It may seem like a small point, but is it? In "The Mendacity of Hope: What We Want to Believe About Obama" Richard Cohen talks about politicians and lies. I have long believed that our political system is structured in a way that it almost forces our politicians to lie to us.John Edwards lied about the cost of his haircuts. Fred Thompson lied about lobbying for a pro-choice outfit. John McCain insists that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation." Mitt Romney concocted the story about how his father marched with Martin Luther King Jr. And Rudy Giuliani is a one-man fib machine -- everything from why he had to provide police protection for his then-mistress to the survivability rates for prostate cancer in Britain. Yet it is something Barack Obama said that bothers me most of all because Obama is a new kind of politician. He is supposed to be coolly authentic.
What concerns me is the lie or fib or misstatement -- call it what you want -- involved in Obama's assertion that more young black men are in prison than in college. It is a shocking statistic -- and it is wrong. But when The Post's lonesome but formidable truth squad, Michael Dobbs, brought this to the attention of the Obama campaign, he not only got the brushoff but the assertion was later repeated.You can appreciate the usefulness of this false claim. It says something compelling about the plight of young, black males that is essentially true -- their condition amounts to a calamity and something has to be done. But this particular comparison is wrong, and Obama must know it by now. Ought to be true is not the same as true.
In 2003, according to Justice Department figures, 193,000 black college-age men were in prison. While 132,000 black college-age men were living on campus, an additional 400,000 or so were attending college but living someplace else.
WHAT HE GOT WRONG: "I don't want to wake up four years from now and discover that we still have more young black men in prison than in college."So is it a small item to be overlooked? Wait, there's more.
-- Barack Obama, rally in Harlem, Nov. 29
Obama has repeated this false claim to predominantly African American audiences, even after The Washington Post pointed out the mistake to his campaign. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 106,000 African American men ages 18 to 24 were in federal or state prisons at the end of 2005. An additional 87,000 were temporarily held in local jails in mid-2006. According to 2005 census data, 530,000 African American men in this age group were in college.
Black male college students outnumber black male prisoners even if the age group is expanded to 30 or 35. The Obama campaign has not responded to several requests for statistical data to support the senator's remarks, and it has not explained a similar claim that he made to an NAACP audience on July 12.
We are hours away from the first caucus and just days away from the first primary. Hopefully someone from the Obama camp will set the record straight.In a provocative recent essay for the New Republic's Web site, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz coined the phrase "the delusional style in American punditry." He applied it to Obama's fans in the American press. His argument is that certain journalists are so enthralled by the sheer Obama-ness of Obama that they are willing to overlook everything they know about the fundamental value of experience.
In this regard, Wilentz cites a Boston Globe editorial that used Obama's memoir, "Dreams From My Father," to extol Obama's real-life experiences. Wilentz is not persuaded. To him, the book is "not exactly a portrait of sterling honesty or authenticity."
I and others have written that Obama -- as he himself says in the introduction to this book -- invented composite characters and altered chronology. But as the Chicago Tribune also reported, some of the events Obama passionately details seem not to have happened at all. Maybe his memory played tricks on him. Mine sure does.
But I am not running for president. And if I were, I'd pay particular attention to the truth -- to the nagging facts that sometimes get in the way of a good story. After all, it is not only Iraq that has been destroyed in the past several years -- so has whatever trust the American people still had in their government. I have been at this game a long time, but for sheer manipulation of the facts, for a fudging of the truth, for the occasional bald lie, the Bush administration takes the cake. Cheney and truth cannot be found in the same sentence. [...]I am a bit enamored with Obama as well. But the man's public record is thin and the glow from him is distracting and my intuition tells me that sometimes intuition is no substitute for experience. So, I'll sit back and watch some more -- and wait to see if Obama or anyone in his campaign calls back Dobbs and corrects the record. "Facts are stubborn things," John Adams once said. So, to our regret, we keep learning the hard way.
18 comments:
His argument is that certain journalists are so enthralled by the sheer Obama-ness of Obama that they are willing to overlook everything they know about the fundamental value of experience.
There is so much in your post BAC, but this line hit me like a ton of bricks and I added the bold for emphasis!
First of all, one of my issues with Obama, who I first saw as a hopeful figure on the horizon, is how he got sucked into the system and so fast.
I am often reminded of the 1979 movie The Seduction of Joe Tynan". All the idealism in the world can go out the window very quickly in the world of US politics. And that movie was made 29 years ago!
Anyway, I think Obama got so sucked in and I think has sucked so many in.
To me it is not so much his so-called "lack of experience", but rather this cult of personality that has formed.
He strikes me as insincere and very insincere at that.
This type of remark, repeated in a very pandering way, over and over is indicative of the insincerity.
Now they all lie and I accept that there is sadly a certain amount of that. However, just how much and in what way Obama is doing this is disturbing to me.
Thanks for this post!
In my typically flapjaw comment I neglected to answer the quetions you posed!
Do we force them to lie? Well as a society we love to hear what we love to hear. Is that forcing? Hard to say it is, but the dynamic is preloaded.
Are we willing to accept those lies from those we like? I am not crazy about it, but I suppose at some it is the case for most of us.
Note - I hated the clear lie from the get-go about the blow job, but I hated the lie about why we went to war more.
I personally would much rather ugly truth that I can deal with. That is how I am in life too, which can make dealing with me a challenge sometimes, as I often say things that upset others.
Acccording to this link http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0881455.html Obama is correct as of 2003. There are 791,600 black men in prison compared to 603,032 in college. This does not distinguish between ages, but it is probably where the information is coming from.
As for the "Dreams From My Father" stuff, this book was written twelve years ago. It was clearly written as an amalgamation of stories, but as a way to describe where he is coming from and what he hopes to do.
I appreciate that you want Hillary to be elected, but I believe it would be more a effective policy to support your candidate rather than attacking others. If you want Hillary to get elected, tell us the reasons we should be supporting her.
I feel that this sort of nitpicking attack only contributes to the violently divisive atmosphere in our country right now, which is not helping us to solve the problems created by the current administration. An Obama supporter could just as easily find similarly minor issues to attack Hillary over, but this would not be productive either.
I respect your opinion and appreciate your critical thinking, but I really think these kinds of attacks are diverting attention from the real issues. Give us someone to vote for, not someone to vote against.
As a side question, if Obama is the Democratic nominee, will you continue these attacks or ignore them and vote for him because you would rather have a Democrat in office than whoever the Republicans throw out there?
Sounds like John J. has answered the question quite nicely. Now the question is whether Richard Cohen is lying, or merely inept. The MSM's attacks on those that oppose their corporate masters will have to do better than that. WaPo is a floppo.
Maybe they are forced to fudge on facts because the American people don't want to hear the truth. I am much less troubled by this deal with Obama than I am with Rudy still kicking the ball for going into Iran.
Actually I would like to vote for Michelle Obama, but I guess that won't be an option. :)
John has not answered the question, as his numbers are what was disputed by both the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The question to ask is why does Obama want to continue a stereotype that is clearly not true? Who benefits and who loses by him doing this?
If Obama is touting himself as the candidate of "change" then why is he engaging in the same old political lies? And let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it was simply a mistake. Why won't he admit that it was a mistake?
Are we to just give him a pass? Let him make stuff up as he goes along? Rewrite history, including his own? Isn't that what Obama supporters claim to be against?
And to answer your question, John. If Obama is the Democratic nominee I will vote for him, mostly because he will NEED every Democratic vote he can get in order to win, as the Republicans will make mince meat out of him. They can't wait for him to win the nomination.
BAC
BAC, it appears that you have made up your mind about your candidate and no matter what the facts are, you will continue to attack Obama. The way I see it, John J. had the answer and you changed the question to Obama foisting a stereotype. If I said most Republicans were knuckle dragging Neanderthals, most of the liberals would agree with me. They would be wrong and I would have exaggerated a stereotype. If this is the sole reason you're not backing Obama, then I feel sorry for you. The other candidates seem to lie at will.
Happy New Year, BAC!
I think that not only do we force our politicians to lie to us, we force them to compromise any principles they have in order to even be considered viable for any kind of elected office. The system is horribly awry. If we could get money out of elections, imagine the freedom our candidates would have, both in office and as candidates.
When fundraising becomes the be-all and end-all of anyone who wants to make a difference in civic life, it distorts the very idea of public service. Imagine politicians who were not beholden either to corporations or endless fundraising - imagine what kind of work could get done!
I'm sorry, BAC, but I don't know what question you asked that I didn't answer. You asked whether we force candidates to lie to be elected. I showed that what you consider a lie, that more black people, in 2003, were in prison than in college, was true, depending what portion of the numbers you looked at.
As for his book, I looked at the Chicago Tribune article, and it was obviously written by someone who went into the reporting looking for something to call Obama out on. The only people the reporter talked to were asked to recount stories from about 30 years ago and they only said something to the effect of "I don't remember the conversation going that way" or "That isn't what I meant when I said those words he quoted correctly."
So if Obama does get elected the answer to your question is, no, a candidate doesn't have to lie to be elected. Are you willing to overlook the lies told by other candidates and their supporters just because you like that candidate more?
John -- Obama's quote was "I don't want to wake up four years from now and discover that we still have more young black men in prison than in college." This statement is not true.
If you look at the numbers from 2003 you will see that in the age range from 18 to 24, in other words "young men", there were 193,000 in prison and more than 500,000 in college. Even if you bump the age to 30, which is slightly older that what is traditionally seen as college age, there are still more Black men in college than in prison.
The fact checker for the Washington Post contacted Obama's campaign, and they refused to respond. Why?
Obama is presenting himself as a different kind of candidate. I think this demonstrates that he is not all that different.
Alicia -- thanks for stopping by, and Happy New Year to you, too! I agree with your response. I think far too many candidates think they need to mislead, if not outright lie, to get elected. I would agree that funding has much to do with it, and also the use of consultants.
Robert -- the question has remained the same, and the facts support that what Obama claimed is simply not true. And yes, I have picked my candidate.
BAC
lying -- what an art form it has become
the interesting thing about lying is that all politicians over the history of politics (shall we venture back to ancient greece) -- lie --- because human nature dictates (somewhere) that people will do anything to win -- and lying (along with pandering, selling out, flip-flopping, guilding the lily et al) are just part of the game ---- and we as consumers/voters have a tough job sorting out the truths from the half-truths from the out-and-out lies. i wish it wasnt part of the game but it is
what makes lying more interesting today that ever is that you cannot cover up your lies for very long or limit the damage your lies do. the internet, youtube and believe it or not -- bloggers have ENDED that forever. journalists certainly havent ended it since they are the primarly enablers of the lies.
talk to george allen about lies and covering up. you cant do it anymore -- not only is everything on the record (records have been around for a long time) -- the delivery speed is now instaneous --- once you are caught in a lie it is NOW transmitted around the GLOBE in a New York minute. so if Nixon in 1968 or even Reagan in 1980 tossed out words or facts that strayed from the truth to reporters or voters --- the chances of anyone seeing it were slim, remote and minute -- only if it made the network news. no one read the Des Moines register except Iowans. it was easy to get away with lying
fast forward to youtube, cell cameras, blogs. bye bye hiding your lies or being able to deny saying something...
lying is now a new art form -- one that someone like Mitt Romney and even Hillary are finding hard to incorporate or dodge today.
i hope i was clear
DCap - thank you for this thoughtful response.
BAC
I heard Daniel Schorr speaking of this earlier and thought of you- he was speaking of lies and specifically brought up the Obama black men/college/prison lie.
Not to harp on this, but you are wrong BAC. Just to reiterate - according to the statistics, sum total, there were 100,000 more black men (dropping the "young" - an arbitrary adjective) in prison than in college in 2003. If you are focused on the "young", there were, still according to statistics, more "young" black men going to prison than going to college, as a percent of the totals - according to http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98, there were about 17 million people enrolled in college in 2004. According to the statistics in the quote, there were 0.532 million "young" black men in college - about 3.0%. According to my previous link, there were 2.166 million people in prison in 2003. 0.193 million of those (according to the quote from the article again) were "young" black men. This is 8.9% of the prison population.
Now, I don't know how Obama is looking at the figures, but these two, the percentage differences, and the totals - ignoring an arbitrary age range - are facts that prove his statements as true, depending on how you look at the numbers.
What does this prove? Absolutely nothing, because you can use statistics to prove two completely different things at the same time. Calling someone out about their use of statistics while using your own is underhanded and exactly the thing that Obama has been speaking out against when talking about the political climate.
There are numerous reasons to not vote for Obama. There are numerous reasons to not vote for every single candidate out there. What I want are reasons to vote for a candidate, and very few have gotten that distinction. Especially in the primaries you should support your candidate, not trash the opponents because your words will just be thrown back at you as hypocritical when you are asking people to vote for the person you so recently appeared to detest.
John - I have NEVER said that I "detest" Obama. I have merely pointed out a bit of information that from my research appears to be true -- that he, at best, fudged the truth ... and then would not respond to questions about it.
And you can't drop the "young" from the conversation, because that is what Obama said. He didn't say "all" Black men, he said "young" Black men.
In your comment you say that of the 17 million in college, around 3% are young black men. And of the 2.166 million people in prison 8.9% are young black men. Math was never my best subject, but isn't 3% of 17 million more than 8.9% of 2.166 million? Around 500,000 in college vs. close to 200,000 in prison?
If my math, and your statistics are correct, the numbers are similar to what the New York Times and Washington Post are saying.
BAC
BAC, your math is correct. But in my mind, sometimes I get the impression that politicians like Obama are hardly aware that they're even lying. No doubt he was fed this stat by someone on his staff way back when and decided this would make a big splash at a rally. Elections are not about issues, but about making a big splash with the issues. They're not about choosing the person who represents the best hope for this country, but about choosing the person who makes the majority of us feel hopeful.
Spartacus, I agree with you. My point in posting this in the first place was to demonstration two things ... 1) none of the candidates are "perfect" and 2) the very nature of how we hold elections in this country virtually forces candidates, to at some point, lie to us ... or at least, mislead us. Any candidate who doesn't, as evidenced by Kucinich, is toast from the start.
BAC
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