Lying is but one of the many weapons in a politicians arsenal. Sad as it may be, we expect politicians to bend the truth, lie and distort reality when engaged in campaigning warfare. Some politicians however are much bigger liars than others.
What I consider to be a smart lie:
In the final presidential debate, Obama said that when Romney was Governor of Massachusetts, the state was ranked 48th in job creation. In fact the state was 47th, but this forced fact-checkers to come out and repeatedly say Obama was wrong, Romney is bad at creating jobs, but not quite as bad as Obama portrayed him.
What I consider to be a stupid lie:
Across the campaign, Romney and his many surrogates have repeatedly said that “Obama has doubled the deficit.” When Obama took office, the deficit was projected to be $1.2 trillion. By the end of this year, it’s expected to be $1.1 trillion. If Obama had increased the deficit, even by a tiny fraction, Romney would have at least been seen as massaging the truth. This lie however is completely devoid of any truth.
Another lie, again by the Romney campaign is that in his first 4 years in office, he would create 12 million jobs. Wow, that would really be impressive, but im sure he’s got lots of studies to support his claim. In fact, he only has three. One claims he would create 2 million (by simply doing nothing) another claims he would create 3 million and the final one claims he would create 7 million, but over 10 years.
Wait, I hear you say, none of those studies even mention the number 12 million? Correct, but when you add them all together, 2+3+7, you get 12 and this is how Romney claims he will create 12 million jobs. It’s an outright lie.
Before I go on, I’d like to point out that im not biased against Romney, it’s just that with the sheer number of lies that he pumps out compared to Obama, it’s much easier to focus on his.
So with lies flying all around the place, one would think that the media would swoop in with a bit metaphorical ‘bullshit’ catching net and clean up the mess. Sadly this is not the case.
Excluding a few minor media outlets, ThinkProgress and The Young Turks to name but two, the main-stream media plays the role of an apathetic Jeremy Kyle where the say “The Democrats said the sky is blue, but the Republicans said that it is green. Oh well, let’s just call it even.”
NO! Do your job. You are journalists and should stick your head outside the window, see that the sky is in fact blue and then tell your audience what the truth is. These days, it’s almost as if the main-stream media will repeat anything the campaigns give them.
I’d like to think that with our coverage here at BU, we’re not giving you any BS and when it comes to election night, our reporting will be geared towards the actual truth, rather than what the campaigns say it is.