There are limits, or at least there should be, to what a politician can say in a political campaign. It’s perfectly reasonable to point out your opponents shortcomings and failures. In fact, that’s your responsibility. If you don’t let us know what’s wrong with your opponent, who’s going to let
Liar
us know? Reporters?
Yeah, right. Reporters haven’t done that kind of thing for over a decade at least. As Stephen Colbert so accurately pointed out at that White House correspondent’s dinner back in the dark years, reporters today are mostly stenographers.
It’s not even a terrible transgression to somewhat exaggerate those flaws and shortcomings. That’s expected. The voters…well, most voters…O.K., some voters know enough to listen to what a politician says, deduct 90%, and you’re probably somewhere close to the truth. Nor is it considered a great sin to exaggerate your own accomplishments. Every average person does that at every job interview anyway, so everybody’s pretty familiar with the concept.
It’s generally considered bad form to flat out lie, but you can usually get away with it by issuing a statement saying you “misspoke” or you “were quoted out of context” even though you weren’t. A politician can also claim that they spoke in haste, under pressure, on an empty stomach (Joe Walsh) or, my favorite, “I chose my words poorly.” Like the guy talking to his divorce lawyer who says “It was all just a misunderstanding, a simple slip of the tongue. I meant to say ‘pass the butter’ but what I actually said was ‘you ruined my life, you fucking bitch.'” Poor word choice, that’s all.
Willard (Mitt) Romney can’t claim any of that. The phrase in question was in a taped advertisement. This is something his campaign spent some time working on. They can’t claim that it was a mistake. They can’t say it was in haste, or they were under pressure. They just flat out lied, and that’s that.
It was an ad that aired in New Hampshire, and they began the ad with a speech by Obama during the 2008 elections in which he said “If we talk about the economy, we lose.” Those words did actually pass Obama’s lips. However, he was quoting a member of McCain’s staff. He was not saying that he didn’t want to talk about the economy. He was saying that McCain didn’t want to talk about the economy.
It’s like when a film critic writes “I thought I would like the film, but you could see in the first 5 minutes that it was a dull, unoriginal, badly acted piece of crap and it just got worse from there” and then you see him quoted in the film’s advertisements saying “I…like the film.”
That is exactly, precisely what Romney did. In the land of intelligent voters (which has never existed in real life) that would be enough to end his campaign. I’m not holding my breath.
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