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.”

   

Would 21st Century Media Destroy Wilson, Teddy and Taft?

Imagine if you will, running for President 100 years ago. Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat bested Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft that year. A grand total of 15 million people voted in that election. A hundred years later we might well wish that one of them, any one of them, was running this year instead of the candidates we have.

            On the other hand, I wonder whether Wilson, Roosevelt and Taft would look any better than today’s candidates if they had to endure our 21^st century media circus. One tremendous advantage to running in 1912 was the absence of practically every utterance made by the candidates since they entered public life, preserved on video and easily transmitted digitally on a moment’s notice.

            Did the voters in the election of 1912 know that after graduating from the University of Virginia law school, Woodrow Wilson had a “feeble law practice for about a year?” Wilson’s father defended slavery and even owned slaves. The man didn’t learn to read until he was ten. One can only wonder what Fox News, had they existed back then, could have done with this kind of “critical” information? Yet, President Wilson is often ranked as one of the top ten Presidents of all time.

            Former President Theodore Roosevelt, the trust buster, the walk softly and carry a big stick guy; a Republican turned progressive, is a legendary American, good enough (and tough enough) to have his profile chiseled on Mount Rushmore.  Did you know Roosevelt also ran for mayor of New York City and only managed to finish third? That’s right, third! He would present some problems for the pundits who screech for MSNBC though. He really was a trust buster who increased regulation of businesses.

           Just yesterday I heard Rachel Maddow criticize Governor Romney for announcing his selection of Congressman Paul Ryan on a battleship. She found it galling that he would do that since neither he nor Ryan ever served in the military. Would she have chided Teddy for being a trust buster when he never ran a publicly traded company?

          And here’s one of Teddy’s many quotes to ponder. “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.” In the political arena today would Roosevelt be accused of suggesting that higher education leads to crime? Try not to laugh. You know I’m right. Roosevelt also said, “A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.” Some things never change. The first President Roosevelt also makes most top ten lists.

            In the very weight conscious society we live in today, President Taft’s image, the man weighed 350 pounds, would have been a problem for him. But far more devastating was what he said in a letter to Yale University in 1899, ten years before he became President. “I believe in God. I do not believe in the divinity of Christ, and there are many postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe.” If he was running this year how long would his candidacy last? Taft, another Republican, doesn’t make any top ten lists I can find, but he did solid work as President and was later appointed the nation’s 10^th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He is the only man to serve in both capacities.

            Considering how much scrutiny our Presidential candidates are subjected to now, it’s a wonder that anyone is willing to run for the office. I’ve seen video of Mitt Romney as a 23 year old working to support his mother’s candidacy for the US Senate. People mercilessly combed through his comments, looking for inconsistencies. I would hate to be on the record for something I said at that age. We are all works in progress. Jesse Jackson said it very well in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1984, when he was 42 years old. “As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.”   

            Regardless of your preference in this year’s Presidential election, be slow to judge either candidate simply by what they say or the gaffes they will surely utter. Be wary of the pundits who need controversy to get you to tune in and are never happier then when they appear clever with words. Whoever wins will have an enormous job ahead of him. The problems we face are large enough that if our next President succeeds in solving them, there might well be a spot for him on Mount Rushmore.              

 Copyright 2012, Len Serafino. All rights reserved.