Politicians never lie, of course; they merely "embellish the truth." And if we call them on it, there could be dire consequences:
Some of Johnson's allies say it is a dangerous precedent to punish a politician for exaggerating. But Republican Sen. Mike McGinn, a former police officer, said some lies are too big.
"The consequences of this lie are far more serious than lying about the size of the fish you caught at the governor's fishing opener," McGinn said. "It's not just a little white lie. It's a huge lie."
Comments
That's part of the problem with politics today, everyone claims to be telling the truth to the american people and they are all lying to some degree, ... if I "embellished" the truth as much as they all do, I'd lose my job in a heartbeat.
Of course politicians lie Leo...
Lets look at Mark Souder...
Mark promised to serve a maximum of 12 years. The 12 years are up and he is running for re-election again.
Mark promised to debate all challengers and is cowering from a debate with Mr. Larsen.
Mike Sylvester
Lie or misrepresentation. Our representatives use the Unified budget to show a lower deficit? In 2005 they report a unified budget deficit of $525 Billion, but a general budget deficit of $726 Billion.
Lie or misrepresentation? Surplus social security revenues were spent on general budget expenses. Using the unified budget, it would appear they were, but in reality the general budget clearly shows they were not.
Lie or misrepresentation? Altmeyer 1944, "Inevitably, when the time comes to increase the taxes, many reasons can always be advanced as to why the imposition of the additional taxes is unwise or impossible. In this country we are still in a position to avoid these mistakes by getting clearly established now that if our people want social insurance they must be willing to pay for it. The time to obtain the necessary contributions is when people are able to pay for the insurance and are willing to pay for it because they can be shown that they are getting their money's worth. If we should let a situation develop whereby it eventually becomes necessary to charge future beneficiaries rates in excess of the actuarial cost of the protection afforded them, we would be guilty of gross inequity and gross financial mismanagement, bound to imperil our social insurance system."
Can you just say no to two more years?
Exaggeration and lying are two different things for me and probably for a lot of other voters. If a politician exaggerates it's a matter of degrees of performance toward agreed goals, while the basic values remain as advertised.
Lying is promising one thing to win and doing the opposite in office. When a leader whips out a different agenda after the election than the majority bargained for, it can't be spun as exaggeration.
A simple example: The Democrats are not "exaggerating" when they promise "We don't want to take your guns." They're bald-faced lying. John Kerry, as you will recall, thought he was pretending to be a defender of the Second Amendment in '04, when he wore camouflage costume and a goose gun for a photo op (liberals falsely believe that the amendment's text guarantees guns suitable for "hunting" and "sports" rather than the people's security).
At the same time as the duck hunt, Kerry was interrupting his campaign swing to rush down to D.C. and vote with Kennedy, Schumer and Feinstein to try to further infringe gun rights, illegalize a flock of additional guns and ban ALL rifle ammunition virtually without exception.
You can't sell the idea that Kerry was only exaggerating his love of Article II of the Bill of Rights; he was brazenly lying to all gun owners to try to get elected on fraudulent terms. You may argue Bush's penchant for spending, but he is largely who he told us he was.
I don't like liars no matter what they do for a living. I have always felt that lying to voters was cheating to win. I have never believed that politicians should be permitted to operate as though the end justified dishonest means. If I have to choose between accomplished shysters and aspiring public servants, it's no contest.
If we disqualify athletes for doping and students for plagiarizing, there's even more reason to prevent candidates from using con artist tactics against us.