Madison Cawthorn, one of the the youngest people ever elected to the US House of Representatives, has been dubbed “McCain on wheels” by some fine fellows on my Twitter timeline. This is because, even though he successfully portrayed himself as some kind of America First nationalist during the campaign, when you dig a little deeper, you see that he’s basically just another AIPAC shill in a fucking wheelchair.

And now, come to find out, even the wheelchair story is complete bullshit. Well, I mean, he still can’t walk. It’s not an Eddie Murphy in Trading Places level of deception…

But it’s really, really close to that level. From Yahoo’s recap of the Washington Post article, because fuck their paywall..

“He was my brother, my best friend. And he leaves me in a car to die in a fiery tomb,” Cawthorn said of the accident. “He runs to safety deep in the woods and just leaves me in a burning car as the flames start to lick my legs and curl up and burn my left side.” Cawthorn also claimed he was pronounced dead at the scene, but thanks to “adrenaline or divine intervention, I definitely believe it’s the latter, I had a deep inhale of breath.”

The problem, of course, is that none of it was true. According to Ledford, he saved Cawthorn’s life. “That statement he made was false,” Ledford told The Washington Post. “It hurt very badly that he would say something as false as that. That is not at all what happened. I pulled him out of the car the second that I was able to get out of the car.” And, according to a court deposition, Cawthorn claims he has no memory from the accident. And per a police accident report and Florida Highway Patrol records, Cawthorn was “incapacitated and in critical condition” but was not declared dead.

Now, it would be bad enough to lie about this, no matter what the occasion was. But Cawthorn actually used this bogus story to propel himself into the House. Think about this for a second: He accused the guy who saved his life of instead leaving him in a burning car to die. There are multiple other lies and transgressions in this story. But if it’s true that Cawthorn lied in this way…and I believe it is…it’s one of the most dishonorable things I could ever think of. Smearing the guy who saved your life just so you can use it on the campaign trail? Beyond abhorrent.

Oh, as to those other lies…apparently Cawthorn lied about this car wreck derailing his application to the Naval Academy, as he was rejected well before it happened. That’s another lie he’s been exposed for telling, but to be honest, it pales in comparison to slandering the guy who saved your life.

How does anyone recover from that?