The Truth Of Lying

Awhile back, standing in the well of the Senate while proposing to eliminate government funding to Planned Parenthood, Senator John Kyle (R-AZ) stated, “90% of Planned Parenthood’s funding goes toward providing abortion services.”  In fact, the percentage was @10% or less.  Nevertheless, when challenged about this egregious error of fact, Kyle released a now-infamous reply that “what I said was not intended to be a factual statement.”  Somehow that rationale was supposed to excuse his glaring lie.

Shortly after Paul Ryan gave his acceptance speech as the Republican nominee for Vice President – a speech riddled with false statements – former mayor Rudy Giuliani tried to explain away those errors in an interview by saying, “When someone gives a speech, not every fact is 100% accurate.”  I guess this includes when someone gives his/her speech of their lifetime for the history books for which they had weeks to prepare.  (Versus a meandering off-the-cuff ad lib address, a la Clint Eastwood.)  Funny, I always thought a “fact” less than 100% accurate was no longer a fact.

We all understand that at times in political campaigns truths will compromised, context will be omitted, and logic will be stretched beyond recognition.  That is a shame, because it is during political campaigns that the public is most often paying attention to the issues of governance, and good information on which to make substantive decisions is critically needed.  We accept this “stretching” of truths, intended to create an electoral advantage, as just another one of our sad realities of life.  Just as we discount much of the other advertising that we hear about the many evils of “Brand X.”

But when a politician seeks to unabashedly lie about things, knowingly ignoring today’s realities of videotape, fact-checking researchers and internet information sharing, it shows either a woeful ignorance of today’s media world and/or a shortage of character and a willingness to deceive that insults the public trust.  Such is the case with Mr. Ryan’s speech, for which he has been appropriately called out.  For example:

• Ryan accused President Obama of failing to deliver on a presidential promise to prevent the closing of a GM plant in Ryan’s home state.  Except that no such promise was made, and the plant’s closing was announced and competed all within George W. Bush’s presidency.
• Ryan claimed that Obama has removed the work requirement within welfare programs that was adopted in the Bill Clinton years.  Not at all true, as all responsible news media (and Clinton himself) have confirmed.
• Ryan has accused Obama of not supporting the Simpson-Bowles deficit report that Obama had commissioned.  But Mr. Ryan failed to mention that he was a member of that same Commission, voted against its findings and recommendations, and refused to allow it to be brought up and considered in his House budget committee.
• Ryan has accused Obama of taking $716 billion out of the Medicare program “to pay for Obamacare.”  He left out that this reduction was based on reduced payments to health care providers, not Medicare enrollees, based upon expected productivity and other gains.  And Ryan pointedly failed to mention that he has also proposed the same transfer in his latest House budget proposal.
• Finally, Ryan has laid responsibility for America’s credit downgrade solely on Obama, omitting that he himself was one of the leaders of House Republicans in creating the debt/budget standoff of a year ago. It was the only time that the raising of the debt ceiling and the protecting of our collective credit rating had been held hostage by Congress under any Republican or Democratic president.

The selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate has been a curious story unto itself.  Ryan is certainly the darling of the conservative Right for his willingness to outspokenly go out on a limb without apologies in support of drastically reducing government programs and services.  And make no mistake: budget cuts are exactly that – reduced dollars going into the hands of business people and consumers (and voters).  Americans who love the idea of lower taxes and reduced spending also want NO reduction in the services, business contracts, and grant monies that now come to them.

The reality is that Paul Ryan’s role to Mitt Romney in 2012 is the same as Sarah Palin’s was to John McCain in 2008 – but with the major difference that Paul Ryan has both intelligence and substance.  Nevertheless, like Ms. Palin, Ryan is there to provide political energy and “star power” in support of the nominee on top who has minimal such attractions.  He is there to shore up support from a party base that fundamentally distrusts the conservative credentials of their top-of-the-ticket nominee.  Ryan is a man with a detailed track record of significant conservative proposals.  But having made Ryan his appointee, Romney now spends his time disavowing those same proposals.  And Mr. Ryan now no longer speaks of those proposals or his convictions in order to hide the differences between the two men.  It is as if those ideas that are required to convince the Republican base are anathema to moderate and independent Americans who will ultimately decide the election winner.  So why would Romney select Ryan as his choice in the first place, only to then quietly disavow what Ryan stands for?  And why would Ryan choose to give up the very independence and honest-speaking position that endeared him to his followers in the first place?  The attraction to power can certainly do harsh things to one’s character.

We all understand the “attack dog” role of a Vice Presidential nominee.  And we understand the stretching of truths that occurs in political campaigns.  But Americans are struggling right now, painfully trying to figure out the next step in their individual and collective future.  People need solid and truthful information to answer their difficult questions.  Questions that are actually of far greater importance than who will be the winners and losers in November’s election.  There are political candidates who choose to cross a fine but critical line of outright lying to the American people in a deliberate attempt to hide truth for political gain.  Such unethical conduct makes it more difficult for all of us to intelligently and accurately find our way.  Perhaps we should just shrug our shoulders and dismiss all of this as simply “campaign rhetoric.”  But if a person – regardless of their political party or viewpoints – chooses to step across that ethical line as a candidate, should we not then assume that they will believe that that choice of action is politically permissible?  And that as an elected official they will then continue that pattern of lying to the public?