How does the Mormon community react when one Mormon tells lies about another Mormon and brags of the lie's success.
It is officially sanctioned and widely practiced with respect to the Church's founding fathers or a general authority ... if you want to look it up, it's called Lying for the Lord.
Here's a post I wrote from June, 2011:
The word "prevarication" is often linked with Mormonism -- to the degree that the Lds apologetics org, FAIR, posted this lengthy article by Gregory L. Smith, MD: Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication (this is a pdf)
You can read it for yourself. I'll give you a quick paraphrased upshot as it pertained at least to concessions Gregory Smith made about prevarication & deception within Mormon history.
In the article, Gregory L Smith the Mormon apologist, concedes:
* Polygamy was lied about during Nauvoo years (Smith puts lying in quotations);
* Lying for the Lord has been taught & implied by some Mormons;
* Just because some Mormon leaders lied, he still contended any takeaways somebody might glean from that -- that it might somehow be construed as a condition tolerated w/in the Lds community when he felt it wasn't;
* Some Lds leaders, like George Q. Cannon of the First Presidency around the turn of the century, favored denying any specific charges about the practice of polygamy in Utah [Smith cited Michael Quinn "Authority and New Plural Marriages" as a source];
* He said the Manifesto sanctioned active misdirection;
* He said with the Church's destruction at stake, the manifesto "extended the degree of deception which was permissible" in order to keep that from happening. Therefore, 'twas Woodruff's duty to provide a formal doc which he knew to be false in some of its particulars. * Woodruff sought to maintain "plausible deniability." How did he do that? Well, while he'd refuse to personally approve a post-Manifesto polygamous marriage, he'd turn around & refer these potential polygamists to counselor George Q. Cannon for a recommend!
'Twas this kind of open deception that Mormon apologist Gregory L. Smith conceded to occur that has long stayed with the Lds reputation-wise.
If you click on any of the MANY sub-titles of that paper where the word "Lying" appears...you'll find all these comments Smith made.
Or Google the phrase "Lyin' for the Lord" and see how often that reference is used in association with Mormons. Read the Smoot hearing transcripts from the Senate in the early 20th century to see how even the Mormon "prophet" testified under oath before the Senate and blatantly lied -- even to the astonishment of fellow Mormons like Karl Badger, who was Sen. Smoot's Secretary.
Here, see some of Badger's quotes (post #24) and other links at this at this thread: Gospel Teachings About Lying-LDS (OPEN)
Ever notice how that picture of Joseph Smith changes over the years to look like modern movie actors?
I’ve seen him lately portrayed looking similar to George Clooney and Alec Baldwin.