On the Efficacy of Lying
John Scalzi links to a Slate article comparing McCain's lying and Obama's lying:
The stats for McCain's political claims:
- 11 misleading statements
- 8 categorically false
- 3 pants-on-fire lies
The stats for Obama's political claims:
- 8 misleading statements
- 4 categorically false
- 0 pants-on-fire lies
I had always assumed that when I saw liberal bloggers writing about McCain's falsehoods, that they probably had counterparts on the other side complaining about Obama's distortions. But McCain's lies are more numerous and more flagrant. The most astonishing of these is McCain's "Education" ad:
Some of McCain's recent claims, though, are the William Hungs of political lies: so heroically deceptive that anyone not blinded by partisanship feels the urge to cover his ears. Take McCain's ad claiming that Obama's "one accomplishment" on education policy was to push "legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners." It's difficult to find a single true word in the whole spot. The Illinois Senate bill the ad refers to was not Obama's legislation. (He voted for it but didn't write or sponsor it.) It was not an "accomplishment" — the bill didn't pass. Nor did it advocate teaching kids about sex before they learned to read, as McCain claims; it envisioned "age-appropriate" language instructing children on "preventing sexual assault," among other dangers, and it allowed parents to hold their kids out of these classes.
Apparently I was being too generous. John Scalzi provides some good commentary on the article and the overall trend:
"I'm not suggesting that distortion and lying are new to this presidential election cycle … I am suggesting the McCain campaign is the first campaign, certainly in modern political history, that has decided that truth is entirely optional, and isn't afraid to come right out and say it. And it's working — and might well work all the way to the steps of the White House.
"If it does, that will be an interesting political lesson for the GOP. It will be confirmation of the actual "Bush Doctrine" of "do and say whatever the hell you want, because no one has the will to stop you." When there is no real-world penalty for lying, distorting and demonizing, then the only thing to stop you is your own moral compunctions. However, if McCain actually had any moral compunctions on this point, he wouldn't be running the campaign he's running now. And I would suggest that a man who shows no moral compunction in pursuit of power is not a man who will suddenly find those compunctions once he has power. An election is a job interview, people. If someone lies to you during a job interview, and says to you "yes, I'm lying, what of it?" when you catch them in the lie, and you hire them anyway, well. You shouldn't be surprised at what comes next….
"The fact of the matter is that at this point in the election, it's not just about what positions the candidates hold on various political subjects. It's also about how the candidates, and the parties behind, choose to see the people they intend to lead. The GOP and the McCain campaign, irrespective of its political positions, sees the American voter as deserving lies, lots of lies, repeated as often as necessary to win. And maybe they're right about it. We'll know soon enough."