Tuesday, November 6, 2012

What happened to honesty?

One problem we must address after this election is the lack of honesty in our politics and in America in general.  There are too many people who decide what they want to say or believe and then seek out facts that tend to prove that and discard or attack facts that lead to other conclusions.

What's worse is that many of these people betray honesty!  They offer themselves as being neutral, dispassionate people who are being diligent in their analysis and/or opinions.

Both sides do it of course.  But Republicans have moved "beyond the margin of error" and have taken cynicism to new levels.  Instead of giving an obvious example, I want to give a subtle example of intellectual dishonesty.

Countless Republican leaning pundits have said, the President's job approval on election day will be his vote total.  They of course said this when his approval was way down, and especially short of 50%.

But today, using the conservative Realclearpolitics poll average

Obama job approval 50%

Using this standard:
Obama 50
Romney 47

Which coincidentially is what the final Washington post poll says!

But going back to the conservative pundits, Jay Cost in this case,
no mention of the approval rating, he's got a total different way to choose Romney now!

If Obama's approval was at 46%, I think Cost would stick with his original approach.
But it wouldn't serve his politics, so now he changes.
Fine.
But why not be upfront with readers and tell what your original position was and would predict, rather than putting forth a plausible theory that Romney will win that is totally different.

We all need to live in the same world, and we need to share the same facts more.



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