Catherine Connolly Lied to the Irish Independent as to When and Why she Left the Labour Party

Connolly might want to do some soul searching herself

If you’re in politics and you lie to a reporter, understand this: you are not just lying to the journalist. You are lying to the ink barrel, the megaphone, the social media accounts, the 24/7 news cycle, and to the whole country.

Journalists live for catching you out. They will trade their grandmother for a scoop or a good source. I’ve known journalists to trade their firstborn. So when you lie to them, you’re essentially stuffing raw steak into a lion’s mouth and asking them to eat you too. Honesty isn’t asked of politicians because we expect virtue. We ask it because the alternative is predictable and boring: the inevitable “Gotcha!” headline, the smirking columnist, the tribunal ten years later, and you pretending you left the party for “personal reasons” when it’s obvious the personal reason was you got caught. Or in Catherine Connolly’s case, because she wasn’t put on a General Election ticket with Michael D. Higgins.