Editorial: Political liars are just more imposters

Don't you just love politicians?

By the nature of the office they seek, whether it be on a national or local level, it seems to me they feel they need to project themselves in an entirely different way to the rest of us to bolster their chances of success at the polls.

This was driven home to me this week with the news from the United States of political hopeful and Republican vice-presidential nomination Paul Ryan's apparently spurious claims of athletic prowess in his younger days.

Ryan laid claim to be a long-distance runner when in school, saying his "personal best" for 42km was under three hours.

Runner's World staff were doubtful and went out to seek proof of his mighty performance but were unable to do so.

American journalists have since described Ryan's claims as being a "looseness with the facts", which is quite a quaint way of putting it.

I don't know what Ryan would have to gain by purporting to be a super-fast, long-distance runner and suggest by making those unsubstantiated claims he may already have run his race.

In the wider context, it is always sad to see people putting themselves in a far better light than they are entitled and one of the great mysteries, to my mind, is the need some feel to claim a military background when none exists.

Here, in New Zealand we have had several cases of military imposters claiming combat experience and wrongly wearing medals they haven't earned.

In Australia, there has been a virtual epidemic of the same, sad self-delusion.

All men would probably love to be regarded as a combat veteran and military hero.

But the reality is that comparatively few of us are and many of the real combat veterans and heroes are lying dead in cemeteries throughout the world.

It is for their sake that the rest of us take such umbrage about imposters.

They devalue the memory of those who fought - and often died - on our behalf.

Politicians who lie are just another form of imposter.

Wairarapa Times Age