Seriously? We need Fact Checkers?

President Washington says he loves America and will do whatever it takes to protect the environment. Yet he’s proud of chopping down the cherry tree. How many more trees will he chop down? You can make him stop. Vote for me on Election Day. I’m John Adams and I approved this message.

            Obviously, John Adams never ran an ad like this. Hardly anyone had a television in 1792. And fact checkers wouldn’t appear on the scene for another 220 years. They are a fact of life now though. With good reason I’m afraid.     

In his speech at the Republican Party’s convention last month, Mitt Romney said that Obama began his presidency with an apology tour. According to factchecker.org, the President did no such thing.   

In his speech to the Democratic national convention the President said U.S. automakers are “back on top of the world.” But factchecker.org says GM has slipped back to No. 2 and is headed for third place in global sales this year, behind Toyota and Volkswagen.

When our Presidential candidates are bending the truth or telling outright lies we all lose. There is an ocean of information for voters to wade through as they try to discern which candidate is more likely to move the nation in the right direction. It would help tremendously if we weren’t forced to distinguish information from misinformation. 

Am I the only one that’s bothered by the fact that we actually need organizations like factcheck.org and Pinocchio Tracker? If you’re running for President aren’t voters entitled to assurances that you won’t lie to us? You might think that presidential candidates would be highly insulted by the very accusation that they lied, that he or she would excoriate the person or organization making such a claim. Shouldn’t lying, at least the bold faced variety, disqualify a candidate from the race?

But that’s not the way it works in 2012, far from it. In fact, Romney pollster Neil Newhouse told an ABC News panel, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” He said this in response to accusations that a Romney ad suggesting that Obama was removing work requirements for welfare eligibility was dead wrong.

When Delaware Governor Jack Markel said at the Democratic National convention that Mitt Romney likes to fire people, he deliberately took the Governor’s words out of context. Romney was clearly referring to health insurance providers and the services they provide.  In fact, Romney was simply stating he likes to be able to fire people who don’t provide good service. Honestly, don’t we all? His comments had nothing whatsoever to do with taking pleasure in firing workers.

One of the most insidious effects of campaigns that play games with the truth is the way they distract us from the real issues. When Newt Gingrich called President Obama “the best food stamp president in American history,” there were charges that he was oversimplifying the issue. The number of people on food stamps rose in seven out of the eight years Bush was president, in part due to changes in program policy. It’s also true that Obama inherited an extremely distressed economy. Regardless, when the debate devolves into a he said/she said contest, there is very little room for useful debate. Is it too easy to get food stamps, just right too hard? If 15% of the population really needs food stamps, what are we going to do to solve the problem? Arguing over which political party is at fault or what the real numbers are is self defeating. If our candidates can’t even agree on facts, chances of finding a solution are obviously reduced.

Is it any wonder voters are cynical? We are being asked to choose between leaders who are cynical about voters. They ask for our trust but don’t trust us in return. Then there’s the cynical media circus. Filled mostly with partisans, they strangle the airwaves with minutiae which deprive us of facts, options and learned opinions to help us grasp the issues. The paradox of our times is that we live in an era when the issues are more complex than ever while the discussion becomes less sophisticated every election cycle.

In his farewell address George Washington said, “I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is the best policy.”