Lies, Lies, And More Lies, Campaigns Indulge In Unfettered Deception

It is a sad fact that public trust in a politician’s statement has grossly disintegrated and the politicians themselves are to blame for this loss in trust. The ongoing campaign for the elections demonstrates why the people have become so skeptical and distrustful of whatever, the politicians claim or allege.

Mitt Romney set the ball rolling for misleading ads with his very first ad which showed the country’s joblessness and foreclosures and the mounting national debt along with a video of President Obama saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”

What was wrong that even though it appeared so, the President never said that? The quotation was expertly trimmed from an Obama speech in which he had quoted from a speech by his 2008 opponent, Senator McCain. What he had said was “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’

Even though critics berated the ad and called it distorted and deceptive, it did lead people to believe that Obama had failed to deliver on his election promises.

Strangely, even though fact-seekers seem to discover and report every single lie, it has not deterred politicians from making them. Neil Newhouse, from the Romney’s campaign was rather dismissive of the fact-seekers and said that they stood by their ads and would not let their “campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

This year’s campaign has far exceeded the normally accepted twisting of facts and campaigners have blatantly and deliberately made misleading and deceptive statements in convention speeches and television advertisements, raising new question about the fast disappearing ethics and morality in political culture.

Brooks Jackson, the director of FactCheck.org confirmed that this year’s campaign both camps have casually and without a care in the world have gone on making statements that were found false. “They don’t care,” he said, “because it gets votes.”

Romney’s running mate Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin took the lying to elevated levels when made a number of dubious or deceptive claims in his speech. Even before he had concluded his speech, fact-seekers had exposed his duplicity.

However, it is not that it is only the Republicans who are indulging in this sort of deceitfulness. They happily recalled an out-of-context quote that made believe that Romney relishes sacking his workers.

Another hugely controversial ad accused Romney of being responsible for the death of a steelworker, who did not have the money to provide her with adequate, as he lost his job and his health insurance when Mr. Romney’s old company, Bain Capital, shut the facility where he was employed.

To allow or not to allow or partially-allow abortion is a question that prompts strong responses and an unguarded statement could result in alienating a large section of the voters. The Obama campaign incorrectly accused Romney of opposing abortion, even in cases of incest or rape. He had a hard time convincing people it was untrue.

Even though both the candidates are at it, no holds barred fact-checkers believe that it was initiated by the Romney camp and for the moment in the dishonesty-rankings they rank higher than the Democrat camp.

What is galling is that a solo ad, with false and misleading information can be passed off as a lapse or an unintentional omission. But the Romney camp has repeatedly broadcasts spots, wrongly claiming that the President wants to gut the work needs of welfare.

Mark Halperin, Time magazine writer, said by indulging in such blatant distortion, parties lose the high moral ground and the populace loses faith in them. Whilst not holding a brief for the Democrats he did say that the Republicans were indulging in it more. He said, “But at this point I think the Romney campaign is besting them in making these distortions and untruths a bigger part of their message.”

Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact.com, said that politicians would flout ethics and forge ahead with falsehood knowingly, if they felt it would help them score brownie points, smug in the knowledge, that once the people believed in a misperception, it was highly unlikely they would change their belief.