Why the truth doesn't matter (to the Candidates)

After the first presidential debate, Factcheck.org reported, "We found exaggerations and false claims flying thick and fast during the first debate between President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney... Romney sometimes came off as a serial exaggerator." The Washington Post found that "Both President Obama and former governor Mitt Romney tossed out a blizzard of statistics and facts, often of dubious origin."

In the second presidential debate, the candidates were again found to be less than truthful. (SNIP)

It wasn't just in the debates that the truth was ignored. The New York Times reported that when Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan accepted their party's nomination, "The two speeches -- peppered with statements that were incorrect or incomplete -- seemed to signal the arrival of a new kind of presidential campaign, one in which concerns about fact-checking have been largely set aside." President Obama's speech, on the other hand, was found to be mostly true by The Washington Post. Factcheck.org analyzed the stump speeches Mitt Romney has given around the country and "found numerous instances of candidate spin in what Romney had to say." Obama, on the other hand, was found to be "leaving out or glossing over inconvenient facts, twisting others and sometimes stating things that aren't so." The Washington Post selected the five television ads from each side that have had the "greatest spending on them." Four out of five of the ads from each side were given either two or three "Pinocchios" (out of a possible four).

Posted this old story to keep the mods from deleting my post (they may anyway...seem to be doing a lot of that lately). Point is, the truth doesn't matter anymore to ANYONE, much less the candidates. We have sunk so low morally, that truth doesn't even come into account. It's all a matter of how many lying witnesses one can gin up to support one's version of events (look at the Middle East). All that matters now is numbers and sufficient weapons and armament.

I really love the use of the "Pinocchio" ratings given by this author. On his scale of four, the leftist, activists ,criminal parents of Michael Brown and the late Trayvon certainly have garnered the coveted four "Pinocchios" rating. As we slide toward almost certain civil war (wait until the medical record on Darren is released and especially when he is not indicted for anything), we must all remember that truth has nothing to do with any of it. It is all going to come down to who can eliminate the other side. Besides, look what happened in Haiti. What a beautiful outcome to trying to right some wrongs there.

Who coined the phrase, "The first casualty of War is Truth"?

In war, truth is the first casualty. Aeschylus Greek tragic dramatist (525 BC - 456 BC)

B Smith, Chicago IL USA

The most fundamental of the Chinese fifth century general Sun Tzu's principles for the conduct of war is that "All warfare is based on deception".

Ed Richardson, Deer Lake, Canada

In 1918 US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson is purported to have said: The first casualty when war comes is truth. However, this was not recorded. In 1928 Arthur Ponsonby's wrote: The 'When war is declared, truth is the first casualty'. (Falsehood in Wartime) Samuel Johnson seems to have had the first word: 'Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.' (from The Idler, 1758)

Peter Brooke, Mewmachar Scotland

Click here.

See how easy that was? Then, we have this:

Many websites and books claim that Greek writer Aeschylus (456-524 B.C.) penned a version of the aphorism centuries earlier, usually cited as “In war, the first casualty is truth.” But as Popik and other quote mavens have pointed out, no such quote exists in any of the written works of Aeschylus. Of course, when it comes to attributions of famous quotations, a common casualty is fact-checking, especially now that alleged “quotes” are often posted and reposted without any on the Internet.

So, who cares what the truth is? Say what you need to in order to stir people up to war. That, by the way, is MY quote.

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