Opinion Economical with the truth

OK fine,he didn’t say it exactly like that. I attached the bulk of a sentence near the start of his remarks to the last word of a later sentence,and his “worst” sentiment in its original form referred to the predicament of oven-bound turkeys. Even so. He did utter each of those syllables,in that precise order. I smell a Mitt Romney ad in the making.

There are still more than 11 fractious months before the 2012 election,but already the main players’ approach to the truth is rather like a Veg-o-Matic’s to carrots and celery. They slice and dice it,and serve craven political crudités.

The week before last,Perry released a commercial that lambasted Obama for calling Americans lazy,though Obama’s comment was that the country’s government and corporate community had been somewhat lazy over recent decades about attracting foreign investment.

And last week,Romney released a commercial with footage in which Obama stated,“If we keep talking about the economy,we’re going to lose.” As it happens,Obama was describing how the McCain campaign assessed its situation during the 2008 election. The Romney TV spot dispensed with all that pesky context.

Buckle up,folks. This presidential race is shaping up to be an especially mean and mendacious ride,and not just because the two Republicans currently in the lead,Romney and Newt Gingrich,have demonstrated a talent for improvisation,starting with thorough revisions of their own positions on health care,climate change and such. But their specific distortions are no more worrisome than the backdrop against which this campaign unfolds,one of toxic partisanship and breathless hyperbole.

Facts count for little when there’s fear mongering to be done. Just ask Michele Bachmann,the source of the ludicrous assertion,ginned up to smear Perry,that a vaccine for the human papillomavirus causes mental retardation.

Is all of this hot air part of a broader climate of unprincipled hucksterism? As a country we’ve shifted emphasis from goods to services,manufacturing to marketing,and everyone natters on about the importance of brand rather than the quality of product. I think politics has followed suit,and politicians,stuck in a sclerotic system that renders real accomplishment difficult,lavish more energy on words than on elusive deeds. What matters is what they can convince voters of and how voters are left feeling about them and their foes.

Look at the deficit-reduction supercommittee. As it sputtered to the finish line,how did its members spend the final days? The endgame wasn’t about outcomes. It was about positioning.

The raw state of the electorate and the prospect of an extremely close race between Obama and his opponent also suggest that the 2012 presidential campaign could take on a desperate,profoundly dishonest edge. Obama isn’t there yet,but he also won’t be in the thick of things until he knows who his Republican adversary is.

When that happens,how low will his own road go? It’s worth noting that in 2008,when he ridiculed McCain for supposedly not wanting to talk about the economy,he used the words of an unnamed McCain adviser,who had spoken anonymously to a reporter. So last week’s misleading Romney ad corrupted material that was corrupt to begin with.

Candidates clearly don’t envision much of a penalty on Election Day for having slung mud and tortured the truth in attacking opponents. I bet Romney’s aides expected — and saw an upside to — the charges of foul play prompted by their ad. The coverage of it reached many more voters than the ad itself did. If Romney came across as shifty in the process,well,that was apparently a small price to pay.

But there’s a larger cost,borne not just by the candidates but,sadly,by the rest of us,too. Campaigns waged with lies presage governments racked by distrust. And I don’t think this country can endure much more of it without lasting damage.