How can you tell if someone is a pathological liar?

berni_mccoy

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Tue Apr-01-08 09:57 PM
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How can you tell if someone is a pathological liar?

Content From WikiAnswers is in italics below. For original non-political article, see: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_can_you_tell_if_someone_is_a_pathological_liar

How can you tell if someone is a pathological liar?

1. Exaggerates things that are ridiculous.

Here, the best example is how Hillary lied about how she was given her name. Even snopes calls Clinton out on this lie (http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/hillary.asp). She claimed that her mother named her after the first Mt. Everest climber, Sir Edmund Hillary. Unfortunately, he wasn't really world-famous by the time Hillary was born and certainly hadn't climbed Mt. Everest. The sad thing is, Hillary lied to Sir Edmund himself about it and that is how it all started. She didn't stop lying about this until she started running for President when her campaign realized this was too much of a liability for her chances to run and they promptly cleaned it up at the beginning of her 2008 run.

2. One-upping. Whatever you do, this person can do it better. You will never top them in their own mind, because they have a concerted need to be better than everyone else. This also applies to being right. If you try to confront an individual like this, no matter how lovingly and well-intentioned you might be - this will probably not be effective. It's threatening their fantasy of themselves, so they would rather argue with you and bring out the sharp knives than admit that there's anything wrong with them.

A great example of Clinton one-upping is her lie about Chelsea on 9/11. This is best explain by Clinton's former campaign manager, Dick Morris:

She said that Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 and happened to duck into a coffee shop when the airplanes hit. She said that this move saved Chelsea's life. But Chelsea told Talk magazine that she was in a friend's apartment four miles from ground zero when the first plane hit. Her friend called her, waking her up, and told her to turn on the TV. On television, she saw the second plane hit, disproving Hillary's claim that "she heard the plane hit. She heard it. She did."

So why did Hillary make up the story about Chelsea? Most likely to was because her co-senator (and implicit rival for the voter's affection), a real New Yorker Chuck Schumer spoke of his daughter, who attended Stuyvesant High School (Dick's alma mater) located next to the TRade Center, being at real risk on 9/11. Hillary needed to make herself part of the scene.

She invented the entire story on national television, the "Today" show, and didn't blink an eye.

Yes, indeed, classical, pathological one-upping of Chuck Schumer.

3. They "construct" a reality around themselves. They don't value the truth, especially if they don't see it as hurting anyone. If you call them on a lie and they are backed into a corner, they will act very defensively and say ugly things (most likely but depends on personality), but they may eventually start to act like, "Well, what's the difference? You're making a big deal out of nothing!" (again, to refocus the conversation to your wrongdoing instead of theirs).

Her constructed reality of landing under sniper fire in Bosnia and rushing to armored vehicles like some Rambo movie is sharply contrasted with the true reality caught on video tape. The problem is, she has been telling this whopper of a war story over and over and over again, showing that she doesn't value the truth.

4. Because these people don't value honesty, a lot of times they will not value loyalty. So watch what you tell them. They will not only tell others, but they will embellish to make you look worse. Their loyalty is fleeting, and because they are insecure people, they will find solace in confiding to whomever is in their favor at the moment.

Look what she and her campaign has said about Richardson and other Super Delegates like Kennedy and Kerry who have exercised their right to support Obama. She has embellished the truth and things these people have said to make them basically look worse. Clinton does not value and has no loyalty, except to her own self and it's poorly constructed reality.

5. They may be somewhat of a hypochondriac. This can come in especially useful when caught in a lie, for example, they can claim that they have been sick, or that there's some mysteriously "illness" that has them all stressed out. It's another excuse tool for their behavior.

When caught in her recent lies, her excuse? Exhaustion, tired, not remembering things clearly because of stress. Yep, she fits the pathology to a T.

6. Obviously, they will contradict what they say. This will become very clear over time. They usually aren't smart enough to keep track of so many lies (who would be?).

She can't even keep track of what she says anymore. She voted for the war and praised its successes, but vows to bring the soldiers home. She voted for the bankruptcy bill but contradicts that with her false stories of helping those caught in the sub-prime lending crisis. She says she's all for pulling out of NAFTA and how she fought against it when the documents show she was a proponent of NAFTA all along and has told Canada that they have nothing to worry about with her campaign rhetoric.

Yes, it is plain to see, through Clinton's own public statements and behavior, caught on video and well documented, that she indeed meets all the indicators of being a pathological liar.