1999: Year of the Liar

Was Mayor Paul Schell lying when he said Sheriff Dave Reichert was a lunatic, or was Reichert lying when he denied it?

It's a question that only time or another reception for Nelson Mandela can answer. Still, it's a fitting coda for 1999: a year last in the millennium but first in lying. Or is it laying?

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman," was the year's if not the century's most memorable lie, by our most infamous reigning liar. The finger-wagging denial by an impeached Bill Clinton was tendered in 1998 but not emphatically disproved until 1999, the Chinese zodiac's Year of the Rabbit—year when the first sitting president was fined for lying under oath (about sex), when Special Prosecutor Ken Starr and spokesman Charles Bakaly III lied about leaking reports (about sex), when Linda Tripp was indicted for lying to Monica Lewinsky about taping her confessions (about sex), when informant Julie Hiatt Steele was accused of lying (about sex) based on the claims of Kathleen Willey who may have lied (about sex) when saying Clinton was lying (about sex) when he denied making advances (sexual).

It was a banner year for political lying about laying compared to, say, 1992, when Clinton lied about laying only once we know of (he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Gennifer Flowers, either). But 1999 was bolstered by a bipartisan effort from those cheatin' heart House Republicans—Helen Chenoweth (affair with married man), Dan Burton (child out of wedlock), Bob Livingston (extramarital romp), Henry Hyde ("youthful indiscretion" at age 41), and of course Newt Gingrich. The family-values ex-house speaker, who sought a divorce from his cancer-suffering first wife Jackie on her hospital bed, called seeking a divorce from his second wife Marianne during his mother's 84th birthday party. He's apparently planning to take his third wife, longtime House aide/girlfriend-on-the-side Callista Bisek, who's 20 years his junior (don't get sick or grow older, Callista!).

On the other hand, was it a lie or just a cherished dream when Jesse Ventura said he'd like to be reincarnated as a size 38DD bra?

Lies and sex made or unmade many strange bedfellows in 1999, including Phyllis Redstone, 74, who accused husband and Viacom CEO Sumner, 76, of lying about his sex affair with a younger woman, while the State of Washington accused mattress maven Sunny Kobe Cook of lying about her bedding practices. To her "Why buy a mattress anywhere else?" ads, the state gave several answers: When she promised the lowest prices in history, she meant the lowest in a year; when she said they were bargain priced, she meant full priced; and when she said the sale ends this week, she meant next month. Cook paid a $62,500 settlement without admitting any wrongdoing. She just promised not to do it again.

So did a deflated Pamela Anderson Lee. The Baywatch babe said she felt "much sexier" after having her breast implants removed—although didn't she honestly mean to say "less talented"? And when actress Gloria Stewart, widow of Jimmy, revealed she was still having regular sex at age 89, we naturally thought she was lying. Turns out she's just "devoted to masturbation."

Speaking of religious experiences, elders of Overlake Christian Church this year finally conceded that resigned pastor Bob Moorehead had lied when he denied molesting at least 17 male church members since the 1970s. Church officials nonetheless sent the truth a-spin, concluding that Moorehead merely violated "the scriptural standards of trust, self-control, purity, and godly character required for the office of elder and pastor"—nothing about his hands-on management style.

By the way, California surf shop owner Tom Moore doesn't claim to be a choir boy, but "deviate" is a stretch, he insists. Radio nag Dr. Laura Schlessinger claimed Moore was promoting pornography among kids after she discovered a copy of Big Brother Skateboarding magazine at his Costa Mesa shop. She called it "stealth pornography." When Moore had the audacity to deny it, Dr. Tut-tut sued him for lying, claiming his denial was a slur on her (she lost faster than you can say "Clublove.com," the stealthy Seattle porn site featuring the good doctor's home-exam photos).

Sex, lies and—OK, let's go to the 1999 videotapes, that "creative" genre of infomercials, TV psychics, phone sex, professional wrestling, Drudges, and Geraldos, along with the taped deposition of our noninhaling but heavy-breathing president explaining oral sex was not sex, just a darn lot of fun, and patiently defining what is, is. That semantic dodge seemingly couldn't be topped until Bill Gates sought to define what definition is.

During the video deposition he gave as part of Microsoft's antitrust battle with the US, Chairman Bill was asked by litigator David Boies about a definition Gates had used. What did he mean by that?

Gates instead wanted to know what Boies meant by meaning?

"If," said the Nerd Leader of the World, "you define 'definition' for this conversation in a loose way, then I'll understand what you mean."

"What you need in order to understand the question is to have me define what is meant by 'definition'?" Boies asked.