I find it incomprehensible that all these political candidates have so much trouble getting their facts straight. It is true with everyone whether running for president, congress, governor, or city council.
Now we all understand that these people, particularly in the upper reaches, don’t write their own speeches. They have one or more professional speech writers that are directed by some political bosses and campaign managers as to what subjects should be run out at a given speaking event. The days when Abraham Lincoln wrote his own speeches and put editing notes in the margins are long gone. Now a candidate is handed a speech to skim over and it is in front of him/her on a teleprompter in most cases.
But, I don’t think that exempts the speech giver from the responsibility of making sure his/her comments are accurate and truthful. I haven’t heard a single speech in the last year that wasn’t riddled with inaccuracies and half-truths. I would have a speech writer’s head on a platter if I was given a speech that had lies and untruths salted through it.
To make things even worse, they are very glib at promising to do things that they simply can not do. A president can not change laws. A senator can not propose a balanced budget (budgets begin in the House, not the Senate). However, those little details don’t seem to keep the candidates from making all kinds of promises that they have no way of keeping, even if they have the best intentions (which is suspect at best).
How can we be expected to trust someone running for high office that can’t manage his/her speech writers and doesn’t demand a basic standard of truth and honesty in the speeches? A candidate for office that demanded that level of accuracy would earn my vote.
