Liar Liar - Part 2

When powerful people are caught lying it makes the news For her special report Liar Liar Tracie Bettenhausen talks to various experts on our motivations for lying Tracie Bettenhausen Do you lie If you re breathing you probably do And it seems dishonesty is taking up a good piece of network news time these days Reporter Ask strangers if they lie and they re honest about it I ll make fibs up to get myself out of doing stuff If I would say no now would that be lying laugh Yes I do Reporter You do lie To my parents The best lie is the one not told I think lying it can cause a lot of problems That just complicates life Oh I m definitely a good liar Kermit Culver First United Methodist Church I think God s against it God doesn t like it God s against it Reporter Pastor Kermit Culver says whether the lie is big or small it s a sin Kermit Culver Lying is an act or an action It s something that someone does I think God is more concerned about honesty as a life value or philosophy of life Reporter Culver says it s our American culture politics and 24-hour news media that s making lying okay Here s a look back People need to stop hiding the facts and tell the truth and the whole truth Alberto Gonzalez I never sought to mislead or decieve the Congress or the American people Kevin Tillman There was one small problem with the narrative however It was utter fiction Jessica Lynch I m still confused as to why they choose to lie and try to make me a legend George W Bush The dictator of Iraq is not disarming To the contrary He is deceiving Fraud proven in the case against Enron founder Ken Lay Bill CLinton I want you to listen to me I m going to say this again I did not have sexual relations with that woman Ms Lewinsky Richard Nixon I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their President s a crook Well I m not a crook I ve earned everything I got Reporter Some say Bill Clinton s lies were the last straw or Richard Nixon s but political science teacher Mark Springer says lies in government are nothing new Mark Springer Political Science U-Mary It wasn t seen as a big deal back then People screwed up and the President got rid of them or dealt with it internally and it never became a story Reporter Springer says there s a classic question in political science Is ignorance bliss Is a democracy better off knowing every time an elected official lies or not Mark Springer FDR did have a lot of different um indiscretions in his past if you wanna say that Like he said I never cheated on my wife And he did Reporter Of course everybody lies not just those in power Addiction to drugs alcohol gambling can be a powerful motivation to lie Kurt Snyder Heartview Foundation Many of those people have tremendous values and detest lies But find themselves getting caught in this I have to lie to make this seem okay Reporter Kurt Snyder with the Heartview Foundation says truth is essential to treatment Kurt Snyder Honesty rigorous honesty is so important Because if they can t if they start to go back into blurring those lines where does that stop Reporter Another motivation money Joe Vuolo teaches at Bismarck State College He was an auditor for the state Tax Department for five years Joe Vuolo BSC I would ask them questions you know Where can I go get these records or What do you know about why this was filed And when I saw a general lack of knowledge it usually meant that there was a problem Reporter Vuolo says now that he s teaching future accountants he stresses the importance of honesty Joe Vuolo I really do address embezzleing with them And I do talk about the high road often I want them to know that they can have all the money they want in this world they only have to build a foundation on how to get it Reporter Insurance Commissioner Jim Poolman is doing an investigation of his own The Diane Cottingham case is the biggest insurance fraud case in North Dakota history 700-thousand dollars Jim Poolman ND Insurance Commissioner In Mrs Cottingham s case that s why it s so confusing Is because we have not found any evidence that she was leading a lifestyle that she couldn t afford otherwise that she had a gambling problem or some other addiction problem that she was feeding So that s why the case is so confusing to us Reporter Poolman stresses no one else in the Cottingham Insurance office knew about the fraud Jim Poolman That s why I make it clear that these fraud cases are few and far between They re incredibly important for us to investigate and to prosecute to hold insurance agents accountable when they commit bad acts Reporter Pastor Kermit Culver says God doesn t see lies in shades of gray Either you lie or you don t Kermit Culver We re better than that people are better than that humans are better than that We don t have to settle for lying We don t have to settle for dishonesty We can live above that Tracie Bettenhausen And believe it or not today is National Honesty Day