Pro Football Shill Lanny Davis Lies About Shilling for Pro Football
Antibiotic-resistant flesh-eating infection Lanny Davis published a column in the Hill yesterday deploring the media's terrible rush to judgment against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Because the NFL's self-commissioned investigation into the Ray Rice scandal failed to find evidence that the league had done wrong, Davis wrote, all the various outlets that had reported on the other evidence of the league's wrongdoing owed Goodell an apology.
It's a classic specimen of Davis' patented deceptiveness and smarm—at one point, he notes that if the league had seen the video of Rice's domestic assault, which it claims it had not, "the NFL might have been accused of interfering in an ongoing criminal investigation."
But more than just showing Davis' talents as a static bullshitter, the column turned into a demonstration of the dynamic crisis-management skills that have made Lanny Davis a well-paid go-to liar for all the worst people on the planet. When Davis promoted his Goodell column on Twitter, National Journal's Ron Fournier responded with a simple question: "Have you worked for NFL or a NFL team?"
Davis replied with a dumb and obvious lie:
@ron_fournier no Ron - never. If I had or do work for NFL, I would have disclosed in tag line. I am surprised you asked.
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
Lanny Davis, of course, has taken money from the worst owner in the NFL, Washington's Daniel Snyder, to help Snyder concoct fake support for his doomed and racist crusade to discredit the Native Americans who want the team to stop using a racial slur as its name.
Because he is a professional liar, Davis could—and did!—argue that he had only denied working for the NFL, not for one of the individual teams that make up the NFL and fund its operations, including paying Goodell's salary. That was what he tried to do in the back end of the tweet, after he directly answered Fournier's direct question with "no," falsely.
Ethics, Davis argued, did not require him to disclose that particular financial relationship with a professional football team in the course of his defending professional football.
Media-relations expert that he is, Davis publicly tried to get Fournier to take their conversation off Twitter:
@ron_fournier why don't you email me rather than communicate on Twitter?
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
And then had a full-on Twitter tantrum in response to the various people who'd pointed out that he was lying:
@ron_fournier @JakeSherman no one paid me Mr. Sherman. You don't even read English. I write this column weekly--I don't work for NFL.
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
@polyphonique you are an idiot. No one paid me - you don't read English. I don't work for NFL. Try reading.
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
@ProgressiveKim1 @SalenaZitoTrib @ron_fournier for last time - I disclose if I write a column about a client. I don't work for NFL or RG.
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
@JakeSherman what is not classy is for you to ignore my answer to Ron and not admit that you ignored it. I don't work for RG or NFL.
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
"You don't read English," Lanny Davis wrote, after having responded to the question "Have you worked for NFL or a NFL team?" with "no ... never."
He also threw in a complaint about "vicious Twitter":
@Rose_Marie_Holt @ron_fournier Ron- can you retweet to the idiots who are now accusing me of being paid - don't you vicious Twitter?
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
Despite Davis' furious insistence that there was no reason for him to disclose his relationship with Snyder, the Hill added an editors' note to his column at 5:27 p.m. today, making the disclosure. And Davis immediately took credit for it:
@pareene @ron_fournier thanks for advice Alex. Already updated my tag line that I represented Redskins in 2010 and 2013. Nothing intentional
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
Technically, he left off the noun that would say who updated the tag line. But what had been a matter of ethical principle at 4 p.m. was "nothing intentional" at 5:45.
See my updated tagline that I represented Snyder/Redskins in '10 and '13. http://t.co/6u5oLOyRkR Thanks to @ron_fournier--just missed this.
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015
"Just missed this." If you're counting, that's Lanny Davis lying about lying about a lie he told.