Nothing will get you on my "don't mess with this person any more" list than lying. Once I figure out that you're a liar, we're done. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about the "little white lies" to spare someone's feelings. When your wife asks you does she look fat in a dress and you say no when the honest answer is yes. Or when your mom asks how do you like the sweater she bought you for Christmas and you say you love it when it's actually hideous. I put those in the category of "Mama didn't raise no fool" lies. No real harm is done and the intent is not to hurt someone's feelings. I'll make an exception for those. Intent is the key. The lies meant to intentionally mislead folks and hurt other people and especially the ones designed to cover your own ass, those are the ones that really get my goat.
I used to think that most Americans felt the same way. Everybody says they hates liars. Nothing gets a person's defenses up quicker than if someone accuses them of lying. It's generally seen as one of the worst things you can be accused of because if you're a liar you are almost by definition also a cheat, con artist, phony etc. In American politics, there has always been this strange dichotomy about lying. There has always been the familiar refrain that "all politicians are liars", but actually being caught in a lie used to pretty much mean an end to your political career, ask President Nixon and Gary Hart.
But I sense now things have changed. I think somewhere along the way blatant lying has now become acceptable, so much so that I don't even think the American public makes any distinction between lying and just being wrong. I'm also not sure the American public cares any more, and that made me wonder when did we stop caring if politicians lied to us. Like I said, we were so appalled that Richard Nixon lied to us that we forced him to resign from office. It appears now like Tricky Dick was just a little ahead of his time.
Just thinking back on the Presidents in my lifetime, I think the last one the American public thought was honest was President Carter, and he's also the one that gets the most ridicule for his time in office. When President Carter addressed the nation in 1979 and looked into the cameras and told the American people that the country was suffering from a "crisis of confidence" he was being honest. He told the American people that our overconsumption was leading to an energy crisis. That speech has since been dubbed the "malaise speech" and was one of the factors that led to President Carter being a one term President.
He was beaten by President Reagan, a man who by profession was an actor. His whole adult life he had been trained to convince people that he was someone other than himself. He was followed by President George H.W. Bush, who was the head of the CIA, an agency whose main job is to lie and deceive in order to fulfill their mission. But even after the Presidencies of Reagan and Bush, I think the American people still held on to this notion that it's just not okay for the President to lie to us. Even though many thought Reagan was lying during Iran Contra and Bush lied with his "no new taxes" pledge, there was enough gray area to give the POTUS the benefit of he doubt.
I think that changed with President William Jefferson Clinton and Monica. I'll admit I like Bill Clinton, and I thought he was a very good President. But after he looked into the camera facing the nation, wagging his finger no less, and just flat out lied to us, I never trusted him again.
And when I found out that he repeated those lies under oath and the penalty of perjury, I have not believed a word that has come out of his mouth since. But the American public by and large still loves Bill Clinton. He is as popular as ever. I think that finger wagging moment was the beginning of the slippery slope that has led us to where we are today.
In the year of our Lord 2016, politicians just lie. They don't tell little lies, they tell whoppers. And there are no repercussions. I thought it couldn't get worse than Mitt Romney four years ago.
I watched in speech after speech and debate after debate where Romney said things that he absolutely knew were not true, even about his own record. Fact checker after fact checker would call him out on the lies and he would just repeat them or come up with new lies the next week. And it didn't hurt him one bit with the voters. In fact, just the opposite. the more he lied, the better his numbers got.
Which brings me to the GOP debate on Tuesday night. I think we have finally gotten to the point where people running for President lie more than they tell the truth. Politifact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics. Here are some of their findings from the debate.
Ted Cruz: The head of the FBI told Congress he couldn't vet Syrian refugees - Mostly False
Rand Paul: Marco Rubio is for "open borders" - Pants on Fire
Carly Fiorina: Generals retired early because they told POTUS things he didn't like -Mostly False
Marco Rubio: Cruz supports legalizing people who are here illegally - Mostly False
If you go to the Politifact "Pants on Fire" page, 7 of the 20 lies cited on page 1 are by the Republican Frontruner, Donald Trump. According to Politifact statistics here the fact checking stats for the leading candidates for President:
Republicans:
Trump: True 0; Mostly True 7%; Half True 17%, Mostly false 16%, False 30% Pants on Fire 21%
Cruz: True 4%; Mostly True 16%; Half True 12%; Mostly false 29%; False 32%; Pants of Fire 6%
Rubio: True 14%; Mostly True 23%; Half True 23%; Mostly false 23%; False 15% Pants on Fire 2%
Clinton: True 28%; Mostly True 23%; Half True 21%; Mostly false 16%; False 11% Pants on fire 1%
Sanders: True 8%; Mostly True 35%; Half True 19%; Mostly False 14%; False 14%, Pants on fire 0
And just for comparison's sake, here are President Obama's numbers:
True 21%; Mostly true 27%; Half True 27%; Mostly False 12%, False 12% Pants on Fire 2%.
So back to my original question. Do lies matter anymore when running for President. Of the most likely candidates to be the next President, Politifact rates the statements of only 1 as True or Mostly True more than 50% of the time, and that candidate is only at 51% in those two categories. The guy who is blowing away the rest of the Republican field says things that are True ZERO percent of the time, Mostly True 7% of the time, and Mostly False, False, or just flat out Pants on Fire 67% of the time! These numbers tell me that lying doesn't matter anymore, as long as you tell lies that the American people want to hear. Evidently Mitt Romney was just 4 years too soon.
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