Trump is a Congenital Liar; Hillary Is Not

Donald Trump is a congenital, pathological liar. It is an almost impossible, Herculean task to monitor Trump's daily outpouring of factually incorrect statements. And that does not even include his bigoted ravings. The big whoppers of this past weekend included his claim that he was being sarcastic about having Russia hack Hillary's emails, that the NFL complained to him about the debate schedule, that Hillary set the debate schedule, and that he has no relationship with Putin despite his prior claims he spoke to Putin many times and developed a good rapport. That's just the tip of the mountainous iceberg of his lies. Yet the press seems to merely act as stenographer when it comes to Trump's lies. I heard it dutifully reported on NPR and on MSNBC that Trump's call for Russian hackers was sarcastic, according to the candidate. Everyone who saw that press conference is well aware that it is a lie.

On the other hand, the press had already written the script for Hillary Clinton over 20 years ago with the bogus Whitewater and Vince Foster investigations. And the script calls her a continual liar, jumping on any misstatement or shading of the truth as an example of her inability to be straight with the American people. In fact, the opposite is more probably the truth - Hillary lies far less frequently than most politicians. And now there is a study to show that. Courtesy of Kevin Drum and Politifact comes an analysis of the fact-checked history of recent candidates:

As you can see, Hillary manages to be somewhat truthful in her statements over 70% of the time. And the Donald, - he can barely say anything that is even remotely truthful, managing to AVOID the truth nearly 70% of the time. Does anyone think that this will change anyone's minds or shape the ongoing coverage that each of these candidates receives. Me neither. But, at some point, the press may want to look at how and why they enable a pathological liar and denigrate someone who mostly tells them the truth.