TIME and CNN have assembled some of the country's preeminent columnists, from Bill Schneider to Charles Bierbauer to Margaret Carlson. Read them on AllPolitics.
By Margaret Carlson
I lie, you lie, we all lie, according to experts. When I was eight years old, I told everyone the new mud flap with the rhinestone on my Schwinn was the prize for winning the biking competition at the Knights of Columbus. I was humiliated when the fact checkers in my neighborhood found out I'd only collected the consolation prize for slow-riding. Chastened, I stuck close to reality until I was trying to account for some dead spots between college and law school, and law school and life. Rather than admit to traveling aimlessly around Europe, I put down that I was studying French, in which I was fluent. How truthful was that? My daughter rolls her eyes when I order bouf bourguignon. These incidents, embarrassing though they be, fall within the acceptable range of victimless embellishment, those exaggerations that burnish a humdrum existence, amuse our listeners or impress a potential employer. A resume is a sales document, and some puffery is tolerated. Family weddings would be duller if Uncle Joe were limited to the small fish he caught.