By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
It started out a stunner: The Heisman Trophy runner-up had told heartbreaking stories about a dead girlfriend who didn't exist. Then it became unreal: The All-American linebacker said he had been duped, and theirs was a relationship that existed only in phone calls and Internet chats.
It started out a stunner: The Heisman Trophy runner-up had told heartbreaking stories about a dead girlfriend who didn't exist. Then it became unreal: The All-American linebacker said he had been duped, and theirs was a relationship that existed only in phone calls and Internet chats.
Consider two parallel universes: Charlie Sheen is destined to hit rock bottom after being fired from the best job he'll ever have; Charlie Sheen has been freed to blaze a new path to dazzling fame and riches.
Consider two parallel universes: Charlie Sheen is destined to hit rock bottom after being fired from the best job he'll ever have; Charlie Sheen has been freed to blaze a new path to dazzling fame and riches.
Still, he said he didn't figure out the ruse.
"As far back as the 1980s, men were impersonating women, kids were pretending to be adults, and all kinds of relationships with non-existent or phony people flourished online," says Paul Levinson, a professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University, who studies social media.
