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vendors, or the public was the second most often reported
offense.
The lying issue goes from the bottom all the way to the
top in organizations—from resumes and job interviews to
options backdating. And the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) is cracking down. They have sent hun-
dreds of letters to companies demanding that they tell the
unvarnished truth to the public—to tell the story behind
the numbers, to highlight any facts that could have a sig-
nificant impact on the company’s financials. After seeing
their peers and competitors hauled off to jail or slapped
with heavy fines, many have cleared the rising lump in
their collective throats, neither admitted nor denied
wrongdoing in their vague annual reports, and decided to
settle out of court and pay fines.
Politicians parse truth no better—from Nixon to Clin-
ton. You recall the Clinton classic in his Grand Jury testi-
mony about the meaning of is:

Attorney: Whether or not Mr. Bennet knew of your
relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, the statement that
there was “no sex of any kind in any manner, shape
or form, with President Clinton,” was an utterly
false statement. Is that correct?
Clinton: It depends upon what the meaning of the
word is is. If . . . is means ‘is and never has been and
is not’—that is one thing. If it means there is none,
that was a completely true statement.

In a press release dated April 25, 2002, announcing a 96
cents per share loss, Dennis Kozlowski, then CEO of Tyco
International, had this to say: “I am disappointed that our
ten-year/forty-quarter string of consistent earnings im-
provements has been broken. While our results before

20 The Voice of Authority