The SuperPACs and the Citizens United ruling that gives corporations a voice in the political process are all bad news. They made it so you can now lie, and the politician being promoted on that lie will not be held responsible for it.
I also focus on Bush and his administration - who do a lot of lying - and how a right-wing media has allowed them to get away with a lot of stuff that, in a different media environment, they probably wouldn't be able to get away with.
The more they do to expose themselves as who they are - but remember, now, most liberals hide who they are, particularly liberal Democrat officeholders and people running for office. They lie about their agenda. They lie about what they believe. They lie and mask who they are.
It's weird watching President Bush struggle with excuses for why we went to war. As he struggles, it reminds us all what a terrific liar Bill Clinton really was.
How you can win the population for war: At first, the statesman will invent cheap lying, that impute the guilt of the attacked nation, and each person will be happy over this deceit, that calm the conscience. It will study it detailed and refuse to test arguments of the other opinion. So he will convince step for step even therefrom that the war is just and thank God, that he, after this process of grotesque even deceit, can sleep better
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
...the definition of swiftboating is: producing irrefutable evidence that a Democrat is lying.
When Trump lied and claimed credit for 'the greatest economy in the history of our country,' even though it wasn't, and even though he inherited a strong economy, and goosed it up with trillions of dollars in debt, it didn't matter to most people.
Frankly, most governments are used to lying to each other - to a degree that most people would find shocking. Part of diplomacy is the art of strategic lying.
Lying in the political sphere has gotten out of hand, and because people tend to dismiss things that challenge their preconceived notions of the world, fact checkers can only play a small part in remedying the problem.
To be honest, I find most politicians very untrustworthy. When I listen to them talking - or rather, lying - I just feel there are very few politicians with integrity, so I never know who to bat for.
You must understand printing lies about Republican candidates is OK. It's called vetting. Printing the truth about liberals - that's called "swift-boating."