I have several friends of the Republican persuasion who think Obama’s a big fat liar. If I point out Romney’s truth-challenged statements, they make excuses or—if really pressed—retreat into the “all politicians lie” position. (The latter is inarguable, of course, but only because research shows that everyone lies.) So I thought it might be worth putting Romney’s and Obama’s latest PolitiFact ratings (as of July 7, 2012) side by side. With all its bells and whistles, PolitiFact’s Web site mysteriously doesn’t seem to allow such a comparison.
As you can see, Romney’s statements are judged less true than Obama’s overall, and 9% of Romney’s statements earn a “Pants on Fire” rating (that is, they are judged to be egregious lies) compared with Obama’s 1% rating. Out of the 379 statements by Obama that PolitiFact examined, over 46% were judged True or Mostly True, while of Romney’s 140 statements, only 31% were judged True or Mostly True. There were 28% of Obama statements judged Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire, with Romney’s statements coming in at 41%. I’ve skipped the category of “Half True” in the above because it seems too subjective to me: if a statement is half true, it must also be half false. Still, Romney had 28% of his statements judged Half True, while Obama came in with slightly less at 25%.
The devil’s in the details, of course, and one could spend a good long time on PolitiFact parsing and praising or disputing these ratings. But the overall picture is clear: Romney lies more often than Obama. We’ll see how all this plays out in the debates….
It seems that way to me too; I'll follow through on your recommendation, Joe but in the meantime, please check your inbox for an important message from an aspiring sponsor.
And Vassilis—have your read Pierre-Albert Jourdan? I'll write about him someday not too far off, but you should grab his book <i>The Straw Sandals: Selected Prose and Poetry</i>, translated by John Taylor and recently out from Chelsea Editions. Why? Here's a sample:<br /><br />A way of writing: as one prunes olive trees in order to aerate them and make sure that all their branches can be
Sleeping Mutts (sic), indeed, Vassilis. Perhaps this Mutt spent too many days curled up in a cage on the roof of a car and barks deceptively—that is, only to escape for a pee.<br /><br />When the owl hoos, truth is near. And thanks for the kind words about <i>Thread</i>, Dale. I follow it as best I can, of course, as many of us do….
If the standard of measure is need, and who needs, and who is served, we can determine truth pretty handily. The who who is not served is always the poor, increasingly become everyone other than the upper slight tier. Romney is certainly worse at revealing truth for the poorest who, saith owl. Still, who are either of the two likely to serve and who were the lowly who always forgotten?<br /><br /
Ah, c'mon Joe–be a good sport and let slipping Mutts (sic) lie.
Words, words, as if all worlds were there. Or something like that. So true, though I doubt the questions will be submitted ahead of time. Might as well be, though: the press is so cowed they ask little that could possibly produce a response and focus almost entirely on words, not deeds. Still—the circus has entertainment value….
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"all politicians lie" (?)<br />lying aside and since you mention Truth<br />I suggest that <br />the truth is with the politicians and that<br />everything eventually is reduced to politics<br />& a self-serving re:visionist history<br /><br />as a minister to duke Ching said when Ching offended the duke of Lu:<br />" "A gentleman who is at fault shows his regrets with