An Honest Politician, Or, Lie to Us, Please

I realize that this story is somewhat dated, but, since The New York Times linked to an International Herald Tribune editorial on the subject, today, I figured the subject is still topical, especially with midterm elections approaching.

Recently, in a speech that wasn’t to be overheard except by the chosen ones, Hungarian prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany remarked,

"We’ve lied in the morning, in the evening and at night” about the budget, he said, in order to get re-elected.

(Above quote taken from The Honest Liar published online by Spiegel Online International.)

Anyway, this brought to mind Mencken’s The Politician, wherein he writes on politicians and their promises, as published in A Mencken Chrestomathy, and I quote,

They will all promise every man, woman and child in the country whatever he, she or it wants.  They’ll all be roving the land looking for chances to make the rich poor, to remedy the irremediable, to succor the unsuccorable, to unscramble the unscrambleable, to dephlogisticate the undephlogisticable.  They will all be curing warts by saying words over them, and paying off the national debt with money that no one will have to earn.  When one of them demonstrates that twice two is five, another will prove that it is six, six and a half, ten, twenty, n. In brief, they will divest themselves of their character as sensible, candid and truthful men, and become simply candidates for office, bent only on collaring votes.  They will all know by then, even supposing that some of them don’t know it now, that votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense, and they will apply themselves to the job with a hearty yo-heave-ho.  Most of them, before the uproar is over, will actually convince themselves.  The winner will be whoever promises the most with the least probability of delivering anything.

A Mencken Chrestomaty, 8. Government, The Politician, pg. 168

Posted by on 10/02 at 09:23 AM

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