On Feb 1, 2009, at 2:16 PM, Vaj wrote:
However, wouldn't it be fair to to say, after a certain point, if someone's statements and promises consistently turn out to be false (esp. in their favor), that they are lying. Up to a certain point, one could argue about circumstances and it might be a 'glass half full or glass half empty' situation. Those who found him credible would believe he'd just changed his mind, those to whom he, through experience and example after example, had lost most or all credibility, would see the glass as 'half empty' and guess from that experience that he was in fact a consistent liar.
Of course knowingly breaking promises is lying... any other kind of rationalization is a load of crap. And the ATR scams were just the worst kind of deceit.
Furthermore, the common claim by initiators that he told people to lie, or taught them how to do so would also make it easy to understand that he was not only someone who did lie, but he was comfortable enough with it as to tell others to do so! That would be the clincher for me: if someone was enabling others to lie, they'd lose credibility to the point where you'd assume they themselves were liars in a rather comfortable sort of way. Having talked at length to old secretaries of M., this seems to be the pervasive style of behavior that really creeped them out.
How did they handle it? Did any ever attempt to call him on it? Sal
