Cheating Journalist Wins Award.

He lied to employers. Forged federal documents. Again and again, as an adult man, refused to come forward and pursue legal citizenship.

He wins a liberal award for himself. In addition to all the scholarships and other prizes he collected by competing under false pretenses. Win-win. Just can't lose, eh?

Me-me-me-me...
What can America do for me?

Problem is: this way of gaming the system, and being prized for it, is catching up to us, folks. Ask yourself: what if everybody played the "special me" marketing card, and made it for themselves by cheating everybody else?

How long do you think until the resources will run out? Here, the trust factor.

And something tells me, this man has already written the most important work of his life. Cheers, buddy! For every "special" one that is rewarded for their deceipt like you, there's another getting whacked with a tire iron with little recourse because they haven't hobbnobbed with the right, upper class people who take a special liking to special old you.

Absolutely amazing that nobody thinks twice about rewarding these lies. How much else in his stories do you think he fudged? Not good for the country, not good for journalism as a whole.

But very special for Mr. Vargas, I'm sure...

MEANWHILE: Looking at Libya ... (oh nevermind. Who needs people to report the stories and investigate what's really happening when you can just insert yourself into the news cycle, and reap your winnings there.)

LIBERAL JUSTIFICATION:
or "I'm special, because..."

In his recent essay, "My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant," star reporter Jose Antonio Vargas recalls being sent to the U.S. at the age of 12 to live with his grandparents, naturalized American citizens. He says he thought he was a legal immigrant until the DMV rejected his application for a learner's license four years later.

For the next 14 years, Vargas concealed his immigration status, which involved forging documents and lying to his bosses in order to keep living and working in America.
...
There's a big difference between habitual lies and terrible secrets. By "terrible secrets," I mean facts that would ruin a person's life if they came to light, but which are not in themselves shameful.

Resume fraud is wrong. Cooke chose to lie to get ahead. Whereas, Vargas was initially trapped by someone else's lie and forced to keep up appearances to keep his life from imploding.

Vargas was sent here as a child. He wasn't responsible for what happened to him.

Seriously,
this is why the man is not a convincing advocate for the DREAM act. As an adult, he continued to lie and defraud those who most needed to trust him. His former editor, Jack Shafer:

I get on my high horse about Vargas' lies because reporter-editor relationships are based on trust. A news organization can't function if editors must constantly cross-examine their reporters in search of deliberate lies. I'm more disturbed with Vargas for lying to the Washington Post Co. (which—disclosure alert!—employs me) than I am about him breaking immigration law. His lies to the Post violated the compact that makes journalism possible. It also may have put the company on the hook for violating immigration law [PDF], which slaps employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants with legal sanctions and fines.

...
The liberal Beyerstein again:

Would Shafer say that every closeted gay journalist who comes out in mid-career should henceforth be treated as a pariah? After, all, coming out means owning up to years of lying. What about a battered woman who takes a new identity in order to flee her abusive ex? Should she be cast out of journalism if her editors find out who she really is?

Let's stop pretending with the prizes. He forged documents to get hired. He lied to qualify for scholarships and prizes. He ... cheated. This is not how you win the American Dream.

This man, not a boy, now a man, made a choice. Others, who are more innocent and did nothing themselves as adults to continue to lie and cheat, would be better spokespersons for the DREAM Act.

This one, he's out for only himself. Put the employers at risk, and trust me, brings down the DREAM Act in the eyes of many, when it turns out the children have learned to cheat and game the system too. Just like their elders who jumped the line in coming here under false pretenses and cheating their way ahead of honest people waiting in line...

Too bad he's now the face of those illegal immigrant children, not all choose to be dishonest like that, just to advance their own special selves by not playing by the rules. Some kids actually do learn something -- and take those lessons to heart -- in their American Civics classes. They learn of an America greater than their parents/grandparents know -- who cheated in bringing them here. My standards for these Americanized youth -- whom this man keeps insisting he is, is much higher. Did he learn nothing about teamwork, and a sense of fairplay in not disregarding the rules? Or did he come from a stressful cheat-on-the-tests-to-achieve school too?


But hey, he won a few prizes along the way. The rest of the pack -- eh. Let them learn to cheat and lie their own way up, I guess.


It's the same mentality really, as the current showdown in Washington. Do we try to live within our means, or do we know -- that as long as the can can be kicked down the road until it affects lesser others -- that we can "cheat" our way ahead: continue spending what we don't have, and then just throw up our hands "it's too big to back down now" and keep feeding the monster that knows no end?

Like a gambler, I'm sure with this next round of government spending, we'll never have to face the belt-tightening and bill prioritizing that comes from facing the facts: we can't afford to continue going on like this. Somebody -- not you, you're special -- loses. And their losses will be bigger and more spectacular if only because we continue to think we can cheat our way ahead.

The bigger they are,
the harder they fall,
and all...