I Heard Him Say It, So It Must Be True

Once again, Senator Barack Obama has firmly stuck his foot right in his mouth. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, and say that it was merely a case of letting campaign rhetoric get the better of him, but I can’t. This is yet another example of him baldly lying.

"This," for those of you who may have missed it, is his recent statement that Senator John McCain wants to commit the United States to continue the fighting in Iraq for "the next hundred years." Now, that’s a spectacular statement. McCain also didn’t say anything of the kind, as Obama was forced to admit when a reporter, in a rare act of intellectual and journalistic honesty, pinned him down on the subject.

What Senator McCain actually said was that he saw no reason, if both the Iraqi government and the U.S. government were amenable to the idea, some sort of security relationship - including the stationing of U.S. troops in Iraq - couldn’t be continued, and he drew a direct parallel to the stationing of U.S. troops in Germany and Korea. For those of you who haven’t been counting, we’ve had troops in, and security relationships with, Germany for over sixty years and Korea for over fifty years.

*Sigh* But that isn’t what Obama said that McCain had stated. Nor would he have said anything other than "McCain wants to fight for a hundred years in Iraq" had he not been almost immediately called on that. Not that it matters, because you know what people are going to remember and continue to spread, even though it is untrue?

"John McCain wants to continue the war in Iraq for a hundred years."

I understand that Senator Obama wants to be the President. I also understand that there are enough issues, including the current Iraq policy, that divide the candidates which can be debated without resorting to blatant falsehoods. Nor, I think, does deliberately distorting positions and outright lying speak much for the good Senator’s judgement, which he claims as a cornerstone of his candidacy.

There is a sickness in American politics that favours form over substance. The thirty-second sound bite reigns supreme, and if it sounds good, run with it. Who cares if it’s true or not? Except that we do a profound disservice to ourselves every time we play that game. Why is it that we, as a people, place a sacred trust in our elected officials, but allow them at the same time to abuse that trust in order to get to the office they seek?