Trust is a vital commodity for all politicians. Once lost, it is difficult to regain.
I realize that perhaps some people have let Montana's lone congressional representative Dennis Rehberg (R) get away with lies in the past. No one seems to have a high expectation that he'll do right thing or tell the truth in the first place. Or perhaps because he's telling people lies they want to hear (like that he didn't help Bush and congressional Republicans lead us into the biggest recession and deficit of our lifetimes.)
There are a few well-known ways to tell when someone is lying. For example body language is a big tell for Dennis Rehberg, who has a blinking tick that many have noticed during political debates.
Watching for contradictions is also key.
Often, a deceptive politician will tell different audiences alternate versions of the truth, sometimes they will be so bold as tell the same audience different stories, sometimes even in the same news story.
Rehberg put his lie monkeys into full force this week in the Billings Gazette, when a reporter quizzed his office about their policy on drinking alcohol on the clock. The current policy says drinking on the clock isn’t allowed.
Rehberg says the event he and his staff got drunk at before his catastrophic drunken boat wreck was a was a “working dinner.”
But in the same story his office says Rehberg’s staff weren’t working:
“The policy was not applicable that night,” Link said in a statement. The staff members “were not working.”
So which one was it? Either Frost and Smith were on the clock and they will all be getting workers comp--or else they just got on a boat with a drunk and are going to be paying a lot out-of-pocket for medical expenses and future increased premiums. (And leave his injured staff on the hook for 25 percent of all their medical costs.)
The answer to this question will tell us a lot about how much Dennis Rehberg was responsible for Frost and Smith getting on a boat with Greg Barkus, who had been drinking. Rehberg can’t have it both ways.