“Truthiness,” that delightful word coined by Stephen Colbert, is very important to America’s voters.
Most of us have been guilty of being ignorant of facts, taking them out of context, exaggerating or massaging them, or only telling part of the truth to enhance our image, but politicians have elevated misstatement, spin and prevarication to a new level.
So who can we trust to run our government? Some more than others.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact regularly fact-checks the statements made by presidential candidates for truth and accuracy. In this campaign season, Hillary Clinton had more True or Mostly True statements than any of the original or present Republican candidates, tying Bernie Sanders for that honor.
There were three people who had slightly better records – Barack Obama, Martin O’Malley and, best of all, Bill Clinton, whose public statements PolitiFact has monitored since 2007.
At the other end of the scale, it is perhaps not surprising that three-quarters of Donald Trumps statements were Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire, which makes him probably the most dishonest person to run for president in our lifetime.
This alone, even if he weren’t emotionally unstable, a narcissist, inexperienced and intellectually lazy, would disqualify him for the presidency of the most powerful nation in the world.
Cynthia Muse
Rye