Staying above the cesspool of lies and deceit

Recent Post

Leaving a real legacy: Beyond the spin and the smokescreen

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Homecoming, Part 2

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Homecoming, Part 1

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Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Ground zero of the health-care debate

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Can a Third Force win in the 2010 Philippine elections?

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No, the Philippines is not the only country drowning in a cesspool of political lies and deceit. The peak of the election season in the US is revealing a rather ugly side of American politics. Awash with campaign cash for advertising, both political parties fire ammunition from an arsenal of twisted truths and downright lies and deceptions.

Take the case of the McCain-approved TV ads that claim Obama will raise taxes on the middle class, including families making just US$42,000 a year. In fact, Obama’s economic plan will produce a tax cut for a vast majority of all working families, as confirmed by Len Berman of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) to FactCheck.org. Specifically, households earning between US$37,595 and US$66,354 a year can expect to save US$1,118 on taxes under the Obama plan. TPC’s analysis of the McCain plan, on the other hand, will yield an average savings of only US$325.

The week after Sarah Palin’s political star lit up what started as a relatively dull Republican convention, we may be seeing a deflation of what is arguably a Palin bubble. She claims she is a maverick, citing her opposition to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. In reality, she pushed for the project while running for governor of Alaska. As soon as it became clear that Congress had pulled the plug on the project (after the pork barrel fiasco became national news fodder), she too turned against it.

In her interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson the other day, Palin was also caught loose with her “facts.” To bolster her background on energy policy, she claimed that the state of Alaska “produces nearly 20% of the US domestic supply of energy.” According to the US Energy Information Administration, the correct figure is 3.5%. I never knew the real etymology of alaskahan (a Tagalog word that means kidding around), but we may have stumbled upon a neat linguistic link all the way to Alaska.

Of course, the Obama camp is not without sin either. One Obama ad cites five votes in which McCain allegedly favored cuts in education funding. In reality, one of the votes was for an increase in funding. The ad further claims that “McCain’s economic plan gives US$200 billion more to special interests while taking money away from public schools.” In fact, the “US$200 billion more to special interests” refers to the loss of revenue over five years as a result of McCain’s proposal to lower the corporate tax rate for all businesses, certainly not just for a handful of oil companies.

The bottom line: voters should be wary of political claims and counter-claims. In political science, we know of the captive constituency, the ideologues, and the more independent and discerning voters. At a time when America’s viability as an economic power and as a functioning democracy is being shaken, it is counterintuitive to think that we don’t want more of the latter.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions advanced in this article is the author’s own, and may not necessarily represent the views and opinions of THE LOBBYiST, its editors, or its publishers.

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