Americans
may see themselves as worldly cynics when it comes to political lying,
observing that all politicians do it. But Mitt Romney is testing the
limits with his ever-shifting positions and outright lies, notes
Lawrence Davidson.
By Lawrence Davidson
Mitt Romney might be the most brazen political liar since James Polk,
who served as the 11th U.S. president (1845-1849) and lied through his
teeth – to Congress, to his cabinet, to the newspapers – to get the
country into a war with Mexico.
Of course, other presidents have lied to a similar end, for instance
President Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War and President George W. Bush
on the Iraq War. But Polk operated with the same audacious “lying is
part of what I do” disposition that Mitt Romney does.
Republican
presidential nominee Mitt Romney with a new campaign slogan, "Clear
Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose!" (Photo credit: mittromney.com)
If one has any doubt about Mitt Romney’s mendacious temperament, the
first presidential debate should
have put it to rest. According to one analyst, Romney let loose with
“27 myths in 38 minutes,” finishing with a big grin after most of these
prevarications. He produced trumped-up assertions, false statistics and
wild exaggerations about taxes, energy independence, job creation, the
deficit, Medicare, “Obamacare,” and military spending.
If the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri came back to life today and
produced an updated list of lost souls for the “Inferno” section of his
Divine Comedy, Romney would certainly earn a spot in the
8th rung of hell.
That is where Dante placed, among others, the “falsifiers, those who
attempted to alter things through lies or alchemy.” Their punishment was
“based on horrible … diseases such as rashes, dropsy, leprosy and
consumption.”
By the way, there seems to be a suspicion that Romney also
cheated
during the first debate. The debate rules say that the candidates
cannot use “prepared notes.” However, a video of the debate shows that
he had put what looks like a white piece of paper down on his podium, or
maybe it was just his handkerchief. But who could believe that Romney
might cheat?
Some Specifics
The second presidential debate, scheduled for Oct. 16, will be
partially about foreign policy. As a run-up to the moment, Romney gave a
speech on foreign affairs. It should be kept in mind that between Oct.
8th and Oct. 16 he might completely change his positions. The man has
such a
flip-flop record that this is quite possible.
However, assuming he doesn’t do that, let’s take a look at just how truthful are his foreign policy statements:
As Robert
Parry points out in Consortium News,
Romney lied when he said Obama “has not signed one new free trade
agreement in the past four years.” Obama has in fact signed three (South
Korea, Panama and Columbia). Romney also lied when he said that Obama
was “silent” during the suppression of demonstrations in Iran after the
reelection of President Amadinejad. Obama spoke out on multiple
occasions.
By the way, one might not approve of NAFTA-style trade agreements. I
certainly don’t. But that does not make Romney’s lies about Obama’s
actions acceptable.
Parry goes on to detail how Romney’s accusation that Obama’s foreign
policy is “weak” is groundless. After all, he is talking about the man
who wages war in Afghanistan, helped bring down the dictatorship in
Libya, and took down Osama bin Laden. Parry explains that Romney credits
a lot of this to the U.S. military as if Obama had nothing to do with
it.
Once more, Obama’s foreign policy has much about it that can be
criticized. So, why do it through sheer falsehoods? Perhaps because
Romney actually has no problem with Obama’s actions, but does not want
the public to associate them with the president.
Then there is Romney’s sudden embracing of a Palestinian state when just a few months ago he described such a goal as
“almost unthinkable to accomplish.”
At that time the reason he gave for his position was that Palestinians
are not interested in peace. That was an outrageous lie.
It is hard to believe that he has now changed his mind. More likely
he is attempting to preclude any charge that he has abandoned the search
for peace, even as he asserts that Obama has not displayed leadership
toward that same end.
When it comes to the Arab Spring, Obama allegedly missed “an historic
opportunity to win new friends and share our values in the Middle
East.” Who would these friends be? Those fighting against “evil tyrants
and angry mobs who seek to harm us.”
This is so much gobbledygook. Most of the evil tyrants are our
longstanding old friends and the angry mobs are the only hope for any
governmental improvement.
Parry points out that the real difference between Romney and Obama is
that Romney is much more the militarist. He has embraced neocon
advisers, given carte blanche to Israel and verbally attacked Russia as
“without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe.”
All of this suggests that between Obama (who is certainly no saint
and has plenty of blood on his own hands) and Romney, it is the latter
who is more likely to get the nation into yet another war. As Juan
Cole has observed, “wars and lots of other conflicts are not a foreign policy vision, they are a nightmare.”
Does Lying Work?
So, does this serial falsification work? Can it actually help get a
mythomanic elected president? It seems that the answer is yes.
According to a
Pew Research Center poll taken
after the first Obama-Romney debate, “It’s official. Republican
presidential nominee Mitt Romney…erased President Barack Obama’s lead.”
According to a graph of the poll results Romney’s picked up five
percentage points to come even with Obama. Sixty-four percent of voters
“thought that Romney was more informative than President Obama.”
The liar is more informative!? How is that possible? Well, you start
with a lot of ignorance. The ignorance is not a function of lack of
intelligence, but a function of lack of accurate contextual knowledge.
As a consequence the level of understanding of the average American
about government policy on national issues such as health care, energy
independence, job creation, the deficit, military spending and even
taxes is considerably lower than their average IQ. It is even
worse when we get to foreign policy and its formulation.
Into the resulting knowledge vacuum come the misleading statements
and assertions of politicians, so-called experts, and media spokesman of
all descriptions. Fox News has made millions of dollars selling
advertising that accompanies biased opinion passed off as fact.
In the end what the majority of Americans think they know about both
domestic and foreign policy is based on media hear-say. Romney’s
assertive and stylized lying fits well into this scenario. And his style
also passes for strength and self-confidence.
Is it Pathological?
Romney’s lying is so pervasive, so ever-present, that one starts to
wonder if it is pathological. There is a mental illness characterized by
habitual lying. It goes by the name of Pseudologia Fantastica. Here are
some of the characteristics of this ailment:
a. The lies told “are not entirely improbable” and “upon
confrontation, the teller can admit them to be untrue, even if
unwillingly.” In other words, the liar is aware that he or she is lying.
b. The lies told cast the teller in a favorable light.
c. The tendency to lie is a long-lasting one and not the product of the moment. It reflects an innate trait of the personality.
Well, Romney fits this pattern when it comes to the first two traits.
It is hard to tell about the third. We will have to await the in-depth
biographies that are certain to hit the market in short order. However,
there is no doubt that the man has an easy facility for lying. One
doubts if it keeps him up at night.
When the powerful lie it is a problem for all of us. That is because
we do not usually act on the basis of what is true. Rather we act on the
basis of what we think is true. When it comes to foreign policy, what
the powerful and the media tell us is what most of us accept as true.
This distinction between what is true and what we think is true is
critically important. If what we believe is true approximates the
reality outside of us, then our plans and actions usually work out. If,
however, what we think is true is off the mark, we can end up walking
right off a cliff.
In the last 50 years Americans have been walking off cliffs quite
regularly, with the result that millions have been killed and maimed.
They have done so in large part because they have a hard time knowing
when they are being lied to, especially about foreign policy.
If the Pew poll cited above is any predictor, nothing is going to
change any time soon. Elect Mitt Romney and that walk toward the cliff
might turn into a run. Reelect Obama, and the cliff will probably remain
our self-destructive destination, but perhaps the pace will be more
measured.
Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest; America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism.
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