Sex, lies, and politics...

Ok, so there's no sex. But as we're all aware, there are plenty of lies in politics. Normally I loathe FOXNews and its ridiculous sensationalist tactics--'Fair and Balanced' my foot. However, I couldn't help but find their three-part piece on lies and half-truths told by the three major presidential candidates to be rather interesting, for a variety of reasons.

The articles:
Clinton
McCain
Obama

The first thing that comes to mind is that FOXNews really has to reach for some of the 'lies' reported in each of the three pieces. Should we really care that Clinton lied about being named after Sir Edmund Hillary? Does it matter in the least that Obama's parents didn't actually meet at the civil rights march in Selma, Alabama?

I do, however, find it interesting that among the three candidates, there appears to be a clear demarcation of whose lies are the most serious in nature. Items in each of the three lists range from the irrelevant (such as the two examples I listed above) to the outrageous (such as McCain's assertion that Iran has been training Al Qaeda operatives).

If we can assume that these articles are accurate (which is a big assumption when dealing with the media and especially FOXNews) then McCain, in my opinion, appears to be the most serious offender, with Clinton coming in a close second. The false statements they have made as reported here are of a nature which could be extremely detrimental to the American people if either were actually elected, assuming such lies would continue.

The report on Obama, on the other hand, indicates that while he has spoken falsely on a number of occasions, several of these incidents can simply be chalked up to semantics (i.e. 'professor' vs. 'lecturer') or blurry childhood memories (i.e. the Life Magazine article). In the cases where Obama did misspeak, apparently intentionally, the lies he told don't suggest illegal or immoral behavior on his part. In fact, his only statement that might arguably be shady has to do with the senator receiving lobbyist money, but this is certainly not on par with Clinton's Whitewater scandal and McCain's Middle East and abortion nonsense.