How to Tell a Truthful Lie

The GOP and their truthful lies — is this a version of Colbert’s “truthiness?”

In the third GOP “grown-up” debate on Wednesday a couple of Pinocchio whoppers came out. Most have been dissected by the many fact checkers on the Internet. But four of these fascinated me because they shared an intriguing feature: they sound like they’re true because, in some strange and unappealing way, they are.

My favorite was when Christie, in a rare moment when a Republican seems to accept climate change, bragged that his state of New Jersey is 3rd in the nation in solar energy. This is true. But they used to be 2nd. He lowered the state’s involvement so that they’re now 8th in installations and are headed down. They’ll soon be 4th. He’ll probably brag about that.

Close behind was Fiorina who claimed she’d added tens of thousands of jobs at HP. This is true in the same weird way. After firing tens of thousands of employees because of her initial cost-cutting efforts they then bought Compact. If you now count the employees that came with the deal, they “added” all those jobs.

Coming in third here was Trump who maintained, yet again, that he’s totally self-funded. He’s not. First, the nearly $2 million in funds he supplied to get things started weren’t “given.” He loaned the money to the campaign. Moreover, records show that only some $100k in expenditures in recent months are from Trump’s bankroll. The rest came from outside contributions.

Just missing the money here is Ben Carson who said he has no “involvement” with the drug supplement maker Mannatech, that such claims were “propoganda” — implying they came from some liberal reporter or evil Democrat. He just gave, he said, a few paid speeches and, it was soon discovered, was paid to make a video endorsing their products. I can only guess that “involvement” doesn’t count if you’re paid for it.

A lot of politicians play this game but these folks have mastered the art of telling the truth while lying through your teeth.