Oh, Politicians

"Sarah Palin is charming, attractive, and likeable. But she needs to hit the books," one political commentator says.

I tend to agree with this. If you’ve ever watched Sarah Palin, you can see that she’s kind of sweet and definitely not malicious. You can even argue that you have to be pretty smart to be able to deflect even the most pointed questions the way she does and to work in as many hits against Democrats as she does.

But if there’s one thing I learned from school, it’s that no one studies unless they are truly passionate about the subject or otherwise extremely motivated. Right now, there is no need for her to study up, because she's not losing supporters over her mistake since she's not ADMITTING her mistake.

Another newspaper article commenting on Palin's "Paul Revere warned the British" gaffe says her lack of historical knowledge is a reflection of our nation’s general historical ignorance. (Note to self: take a history course next semester, no matter how many reams of course packets you have to buy).

I think a way to enlarge the significance of Palin’s mistake is to see how it reflects our political system. I think Palin misspoke, and she knows it. But she insists, even when given the chance to correct herself, that she was right because our political system encourages lying as a means of going into public service.

Now let’s assume that Palin has good intentions, that she really intends to implement changes that she believes will help our nation. But in order to get there, she has to save face. To win votes, you have to reveal as few shortcomings as possible, and that practically necessitates lying.

There are already too many cases to count, but the most recent are Anthony Weiner and Arnold Schwarzennegger (he actually stopped lying when his governorship ended).

We all understand that lying to win votes is just a stepping stone to getting elected, where the politician hopes he can then earn the people’s trust by bettering our country. My concern is, has our political system gotten to the point where it pushes politicians to lie in order to get ahead, get votes (but only in order to do good once he's in office), but the lying itself already does more harm than any good that can be gained from it?

Politicians are going further and further in the content and methods of their lies. Let’s reexamine the 3 cases:

-Palin: her followers went so far as to change the Wikipedia entry about Paul Revere’s ride and then to keep insisting that Revere warned the British that the Americans were armed. So her lying has distorted an important historical event for millions.

-Weiner: he was going to open a federal investigation to find out who hacked his Twitter. He refuses to resign, saying that he never had any physical contact with the women he had online relationships with. I am actually ambivalent on this one. Yes, his lies were atrocious and his morals and personality is kind of disturbing, but he is smart, and really well-informed. I think there's the same issue with Bill Clinton - does morality in private life necessarily translate to public morals? I suppose it's the fact of lying (not the content of the lies) that connects the two.

-Schwarzennegger: his mistress was living in his house for years and gave birth at the same time as his wife. Trust me, he won't be back.