Lying in Public Life: Just Whom Do You Trust?

Election campaigns across the country are focusing, as never before, on lying. As voters confront the volleys of accusations and counteraccusations about fraud, broken promises and outright lies, many are tempted to throw up their hands. With trust in politics and politicians at an all-time low, and much vile campaign rhetoric eroding what little trust is left, it is easy for voters to conclude that all candidates are equally untrustworthy, that no distinctions can be made with respect to lying in politics and that the best thing to do may well be to follow the bumper-sticker advice: “Don’t vote. It only encourages them.”

The Virginia Senate race between Charles S. Robb and Oliver L. North casts the voters’ bewilderment into sharp relief. Most know of the congressional and judicial record of North’s lying during the Iran-Contra scandal, and most are familiar with allegations that Robb lied about his relationship with a former Miss Virginia and about attending parties where drugs were used.

After being pummeled by conflicting TV ads, many voters have decided both men are equally untrustworthy--and equally unsuited for public office. In one poll, asking voters if they could trust either North or Robb to tell the truth, virtually the same percentage, about 58%, said they doubted either would tell the truth.

It is natural that a campaign where lying is daily imputed to each candidate should end generating such levels of distrust. Distrust of politicians is no different from distrust of anyone else: It stems from the suspicion that their word cannot be trusted--that they will lie and break their promises as long as they think they can get away with it.

Suspicions about lying turn out to be central to everything else that candidates propose. Once their word is in doubt, none of their campaign promises--about taxes, health care, crime, or any other issue--can be taken at face value.

But however dismayed voters may be, they should not rush to conclude that no distinctions can be drawn between candidates with respect to their capacity to tell the truth. Instead, voters need to take certain questions into account: Is there a difference between lies that have been proved and lies that are only suspected? Does it matter if what is at issue is a single lie or a great many? Should deceit about a candidate’s private life be thought as serious a handicap as deceit about conduct in public office? And are lies told under oath to cover up for violations of the law especially egregious?

These questions should be debated for they have clear answers that matter for purposes of voting.

A moment’s reflection shows the absurdity of imagining that all candidates for public office are equally duplicitous and thus equally untrustworthy. While it is not always easy to resolve all questions to do with lying, some are too fundamental to the democratic process to be ignored.

Clearly, voters ought to weigh differently allegations that have and have not been proved. It is important to be careful in a climate in which the national media increasingly disseminate innuendo and unfounded rumors, and in which some political consultants encourage candidates to make exaggerated or completely unfounded accusations on the grounds that the election will be over before voters will learn all the facts.

An important distinction can be drawn, too, concerning the degree to which deceit has been shown to be a candidate’s practice rather than a temporary lapse. Voters need only consider their own lives to acknowledge that everyone can make mistakes when it comes to truthfulness. They may be unsure about what is and is not a lie, and doubt that minor white lies matter much. They may feel caught by surprise in a situation where a lie seems unavoidable or be swayed by poorly understood temptations and a failure to think ahead.

But it is another matter altogether to make the deliberate choice to be someone who deals with others through deceit; even more so when doing so involves numerous dealings with a great many persons over a long period of time.

What about the significance of the sheer amount of deceit in which a candidate has engaged in the past? From the point of view of voters, any deception in public office undermines trust. When public representatives or Administration officials arrogate to themselves the right to lie, they take power from the public that would not have been given up voluntarily.

And deceit in campaigning cuts at the roots of what we mean by democracy and by its being founded on the consent of the governed. But when the deceit by public officials reaches proportions such as those that have come to light in the Watergate or the Iran-Contra scandals, there is reason for special caution on the part of voters. The resulting damage to public trust and to democratic institutions is deeper still and more lasting. So is the damage to the nation’s reputation internationally.

It is especially shortsighted, therefore, for officials to claim patriotic justification for engaging in such practices. To the extent that voters have a say in how their government is run, they have to insist that true patriotism calls for honoring their nation’s reputation for integrity both abroad and at home; and that candidates be aware of how much harder it will be to regain the trust underlying that reputation, once it has been lost, than it was to squander it in the first place.

The question of whether deceit about private life should be as serious a handicap as deceit about conduct in public life clearly troubles many voters--and is the issue at the center of the Virginia Senate race. Robb has denied allegations of infidelity, and they have not been substantiated--much less proven in court. But if they were substantiated, what difference should that make to voters? How should they weigh his denials as against the lies admitted by North?

Voters find themselves, here, in a double bind. On the one hand, they may well agree that political candidates, like all others, deserve some privacy. Many would also agree that marital relations ought to remain in that realm of privacy. Few would prize an inquisitorial society in which a citizen’s most intimate concerns were made public record. Even though much of the public is fascinated by revelations about intimate concerns of public persons, they have no claim to a right to know about such matters.

On the other hand, voters are inevitably faced, once there is clear evidence of false public statements on the part of a candidate, with questions about that candidate’s trustworthiness. And so their doubts grow. Is it really worse to lie in the conduct of one’s job than to one’s spouse? Is it not an issue of character in either case?

This question cannot be dismissed out of hand. Clearly, most voters would prefer to be represented by persons who have not engaged in lying about either their private or their public conduct. At the same time, lies by public officials that violate their responsibility to all citizens simply cannot be equated--from the point of view of electing someone to public office--with lies concerning private matters. It would be wrong, therefore, to seize on the public discomfort regarding this question to argue that the best thing to do is to declare a pox on both houses and vote for neither.

This is especially true when the fourth question at issue in Virginia is taken into account--about lying under oath to Congress concerning violations of the law. If such lying has been demonstrated, it should constitute an exceptionally important factor in the minds of voters. Every known society has formulated commandments or rules prohibiting the bearing of false witness.

To engage in such deception for purposes of covering up violations of the law has to be seen as especially grave in a democracy. A government under a Constitution cannot function adequately if officials in one branch of government cannot count on the accuracy of testimony by officials from another branch or on their honesty in respecting the laws they have sworn to carry out.

Wile it is true that lies under oath in all walks of life undercut trust, it is especially important for voters to guard against electing to public office candidates who have violated this most fundamental of standards. At the very least, they should demand clear evidence that candidates have understood the seriousness of such conduct and have made the strongest possible commitment not to engage in it.

Such a commitment is indispensable on the part of all who ask to be entrusted with public office. Public officials who engage in widespread deceit in the course of their official duties not only violate the public trust; they also abdicate their responsibility to set an example to subordinates and fellow citizens. As Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote, government, for good or ill, “teaches the whole people by its example. If government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt of the law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.”

We should expect our elected officials to shoulder this burden of teaching by example: to refrain not only from breaking the law, but from acts which, though arguably legal, are sufficiently dubious that they strain the already fragile bonds of social trust our democracy depends on Failing this, we should at least expect them to abide by the same rules as ordinary citizens. Voters throughout the country are rightly angered by their elected representatives’ apparent willingness to regard themselves as exempt from these standards: to pass laws to which they are not subject;to claim privileges not available to constituents, and to abuse power voters have given them. Above all, voters have reason to be on guard against electing representatives who might claim the right to exempt themselves from the most basic duty of a citizen: the duty to obey the law.*