"Then they become Secret Agent Man or a Seal or met the one armed man in a bar, something, anything and I have heard some real prize winners." --> true, it's human nature. The problem in this guys case is that he probably didn't know how to get out of the trap. He may have (speculation on my part), just said it once, inadvertently and then people kept asking him and he had to keep on lying, lying for fear that if he said the first was a lie, he would not be forgiven.
This really reminds me of the movie Devil's Advocate -- Pride is what gets us every time. Pride may have prompted the first lie, and then pride kept him from admitting it as a lie. I think all of us have failed like this some way or the other..
Yep, kind of the way it works, isn’t it? Vanity was the devil’s favorite vice in that movie, yes?