Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Somebody is lying. No doubt about it.  The question is, who is lying?

The Sunday, October 31st ARGUS LEADER ran two stories about a poll regarding the support and location of the proposed Event Center. Evidently during Huether's campaign for Mayor, some downtown retailers say he told them that he wanted a downtown events center. Both Linda Watts and Dick Murphy, two downtown retailers, say they either heard him or recall similar conversations with Huether about his support of downtown as a site for the Event Center. 

Steve Hildebrand states his firm, Hildebrand Strategies, would not have agreed to work on Huether's election campaign if Huether said up front he was opposed to the downtown location. I am not making this stuff up - it's right in the newspaper article. Three people say he said it.  I guess Murphy, Watts and Hildebrand are all lying. 

Huether flatly denies saying such a thing. Heuther's response to Hildebrand is classic throwback rhetoric of the Mayor. I have seen him to do the same thing to various Councilors who have disagreed or questioned him.  He discounts and minimizes the person who calls him out or disagrees with him,  in this case, Hildebrand.  He says, "With Steve, I think he is probably realizing that he is not getting the momentum he is hoping to get, the more desperate you become, the more stuff you make up." Really? Is that what people do when they become desperate, they lie and make stuff up? Mind boggling comment.   He just called Hildebrand desperate and a liar. I wonder what the motivation of Dick Murphy and Linda Watts was to make up this stuff?

Why not just admit that you said it during the campaign and that you have now changed your mind. Everyone is entitled to change their mind when they have more information to consider.   No one, especially our public officials, are entitled to fabricate or lie to make themselves look better and make others look bad. What is it about politicians who can't tell the truth and who trash those who call them on it? Shameful behavior is what I call it.  This is an example where that silly childhood phrase - liar, liar, pants on fire - seems very appropriate.