by Tommy Vaughan

Created on: March 11, 2007   Last Updated: May 06, 2008

Why do politicians lie? There are several reasons and they're all quite simple, really.

First of all, politicians lie because the average American simply doesn't want to hear the truth. And by "the truth," I mean the truth about anything, about any issue. Americans don't want to hear a politician tell them that their taxes will need to be raised to fund all of the programs and projects that the average American will say are important. Americans want to hear that they can have it all, government funding for everything and low taxes. No politician wants to be the one to get up there and be truthful about it. Former Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas famously uttered, "I'm not Santa Claus" during the primaries, basically explaining that he would raise taxes. He was beaten resoundingly in the primaries. In a sense, yes, politicians lie. But they're only telling us what they want us to hear.

Lying also comes about because politicians are beholden to so many different interests that it is easy to become tangled up, and simply tell the wrong thing to the wrong constituency. Politicians may technically get into office based on our votes, but they wouldn't be in a position to get our votes without the contributions of their campaign financiers, who start calling in favors immediately. When these favors come into conflict with the promises (or "lies," if you prefer) made to voters during the campaign, inevitably the lie comes out. The Democrats took Congress back in November based on both growing sentiment against the war and a prevailing sentiment that the GOP-led Congress was corrupt beyond repair. So part of the Dems' push to take Congress was a focus on ethics reform. Surprise, surprise, though. It's only March and already, many prominent Democrats are backpedaling away from the promises they made to clean up the environment at the Capitol. No doubt the promises of ethics reform have come into conflict with the interests of those who bankrolled the Democrats' return to power.

Finally, politicians lie simply because they believe they can get away with it. Getting elected to office, and attaining all the perks that come with said office will change a person. Every term, we see fresh-faced Senators and Congressmen run off to Washington vowing to change the system, and it never happens. They get a taste of the perks and the power, and it changes them. It creates an attitude of invincibility in due time, leading politicians to do brazen things and denying them when rumors of those deeds start to surface. Richard Nixon famously declared he wasn't a crook, which was an outright lie. But he did so, not only as an act of self-preservation, but because he undoubtedly believed he could and would get away with it. Right and wrong give way to the ultimate goal of self-preservation.

All politicians lie. And the sad truth is that it's pretty much because the truth is something far uglier than we want to hear.

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