenwick? Never heard of the place. Is it, like, somewhere in Spain?" He lies about things that seem small now, but could be large in a few days time, and he lies about things that are kind of medium-small to large but could go either way, depending, and he lies about things that look small but get larger the closer you get to th -
He lies a lot.
Is there a pattern to the President's eminent dissembling? Marilyn Disentancumbrance, Chief Dishonestologist for the Vesampucceri Medical Association and author of such books as Let's Be Honest: We All Lie believes there is. In a paper for the Journal of Applied Epistemological Dishonestology D, she claims that President McDruhitmumpf lies for two fundamental reasons: to promote his political agenda and to promote his ego, which is fragiler than a glass animal in a Tennessee Williams play.
What about shoring up his base?
"That's an important part of his political agenda," Disentancumbrance replied.
What about pissing off the media?
"That's personal," Disentancumbrance huffed. "You know, maybe if you let me explain my thesis, you might not ask such obvious questions!"
Right. Sorry.
"On the one hand, although it might not -"
I was just doing my job.
"Right. I understand. Now, if you'll just let me -"
Asking questions is the only way to get the information I need to make a story make sense for my readers.
"Of course. But -"
If journalists didn't ask questions, newspapers would be nothing more than glorified press releases!
"I give up. Cue the exposition!"
One example of how President McDruhitmumpf lies to promote his political agenda is when he tweeps things like, "Bushbamclintreagbushcare killed a third of Vesampuccerians last year! #gut&goforward." "Those are plague numbers," Disentancumbrance pointed out. "They do not reflect reality. I mean, when was the last time you were walking down the street and tripped over a body part?"
An example of how the President lies to stroke his massive empty shell of an ego would be his weekly tweeps about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Even his base (so-called because they tend towards being vile) is getting tired of his exaggerations, as when he recently tweeped that the number of people who celebrated his ascendancy to the Presidency was so large, they had to shunt people to the moon and Mars to be able to have space for all of them.
"To be clear: the President's base is not leaving him because of his counterfactual assertions," Disentancumbrance made clear. "It's just that the decibelage of their praise for him has audibly gone down. In the greatest idiotocracy the world has even known, this is progress."
Confounding the problem is the fact that even now, many news outlets refuse to call the President's factual infelicities lies. "It's not hard to see why," commented token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam. "To lie is to say something that you know to be false. Without that knowledge of what the truth actually is, you can't really lie. Editors of newspapers like the New York Daily Deerstalker and Squonk say that they don't use the word because they can't get into the President's mind and ewwwwwww just thinking about it!"
Give the sheer volume of President McDruhitmumpf's misstatements about reality, if he isn't lying, wouldn't that make him psychotic?
"Aww, crap," token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbammoaned. "Just when I thought politics in this country couldn't get any more depressing...!"