This article notes who is telling the most lies in this Campaign. The order of the most lies is Carson is the worst liar, then Trump, then Cruz and then Dick Cheney. In the past Cheney was one of the biggest liars in politics but now Carson and Trump compete for 'Biggest Liars' today.
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regularly tell untruths
The Opinion Pages |
Campaign Stops
All Politicians Lie. Some Lie More Than Others.
Washington
— I’m a political fact-checker, which is usually an automatic
conversation starter at parties. These days, I get two questions
repeatedly: “Is it worse than it’s ever been?” and “What’s up with
Donald Trump?”
I’ve been fact-checking since 2007,
when The Tampa Bay Times founded PolitiFact as a new way to cover
elections. We don’t check absolutely everything a candidate says, but
focus on what catches our eye
as significant, newsworthy or potentially influential. Our ratings are
also not intended to be statistically representative but to show trends
over time.
Donald J. Trump’s record on truth and accuracy is astonishingly poor. So far, we’ve fact-checked more than 70 Trump statements
and rated fully three-quarters of them as Mostly False, False or “Pants
on Fire” (we reserve this last designation for a claim that is not only
inaccurate but also ridiculous). We haven’t checked the former
neurosurgeon Ben Carson as often as Mr. Trump, but by the percentages Mr. Carson actually fares worse.
Carly Fiorina, another candidate in the Republican race who’s never held elective office, does slightly better on the Truth-O-Meter (which I sometimes feel the need to remind people is not an actual scientific instrument): Half of the statements we’ve checked have proved Mostly False or worse.
Most
of the professional politicians we fact-check don’t reach these depths
of inaccuracy. They tend to choose their words more carefully.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, for example, has ratings
of Mostly False, False and Pants on Fire at the 40 percent mark (out of
a sizable 117 statements checked). The former Florida governor Jeb
Bush’s negative ratings are at 32 percent out of 71 statements checked, a
percentage matched by two other Republican contenders, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Senator Rand Paul.
In the Democratic race, Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton
are evenly matched at 28 percent (based on 43 checks of Mr. Sanders and
140 checks of Mrs. Clinton). Outside of the primary campaign, we’ve
continued checking the public statements of Bill Clinton since 2007; he comes out slightly ahead of President Obama in his truth-telling track record.
Falsehood Face-Off
Statements since 2007 by presidential candidates (and some
current and former officeholders) ranked from most dishonest over all to
least dishonest, as fact-checked by PolitiFact. “Pants on Fire” refers
to the most egregious falsehoods.
Percent Mostly
False and worse:
Half False,
Half True
Pants
on Fire
Mostly
False
False
Percent
True or
Mostly True
Ben Carson
Donald J. Trump
Ted Cruz
Dick Cheney
Rick Santorum
Carly Fiorina
Marco Rubio
Lindsey Graham
Chris Christie
Rand Paul
Joseph R. Biden
Jeb Bush
Bernie Sanders
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
Martin O'Malley
Bill Clinton
84
76
66
59
55
50
40
34
32
32
32
32
28
28
26
25
24
4
7
22
30
22
28
38
34
41
47
39
48
54
51
48
19
50
%
%
50%
Mostly True
True
The
president has the distinction of being the most fact-checked person by
PolitiFact — by a wide margin, with a whopping 569 statements checked.
We’ve rated nine of those Pants on Fire.
Even
though we’re in the midst of a presidential campaign full of falsehoods
and misstatements, I see cause for optimism. Some politicians have responded to fact-checking journalism by vetting their prepared comments more carefully and giving their campaign ads extra scrutiny.
More
important, I see accurate information becoming more available and
easier for voters to find. By that measure, things are pretty good.
Mr. Trump’s inaccurate statements, for example, have garnered masses of coverage. His claim that he saw “thousands of people” in New Jersey cheering the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, grabbed headlines but the stories were about the rebuttals.
When Ms. Fiorina mischaracterized a video about Planned Parenthood during an early debate, it was a significant part of the post-debate coverage, while Mrs. Clinton’s sometimes misleading statements about her email accounts have been generating close, in-depth scrutiny for most of 2015.
Today’s
TV journalists — anchors like Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper and George
Stephanopoulos — have picked up the torch of fact-checking and now grill
candidates on issues of accuracy during live interviews. Most voters
don’t think it’s biased to question people about whether their seemingly
fact-based statements are accurate. Research published earlier this
year by the American Press Institute showed that more than eight in 10 Americans have a positive view of political fact-checking.
In
fact, journalists regularly tell me their media organizations have
started highlighting fact-checking in their reporting because so many
people click on fact-checking stories after a debate or high-profile
news event. Many readers now want fact-checking as part of traditional
news stories as well; they will vocally complain to ombudsmen and readers’ representatives when they see news stories repeating discredited factual claims.
That’s
not to say that fact-checking is a cure-all. Partisan audiences will
savage fact-checks that contradict their views, and that’s true of both the right and the left. But “truthiness” can’t survive indefinitely in a fact-free vacuum.
If
Mr. Trump and his fans saw video of thousands of people cheering in New
Jersey, why has no one brought it forward yet? Because it doesn’t
exist.
Fact-checking’s
methodology emphasizes the issue at hand and facts on the ground.
Politicians can either make their case or they can’t. Candidates’ fans
may complain about press bias, but my impression is that less partisan
voters pay a lot of attention to these media moments, especially when
elections are close and decided by a few percentage points. Trust and
integrity are still crucial assets for a politician.
Contrary
to the prophecies that truth in politics is doomed, I’m encouraged by
the effect that fact-checking is having. When friends conclude
despondently that the truth doesn’t matter, I remind them that people
haven’t started voting yet. I don’t take current polls too seriously
because data suggests that most people don’t settle on a candidate until much closer to casting their vote.
In
the end, it’s the voters who will punish or reward candidates for what
they’ve said on the campaign trail. I’m confident that Americans have
the information they need to help them choose wisely.
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