That’s the title of a book by the late Christopher Hitchens. Although I share neither his atheism nor his support for the Iraq War, I’d suggest that for his book title alone Hitchens deserves to be remembered well.
It’s just perfect. There’s a point at which, after years of dissembling, distracting, and excuse-making, shifty leaders find themselves out of an audience for their mendacious claims, even for the sweetest of their lies.
The way to avoid that sad end – when there’s no one left to lie to – is simply to refrain from dissembling, distracting, and excuse-making. (The other way is to get out of town, so to speak, before one has exhausted one’s supply of marks, pigeons, and dupes.)
Honesty lives eternally; dishonesty dies prematurely.
Even the hardest of circumstances may be addressed credibly and creditably if one will speak about them directly and clearly. One doesn’t have to worry much about persuading when one has a good case – no one worries about being caught in a truth.
By contrast, mediocre leaders and charlatan gurus have to fret over every one of their dishonest pitches and fraudulent claims, for fear that they will be caught in a lie.
I’d guess, thinking about these last few years on our campus, that this is an administration that should have turned over sooner. It would have been able to claim credit for a construction boom, before observers had time to see whether the expense was justified, and before problems far greater than building-space came to the fore.
Thereafter, there would have been a chance for a more perceptive leadership to address problems of social relations that have been ignored or papered over.
Too late now.
This is a university administration near the end its supply of mendacities and the audience for them.