Lies and the Lying Liars

"If you commit perjury I don't care. Don't give a shit. I don't think you should because you grade murder, you have Murder 1, Murder 2; you realize there can be a difference in the level of murder. So there must be a difference in the level of perjury. Perjury 1 is when you're saying there's no Holocaust when, you know, 10 million* people have died in it, and Perjury 9 is when you said you shagged someone when you didn't." - Eddie Izzard

I think it's time, this presidential campaign season, that we institute Eddie Izzard's perjury scale. The fact is, every lie does not equal every other lie.

PERJURY 1: The Holocaust didn't happen.

A Perjury 1 lie must be something hurtful, dangerous, and also OBVIOUSLY, provably false.

Another lovely one in this category is: Iraq had ties to 9/11. Getting people killed on the basis of a lie? Smells like Perjury 1 to me.

The punishment: IMPEACHMENT AT LEAST, for chrissakes.

PERJURY 2: 9/11 was God punishing us for homosexuals.

Hurtful and dangerous, though not nearly as much so as Perjury 1. What really makes this a separate gradation is that it's harder to disprove, as are all religious and/or conspiracy theories. Then again, it's the nature of conspiracy theories to be hard to disprove, hence their appeal for the paranoid.

Another one designed to give you a headache: 9/11 was an inside job.

The punishment: If you take violent action, could be hate crime or treason charges! If not, there's always no one outside the internet taking you seriously.

PERJURY 3:

Accused: "I didn't kill her."

Grissom from CSI: "Well, all this evidence here says you did."

Accused: "Shit."

Captain Brass: "Your balls are mine."

Lying to the cops about committing a crime only warrants a three because it affects fewer people--i.e. your victim or victims and the family or families. At least you have the extremely limited excuse of trying to protect yourself.

The punishment: I think Captain Brass said it best.

PERJURY 4: Evolution is a fraud.

It's always nice when lies further perpetrate ignorance. Disbelieving in evolution and other valid scientific theories probably won't lead to violence, but if you're on the Kansas school board, you can always use it to further mislead the kiddies.

The punishment: Your state not losing its reputation for being full of idiots.

PERJURY 5: Hillary Clinton was shot at in Bosnia. No idea why Sinbad doesn't seem to remember it.

Oh, Hillary. This one is so high up because there's no way, considering the amount of times it was repeated and the fact that her own book contradicts it, that it was a mistake. As lies go, this isn't that major--though it's rather insulting to people who do get shot at for the sake of this country--but the real damage lies in its intentions. This is an attempt to make someone seem much cooler than they are, and frankly, if they were traveling with Sinbad, that's well-nigh impossible.

The punishment: Viral viral video.

PERJURY 6: Bill Clinton didn't have sexual relations with that woman.

Oh, Bill. This one is complicated, as it only should have affected Bill and Hillary, making it a lie that lots of people tell. But because Bill said it to the nation, he doomed the Democratic party, ushering in the glorious era of Captain Bush and the Neocon Parade. However, it really wasn't his intention to do that, so it only ranks a 6, which are obvious personal lies with horrific unintended consequences.

The punishment: Impeachment, I guess?

PERJURY 7: Obama claiming the Kennedys aided his father in coming to the U.S. to study.

Turns out the Kennedys only started supporting that particular program the following year. Someone should have fact-checked. The reason for the lie hasn't yet been offered by the Obama people, but it will probably be, "Oops, that's what Obama's dad told him. Guess he was wrong--keep in mind that Obama and his dad rarely saw each other." Or, "Obama's sleep-deprived." This is ranked a 7 because, while it's really not much of a lie and may just have been an accident, its intentions aren't fabulous, as it's trying (too hard) to link Obama and the mystique of Camelot.

The punishment: Having to endure Hillary supporters cackling online that this totally cancels out the Bosnia thing.

PERJURY 8: Hillary Clinton claiming that on 9/11, she was panicked because Chelsea was jogging near the World Trade Center.

Turns out Chelsea was in Union Square. *gasp!* Let's see, when your only baby is in the general vicinity of a major national disaster, does the exact neighborhood really matter? It's all lower Manhattan. I remember being freaked out because my older sister and my best friend were in Massachusetts, and as far as I was concerned, that was the same general area too.

This only actually ranks on the perjury scale at all, once again, not because of content but because of intention. Bringing it up in this campaign links Hillary to 9/11 heroism, more subtly than Obama linking himself to the Kennedys but with no less devious intentions.

The punishment: Having to endure Obama supporters insisting online that this is CLEARLY another example in a long line of Hillary's duplicitousness.

PERJURY 9: Saying you shagged someone when you didn't.

This one could have potential damage to someone else's reputation--until they find out. And then, the howls of laughter and the, "You think I shagged WHO?" hurts no one but you.

The punishment: See above.

Perjury 10: I'm a natural redhead.

This lie doesn't hurt anyone, but it does help to maintain a certain desperate illusion that I'm clinging to right now, so leave me alone.

The punishment: Only the permanent damage to my scalp and my conception of reality.

Btw, I'm not taking on any lies Obama may or may not have told about Reverend Wright. It may be partisan, but I've just heard so many different stories that I don't know what to believe.

*It was actually 11 million, making this just a misspeaking. Occasionally, those do happen for reals.