Doesn't sound like remorse is among the top drivers of his current decision-making, does it?
The calls are intensifying for Congressman-elect George Santos to step down after he admitted to lying on his résumé.
The Long Island Republican turned the blue district red.
And in the face of questions about campaign fraud and deception, on Tuesday afternoon his campaign told CBS2 he still has every intention of being sworn in next week.
Santos said he's sorry he "embellished" his résumé, but he believes he still deserves to serve the voters of Long Island and northeast Queens who elected him.
Last week, the New York Times reported that the 34-year-old Republican falsely claimed he graduated from Baruch College, that he is the descendant of a Holocaust survivor, and that had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
"If I was trying to defraud the people like everyone is saying, I could have listed bigger names," Santos said.
In a Fox News interview Tuesday night, he said he is "not a fraud" and "not fake."
"I made a mistake, and I think humans are flawed and we all make mistakes," he said. "In order to move past this and move forward and be an effective member of Congress, I have to face my mistakes."
But when the interviewer, former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, asked Santos if he had no shame, he quickly tried to deflect.
"I can say the same thing about the Democrats and the party. Look at Joe Biden. Joe Biden's been lying to the American people," he said.
Now, no one has ever been quite so flagrant about riding to election on a bundle of fabrication, but what this episode really points up is how easy it is to distract voters from glaring questions about a candidate's past.
Republicans, of course, see him as crucial to their razor-thin House majority having any effectiveness. So, once again, they're practicing the art of the gloss-over:
Joseph Cairo Jr., the chair of the Nassau County Republican Committee, expressed disappointment, including the Holocaust claim, but is standing with Santos, saying, in part, "I expected more than just a blanket apology. Residents want him to deliver tax relief and pass laws that will make our neighborhoods and nation safer. What's more, George Santos will have to continually prove that he has learned his lesson."
Peter King does make a valid point here - namely, that this sets a precedent whereby no election result is ever certain in the public's mind, because there may have been some fudging of the truth in a candidate's campaign pronouncements:
So what disciplinary action could Santos face by the House or law enforcement, and what does one of Long Island's most powerful Republicans, former Rep. Peter King, have to say?
When asked if Santos should resign, King said by phone, "No, he was elected and, again, it's a bad precedent to set to resign. Then you'd have every election to be re-examined 'Was this accurate? Was that inaccurate?.'"
"Now, obviously, he went beyond almost anything anyone has done before, but it's not a crime. You should be sworn in, but after that there should be an immediate investigation," King added.
But the operative phrase there is "beyond almost anything anyone has done before." The horse is now out of the barn. If you can drag your election numbers over the finish line, it matters not how badly you insulted the voters' intelligence.
Bad behavior swept under the rug is not a new phenomenon in American politics. But indulge me in a theory I'm considering: We're moving out of a window during which a general consensus among the public about standards for such traits as truthfulness and servant leadership provided the goodwill that enabled such rascals as John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to comport themselves with the bearing of perfectly respectable men. Before the window opened, politicians had the advantage of a by-modern-standards primitive news-dissemination technology. Then the technology came along, but those vying for or holding office had the good sense to act like responsible grownups when in the public eye. One could keep rumors of mistresses and mob ties at bay, simply by filling one's time with statesmanlike activities.
Then technology took another leap forward, to the extent that confusion reigns about what constitutes an accurate source of facts. That has made possible the rise of a wave of the most shallow political figures in our history.
Our two major political parties have responded by adopting a whatever-it-takes-for-our-brand-to-prevail mentality. That's how we got, of course, Donald Trump, former bartender Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, antisemite nutritionist-with-a-shady-marital-and-parenting background Ilhan Omar, fluffbrain-riding-his-family's-political-coattails-even-as-sex-trafficking-charges-beathe-down-his-neck Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who boinked not one but two fitness trainers while married.
It's how Kari Lake got her fifteen minutes in the national spotlight. No journalist seemed curious enough about her rather abrupt transition from being a left-leaning news anchor to rabid Trumpist to get to the bottom of it. That's quite a shift. Surely she had conversations with someone she was close to as the shift was underway.
It's why Barack Obama can bask in beloved-elder-statesman status. No one, in either the 2008 or 2016 campaigns, really went into his hardcore leftist background: his mentors, those who gave him a political leg up. Frank Marshall Davis. Rashid Khalidi, Jeremiah Wright. Bill Ayers, Heather Booth. Greg Galluzzo.
We've jettisoned even the flimsiest gesture of fealty to the great human virtues. The parties actually don't mind a little controversy surrounding their candidates. It means they're getting noticed, which might translate to a legislative seat and the deciding vote on tough-to-arrive-at bills.
In a society that has lost the ability to be embarrassed, shamed or remorseful, but has simultaneously become attracted to the most outrageous flouting of norms embraced by humankind for thousands of years, empty-suit celebrities will rise to the fore.
Never mind what should be. We are only concerned with what is now.
That means that we're going to get more George Santoses. The guardrails are gone. We're rolling around in a bounce-house sea of shiny objects. And we're the less human for it.
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