Posted by
reasonmclucus on Monday, October 06, 2008 4:18:07 PM
Why are journalists so naive about politicians? If they had any sense
they would realize that politicians are not the most truthful
individuals.
Some politicians lie to mislead voters. Others lie because they don't really know what they are talking about.
Legislative politicians are particularly prone to changing their
positions based on political expediency. Legislators can always blame
the executive branch if something goes wrong.
Members of the U.S. Senate have long been known for saying one thing in
the Senate and the opposite back home in the states they represent.
As Gov. Sarah Palin observed in the recent vice presidential debate,
Washington politicians often are for things before they are against
them or against things before they are for them.
Both presidential candidates have changed their positions on important
matters during the last year or so. Sen. Barack Obama first claimed
that he would accept public funding for his presidential campaign then
changed his mind. Sen. John McCain once supported realistic
immigration reform before he realized he needed the support of
anti-immigrant groups.
Presidential candidates will deliberately make false promises to get
elected. Sometimes they even lie to themselves. John F. Kennedy
probably believed he could get civil rights legislation through
Congress, but he failed to do so.
President Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916 with a slogan "He kept
us our of war." Less than six months after being reelected, President
Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
Herbert Hoover ran for president in 1928 promising "a chicken in every
pot and a car in every garage." A year after he was elected the stock
market crashed.
In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson said he wouldn't send "American boys"
to fight a war that should be fought by "Asian boys." A year after he
won the election paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade were
fighting for the lives against a much larger force in War Zone D in
Vietnam.
So why do journalists assume we can believe anything polticians say?
Why do journalists suggest we should evaluated presidential candidates
upon what they say rather than what they have done?
Perhaps journalists ignore the fact that polticians have lied in the
past because they have memories like a VHS tape. When they get to the
end of the tape they simply record over whatever they used to know.
Or. perhaps, today's journalists just aren't very smart. They don't
understand that politicians will deliberately lie if no one
challenges them with the truth. Journalists don't understand that
politicians, especially male politicians, often have a greatly inflated
sense of their own abilities.