Mitt Romney's Deception

We pay a very steep price for our democracy. In the midst of all this freedom to express ourselves however and believe whatever, we must face the terrible prospects of political advertisements in election years. Notoriously deceptive, these commercials invade the airwaves and our television screens for several months on a semiannual basis. But how much do politicians lie in their messages? Let us look at this ad for Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign.

This advertisement performs the classic trick of turning one's opponent's words against them. Often, this includes distorting the intended meaning or context of the phrase being used. Does Romney's campaign lower itself to this level? Yes, they do.

First of all, the speech that the Romney campaign references was not delivered on July 24, 2012 as the commercial suggests, but on July 23 2012. This could be interpreted as a pointless act of deception, used to make it harder for fact-checkers to look at Obama's entire speech to make sure Romney was accurate. The far more likely scenario, however, is that the person making the video simply made an honest mistake and typed in the incorrect date.

To check whether the Romney campaign was being totally honest, let us look at the text of Obama's speech. The line in question, which is a little more than half-way down the page, comes after Obama explains his plan - to raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 per year - and how the same thing worked during the Clinton administration. Despite what Romney For President claims, therefore, President Obama was not asserting that the current recovery has worked, or even that he has had a chance to try his plan during his presidency. Rather, he was referring to the successes of tax increases during the Clinton years.

The Romney campaign distorted President Obama's words. They stated a mistruth to the general public. They lied. But what is perhaps more disturbing is the frequency with which this occurs in American politics. Because the Federal Communications Commission does not regulate how accurate political advertisements have to be, politicians can lie with impunity, as long as the public doesn't realize it. Both sides do it, too. There are many examples of Obama for America advertisements with varying levels of deception. During the month of October in years that are multiples of two and especially four, we are constantly bombarded with lies, mistruths, deception, and trickery. What is worse is that we carry all of that to the polls with us. We elect officials partially based on false information. What does it mean for our democracy that our very government is run by the people who are the best liars? Frankly, it's a terrifying thought.