The Obama campaign seems to have made a conscious choice lately to tell the truth about lying. When Sen. McCain, or one of his proxies, has lied about one of Sen. Obama’s positions, Sen. Obama himself (here), or one of his staffers (see above), says as much. And not with the usual hemming and hawing, the ever-so-carefully-couched-so-as-not-to-hurt-anyone’s-feelings rhetoric that we’ve all grown used to: “Well, if you look at the facts, they support our side of the story and not their contentions.” Nope, the Obama campaign appears to be saying that there are no stories, no contentions, just what’s true and what isn’t. It’s very pre-post-modern.
There are lots of ways to think about this strategy, if that’s what it actually is. For instance, there are the epistemological implications. About which, truth be told, I have very little to say (Neddy? Dana? Thoughts?). Other than, I suppose, that I’m cautiously optimistic that honesty, even about dishonesty, will elevate our political discourse by making it easier for knowledge to travel throughout the public sphere.
Meanwhile, I’m more interested in the historical precedents and the politics. On the former issue, I don’t think Eric Alterman’s book on presidential deception deals with accusations of lying during campaigns. So, absent a reliable source, I have to rely on my memory. And I’m drawing a blank. Come to think of it, the most telling example I can recall is of a candidate NOT calling his opponent a liar: during the 2004 vice presidential debate, when Dick Cheney claimed, falsely, that he had never met John Edwards in the Senate. Edwards, for some reason, didn’t reply by turning to the cameras and saying: “Vice President Cheney is lying. Like he lied about Iraq.” (I’m willing to admit that such a statement probably would not have worked out well for the Kerry campaign. But it would have made me feel better.)
As for the politics, I’m hopeful that the Obama campaign’s strategy is a good one. The time-tested reality is that Democratic decorum in the face of Republican untruths will be met with more spurious attacks. And the fair-and-balanced press, in recent years at least, hasn’t been much help. As a result, there have been very few consequences for lying about an opponent during a presidential campaign. At the same time, Sen. Obama himself has been careful thus far — as, I think, have his staffers — not to call Sen. McCain a liar. Instead, they’ve accused Sen. McCain, his campaign staff, and his surrogates of lying. As we’ve talked about here recently, this is an important distinction: between what a person does and what they are.
In the end, we’ll see how far Sen. Obama is willing to go with all this truth-telling. I have little doubt that Sen. McCain will stand on stage during the debates and lie about Sen. Obama’s positions. Will Sen. Obama then turn to the cameras and call him on it? That’s probably too much to ask. But one can hope — audaciously.
Update: Someone who actually knows something weighs in on this issue.
The Edge of the American West 
20 comments
August 11, 2008 at 6:03 am
Jason B
I like that Obama and his people are willing to call McCain out on the lies, but I think they need to do more. With the exception of the first claim in this video, all of these charges were refuted by mere assertion. Basically, what this piece says is “McCain’s campaign says X, Y, and Z, and they are lying.” What I’d rather see is “McCain’s campaign says X, Y, and Z, and they are lying–and here’s the evidence.” For the claims in this video that wouldn’t be difficult.
But I think this is a step in the right direction.
August 11, 2008 at 6:29 am
kid bitzer
yeah, step in the right direction. but the best moment comes at minute 3:02 or so; far too late.
you need to call lies ‘lies’ within the first 15 seconds. only policy wonks and diehard supporters are going to be listening at the three minute mark.
still–good ad, good delivery, and good on them for calling them ‘lies’.
August 11, 2008 at 6:30 am
politicalfootball
Jason, as the fellow in the video said, you need to go to Obama’s factcheck site. They’ve got the goods there.
Brevity counts for a lot in video. There’s no need to weigh this video down with the supporting documentation.
August 11, 2008 at 7:18 am
Jason B
Yeah, but I’m a nerd who appreciates downweighted video, and demand that the world join me in my obsessions.
August 11, 2008 at 7:47 am
zunguzungu
Wasn’t the “stop lying about my record” moment taken as a sort of death knell for Dole? I wonder if Dole’s “anger” was taken to signify that he was a weak challenger, whereas Obama can call McCain out on lying because McCain is the weak one. No one likes a loser, etc, so Obama comes off as using the kind of authority his superior position in the polls gives him; for Dole, the problem was that he was the underdog, and should have been more respectful?
August 11, 2008 at 8:04 am
dana
For instance, there are the epistemological implications. About which, truth be told, I have very little to say (Neddy? Dana? Thoughts?)
There’s things to say, but I don’t think epistemology comes into it much. What were you thinking?
zunguzungu, to my mind it’s all entirely in how it plays as a narrative, and to that extent you’re right. Obama’s popular, and when he comes out swinging, he doesn’t look like he’s whining.
I’m not sure it will succeed by I have to say I prefer ‘it’s like they take pride in being ignorant’ to the previous election strategies of ‘maybe it will confuse the rabbit if we run away more.’
August 11, 2008 at 9:28 am
ari
dana, I think I was thinking about the impact of calling a lie a lie, about naming something, in other words, and what a name means for a community’s shared knowledge of that thing. But given that I have no idea what I’m talking about, philosophically speaking, perhaps I was thinking about nothing at all. Now there’s some epistemology!
August 11, 2008 at 9:28 am
Neddy Merrill
Suppose the area is full of McCain-facades, Dana? What then?
August 11, 2008 at 9:29 am
Neddy Merrill
Oh noes Ari is teh continental philosopher!
August 11, 2008 at 9:37 am
dana
Suppose the area is full of McCain-facades, Dana?
Put the pedal to the metal and get out of fake barn country before you get eaten by a cleverly painted mule!
August 11, 2008 at 9:38 am
ben wolfson
Weiner is actually the person you want here, I think; despite Neddy’s carping ari’s comment of 9:28 is—how does one put it?—raises interesting issues, but isn’t really epistemology.
August 11, 2008 at 9:42 am
ari
ben, is that you? Are you alright? Surely what I said is stupid, right?
August 11, 2008 at 9:49 am
ben wolfson
I had the same confusion, ari, but the facts cannot be denied. It’s good to see that things are back to normal, though—and yes, I am “alright”.
August 11, 2008 at 9:58 am
ari
That was just for you, my friend. Sort of the rhetorical equivalent of holding a teaspoon in front of your nose. I must say that I’m relieved that you’re respirating.
August 11, 2008 at 11:50 am
ben wolfson
You’re a pal, ari.
August 11, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Matt W
Hi. Us analytic epistemologists of testimony could talk about how people take something’s not having been called a lie as a sign that it isn’t, perhaps, I don’t know. Maybe this old thing is relevant.
August 11, 2008 at 7:15 pm
ari
Thanks, Matt. I’m going to add an update, okay?
August 12, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Matt W
Thanks for the update, ari.
Maybe I should try to say something that’s more relevant to the matter at hand. I’ll ramble for a little….
One thing is that it’s not irrational for people to believe most of the things that they’re told. It is irrational for people to believe the things they’re told in advertisements, where the people telling them things have an obvious interest. But they may not discount them as much as they should anyway; and they may (perhaps reasonably) assume that the advertisements won’t contain outright lies. There are mechanisms in place to constrain those. Well, there aren’t really any such mechanisms in place for political ads; maybe the only mechanism is that if you’re negative enough it makes you look like an asshole (I think the “I approve this message” spots may have been salutary from this point of view), and that if you go far enough over the line maybe people will strike back. The lineaments of truth can be important here; not talking crazy, like that. (Though this can strike both ways; the simple truth about Bush or McCain is so implausible-sounding that if you told it people might assume you were lying. Big ups to the media here for never bothering with it.)
Which goes back to my previous comment — maybe if no one is saying that something is a lie, that’s a sign that there’s a grain of truth there, so calling it out as a lie takes that away. Of course there are also those studies showing that even if you tell someone outright that the story you just told them was a lie, its effects persist in their beliefs (see fifth paragraph here; Gilbert Harman in Change in View actually argues that this is rational, which is, um, controversial.) But then the impact of all this is probably somewhat limited anyway, there is probably a non-negligible number of people who think that Obama is a terrorist Muslim radical black Christian Antichrist and are going to vote for him anyway.
August 12, 2008 at 1:28 pm
ari
It’s the Harman stuff that’s most worrisome to me, particularly in light of the media’s ineffectual response to obvious Republican lies. I begin to worry that there’s very candidates can do to counter lies being told about them. That said, being honest about dishonesty may be a way of reinforcing the beliefs of one’s supporters more than swaying one’s detractors.
August 13, 2008 at 5:48 am
Matt W
Well this really gets outside the realm of my expertise, but I think another aspect is that people make decisions based on demeanor and affect. Obama is incredibly cool — this isn’t an original observation, but he’s like Jackie Robinson, he would never have made it this far without knowing that he had to be completely in control all the time. Which means that I think he might be able to turn McCain’s attacks back on him with a steadfast denial. Sort of the way Reagan did by saying “There you go again” whenever Carter scored a point. It would be far, far better if this dynamic turned on the merits of the case, but maybe it can work for good this time.
Of course the political scientists say elections turn on fundamentals, so this may all be hooey. Even so, I think (as per the link I posted) our society’s fact-checking mechanisms are badly broken.