Speaking of spoiled capitalist sporting dogs: Despite those tearful promises from chairman John Ellis that the Mariners would pay all cost overruns for our global-record $517 million baseball stadium, Safeco Field, the M's have given the Public Facilities District a tab for "unanticipated capital costs" of more than $60 million, payable by taxpayers (M's lying can be contagious: The PFD originally denied the M's had said anything about rising costs when they already had the bill in hand). Ellis' replacement, the dry-eyed Howard Lincoln, is adamant about getting more money. As he puts it, baseball "is a business, not a charity." Then why the fug have we given them all this money!
OK, we're calm now, though still wondering if it was a lie or just superb hyperbole when Time magazine labeled resigning Seattle police chief Norman Stamper as "Barney Fife with a latte." And let's not leave 1999 before acknowledging the Big Lie of the year: multibillion market capitalization of such ubiquitous and rickety online houses of cards as Amazon.com, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, was selected as Time's Man of the Year for 1999. How fitting.
"Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket." —Jon Lovitz, spokesman for 1999
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As we shamble towards 2000, Alexander Cockburn expects George W. to pick up where Bill C. leaves off: "Turns out," the writer observes, "George W. Bush is an even more incompetent liar than Bill Clinton, which is saying a good deal. With Bill you can always tell that he's about to lay another stretcher on the American people. A rapt look creeps into his eyes, like a Baptist preacher in midflow. George W., doubtless after costly instruction from experts, seeks to achieve the appearance of honest disclosure by pausing and fixing his interlocutors with a bold gaze. It doesn't work. He looks like a man about to tell a lie." And that's without anyone even asking about the savings and loan fiasco.
Which may leave us with Al "Father of the Internet" Gore. Didn't he also lie about soliciting party funds from the White House? We may never know, since Janet Reno still won't call in that special prosecutor. Maybe she figures the Vice Cardboard has enough problems trying to master, as reporters say he attempted aboard Air Force Two, the dance footwork to Booty Call.
As the millennium nears (except for 2001 purists), we're running out of time and space—sorry, no room left today for all those media lies, save for that confession by China Youth Daily that it has been faking weather reports since 1963—and no one noticed. Take a deep breath and think positive about the year past. Everyone couldn't have lied, could they? Sure, even those we pay to serve and protect us invented excuses for bashing passive demonstrators and stealing $10,000 from a Seattle crime scene. But then along comes Pullman police officer Scott Patrick.
Asked by a reporter if the boozing crackdown at Washington State University really, truly had an affect on campus drunkenness, Patrick reflected briefly, then piped a loud and clear "No." And, he added, "I'd be a liar if I told you otherwise."
Guess it just wasn't Scott's year.
