Does anyone else feel like Lehrer is receiving more criticism than he deserves? The fact that he defended the fabricated Dylan quotes is regrettable, but it's so trivial compared to lies we hear everyday from people we "trust" (media, politicians, bloggers, friends). And I don't give a damn about the self plagiarism. It was sloppy, not evil.
I personally wish we could forget about the whole thing. After this debacle, I'd trust Lehrer over almost any other science writer. If he ever writes Frontal Cortex again, I'm sure it will be the most thoroughly fact-checked journalism available.
The thing is that when somebody lies about trivial but pointless stuff -- not little white lies like "Ooh, I'd love to come but I'm booked that day" or "No, that dress looks great on you" but rather, "Bob Dylan said this" -- then you can't trust the rest of what they write.
People criticize Lehrer because they liked him and trusted him. Now everything they liked about him was cast into doubt, over something totally idiotic. It seriously calls his judgment and character into question. There was no compelling reason for him to fabricate what he fabricated. There was no enormous gain from that fabrication. It's a sign of either laziness, OR pathological lying.
Pathological liars are distinguished from the rest of us because they lie about pointless things, without a direct thing to gain from it.
We understand that politicians lie for gain… they are not, GENERALLY, pathological. Because they lie for gain, we can ferret out their lies because we can ask, "Gee, does xyz have something to gain here?" - and we understand them. That doesn't make it excusable, but that's probably part of why there's more uproar about Lehrer (we trusted him! WHY did he lie about THAT?!) than yet one more political lie.
I personally wish we could forget about the whole thing. After this debacle, I'd trust Lehrer over almost any other science writer. If he ever writes Frontal Cortex again, I'm sure it will be the most thoroughly fact-checked journalism available.