Lies

Lies, Lies, Lies: Can We Trust Any One Running for Political Office?

Bob Hertzog — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:10:49 -0700

It is well known that both Barack Obama and John McCain promised a different kind of campaign in this presidential election. They promised a truthful campaign that provides facts without distortion. It is clear to any reasonable observer that both candidates have failed miserably to live up that promise. While the distortions and lies from both campaigns are so numerous, I could not possibly list them all. I thought in might be interesting to discuss some of the lies told by each campaign.

Education:

An Obama ad says the McCain has voted five times to cut education funding. This is not true. On these occasions, McCain voted against an education funding increase that Democrats wanted. He was not willing to increase education funding to the level Democrats wanted, but he did not vote to cut spending from what it was at that time.

A McCain ad says the Obama has voted in support of sex education for kindergarteners. That too is blatantly untrue. Obama did support a bill that would help educate kindergarteners to avoid sexual predators. It was not sex education.

Taxes:

A McCain/Palin ad claims that Obama would raise taxes on electricity. Obama has offered no such proposal. Both candidates support a cap-and-trade policy that might raise the cost of energy. Additionally, the ad claims the Obama will tax home-heating oil. This is blatantly false. Obama has actually proposed a $1,000 rebate to families to help defray heating costs.

Obama has been saying the McCain is willing to allow tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. That is not exactly accurate, although there are some elements of truth in this statement. McCain does support a policy that allows corporations that make money overseas to defer taxes on those profits until they bring the money into the U.S. So, if they keep their profit overseas they tend to do, these companies will not have pay tax on it. This might encourage companies to operate overseas, rather than in the U.S.

You don’t have to tell a direct falsehood in order to tell a lie. Joe Biden has used partial McCain statement in order to create a false impression. Biden said that McCain would not help small borrowers suffering in the mortgage crisis. He quoted McCain as saying that he would ….”fight for those that lost their …. real estate investments.” The impression Biden wanted to promote was that McCain would help major investors but not homeowners who are experiencing financial difficulty. Biden did not tell us that McCain also said that he would fight for those “who have lost their jobs and savings.” McCain has as actually proposed assistance for homeowners.

Sarah Palin has been promoted as an expert on energy. She has claimed that Alaska supplies 20% of the U.S. domestic supply of energy. As governor of Alaska she should know. However, her statement is blatantly false. Alaska's actual share of domestic energy production was 3.5%, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

I know that political campaigning is a hard-nosed business and campaigners are expected to stretch their own position while distorting their opponent’s views. However, to me, it is disappointing to see both candidates use blatant falsehoods, in order to win an election.

Here’s a communication professor’s view. Every message has a surface message and a subtext. The subtext of lies told to viewers goes something like this: “I don’t think much of your intelligence, because I can tell you this lie and you are so stupid you’ll believe it.” When I get that message, I get angry, no matter who is telling the lie.

It has been said that the first casualty of war is the truth. I think that statement applies to political campaigning as well. At least with politics we have at our disposal the ability to check the truth of a politician’s statements. I encourage everyone, no matter what their political persuasion, to use web sites like http://www.factcheck.org/, from Annenberg Commuications (from which many of the facts cited in this post came) to verify the truth of any candidate’s statements.

Campaign Lies...Is There Anyone Left to Tell Us the Truth?

Bob Hertzog — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:03:44 -0700

At the outset of this post, I’d like to say that I have been and continue to be a supporter of Barack Obama for president of the United States. He is, in my view, the best of the three viable candidates running and I fervently hope it is who takes to oath of office in January of 2009.

Having made my view clear, let me make a few comments about political campaigns based on a piece of literature I received today from the Obama campaign. The campaign brochure states the following:

“AS PRESIDETN, BARACK OBAMA WILL:

End the war in Iraq.
Provide every American with health coverage.
Reform Student loan problems and create a $4,000 refundable tax credit for college.
Make long-term investment in training, and workforce development.
End our dependence on Middle East oil.
Save our planet from the crisis of climate change.
Take on special interests and lobbyists.”

This is what Obama promises to do. Let’s take a look at what he actually could do if he were elected president. Obama, as president and commander in chief, could end the war in Iraq. We can give him that one.

He cannot provide every American with health care. Only congress can pass that legislation. If a future congress was inclined to act, he could then sign the legislation congress passed. For this primise, he is helpless without congress.

Reform the student loan program? Again, not unless congress acts first, although through the department of education, the president has some power to influence the student loan program. We can give him a partial on this one. The tax credit, however, must be enacted by congress.

Workforce development? This he may be able to do through the labor department. We can give him this one as well.

End our dependence on Middle East oil? This is a joke. I cannot believe his campaign expects us to believe this one. We can go a long way toward becoming oil independent but it is going to take more than the eight years Obama could expect to be in office. With billions of dollars invested and a go-to-the-moon like effort, we could become oil independent in perhaps 20 years.

Save our planet from climate change? Another joke. As president, Obama might encourage Americans to do our part, but this is a world issue. What can the American president do about polluters, like China, Russia, and others? What can the American president do about South-American countries that wish to cut down their forests?

Take on lobbyists? He can do it with respect to the White House, but he cannot keep lobbyists out of congress. We can give him another partial for this one.

What can we conclude from this? Is Obama simply ignorant of what a president in our democracy can do or is he simply a liar? Well, I hope neither. I’m certain Barack Obama is fully aware of just what the powers of the president are. Obviously, his campaign promises mean is that he intends to try to accomplish these things.

Obama’s campaign communicators believe that [and I think they are correct in this belief] we will not vote for a candidate that actually told the truth and said “I will try …” rather than “I will do…”

I don’t like it, but I believe all of this makes two statements about the state of our political campaigning and, more important, about the shallowness of American voters.

First, if one candidate spoke the truth as she or he understood it to be and another spoke lies that made us feel good and seemed to support ideas we like, we would elect the liar and leave the truth teller out.

Second, if ever there were any truth tellers in American politics, we have pretty much weeded them all out. So if we really did want political campaigners to tell us the unvarnished truth, I don’t think we could find anyone who actually knows how to do it. The truth tellers are all in some other line of work. We, as a voting nation, have created exactly the government we deserve.

I have not received campaign literature from Hillary Clinton or John McCain, but I suspect when I do, I will find that literature equally as devoid of truth as I found Obama’s material.

True Lies In Politics

Bob Hertzog — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:22:35 -0800

John Adams famously said: “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” It may be so, but it seems to me that facts are not always so absolute as Mr. Adams would have us believe. There are times when a statement of fact may be both true and false at the same time. Let me give you a couple of examples.

A couple of days ago, the former governor and senator from Nebraska, Bob Kerrey, said: “I've watched the blogs try to say that you can't trust him [Barak Obama] because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite.” Kerry, a Hillary Clinton supporter, said this in the CNN Situation Room. Is it true? Did Obama attend a madrassa? Yes, and well, not exactly.

When he was 6 through 10 years old, Obama lived in Indonesia, with his mother and stepfather. He attended a public school in Jakarta. Students wore western clothes and studied a basic Indonesian public-school curriculum. Some of the students were Islamic (Indonesia is 90% Islamic), others students were Christian and Buddhists. In Arabic madrassa literally means “place where learning happens” or school.

So it is true Obama attended a madrassa. But, this statement is also not true because of the connotation the term madrassa produces in many Americans. When some one uses the term madrassa, many of us see images of bearded zealots disgorging virulent anti-American propaganda. That is not what happened where Obama just went to school.

Kerrey made his statement and then went on to praise Obama, but the damage is done. The message planted the seed.

A similar argument can be made about Mike Huckabee’s statement in an article he authored for the New York Times Magazine. He wrote, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers.” Mormons do believe that God is the father of- and creator of all beings, thus we are all spirit sons and daughters of god, including the devil.

So Huckabee’s statement is true. But, the statement is also not true. Mormons believe that Jesus is the only begotten in the flesh son God. They worship Jesus as the son of God and the savior of mankind. Satan, to Mormons, is the exact opposite of Jesus and opposite of what Jesus stands for." So, Huckabee’s statement is also false. It connotes that Mormons are just a small step removed from devil worshiping cult. Huckabee, a ordained minister knew before he wrote the statement that he was planting a false seed. But he did it anyway.

To me a statement which is factually true but deliberately presents a false connotation is a lie the same as a statement that deliberately distorts facts. It is unfortunate that not one candidate (Republican or Democrat) is willing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.