Over the past couple of weeks, the Detroit Free Press has been hosting daily live chats with candidates for city council and the charter revision commission on their website. The chats are held with the candidates themselves, not campaign staff, which is part of the appeal: voters get to ask candidates questions directly to candidates to hear their positions on issues.

But on Wednesday when it was city council candidate Jai-Lee Dearing’s turn to chat, Dearing had his campaign manager answering questions in the first person, posing as Dearing.

Meanwhile the real Dearing was live on a local radio program and nowhere near a computer and not on a phone. So the answers given on Wednesday’s chat were not Dearing’s but his campaign manager Mike Carroll’s.

In an editorial, Detroit Free Press’ Barb Arrigo holds Dearing’s feet to the fire for misleading Free Press staff and voters.

Carroll has since apologized on behalf of Dearing, Arrigo noted in her article. But after years of having city council members and a mayor marred in scandal and misinformation, Dearing’s decision to trick voters while on a live radio programs seems not only disingenuous, but also careless. If one is live on a local radio station and simultaneously live on a local news website he’s bound to be found out.

Dearing should take a hint from Monica Conyers and Kwame Kilpatrick that in order to pull off a lie to Detroit media and residents as a politician, one has to at least be good at it.