It strikes me how easily nowadays, when someone is caught lying, our society tends to excuse it or try to rationalize it. What we should be focusing on is the character pathology involved in telling lies. We're not talking about a little white lie to protect someone's feelings. We're not talking about a hoax, a trick, or whatever else the media wants to call it. We're talking about a young man who repeatedly, and on a national stage, lied about his own life.
It does not matter how it started. It matters how it evolved due to his own, intentional, repeated lying. He is a liar.
THAT should be the thing we as a society choose to pay attention to. This is a conscious choice he made, not just once, but over and over and over again until he got busted.
We should hold him accountable as a LIAR. It should mean something to us. We shouldn't get distracted by the shiny objects of "was he or wasn't he in on it." That is of no importance. What is important is the lying.