I subscribe to the view that this is a critical election, because the two parties actually have very different views of the role of government. But those who hoped for a national "policy' debate (and liberal friends of mine welcomed Ryan's nomination on just this grounds) must be a bit chagrined now that it isn't likely to happen. For example, the conversation about Medicare's future -- surely one of the most important and difficult national policy issues -- has been reduced to out-of-context, close-to-incomprehensible mud-slinging about which party is going to hurt seniors most. When the stakes are seen by partisans as so high, the ancient issue of ends justifying means comes to the fore. In this case, those "means" mean deliberate falsehoods, or statements that are so incomplete that they are effectively false.

Stepping back for a moment, we can view this issue of "facts" and "falsehoods" from two opposite perspectives. First, political campaigns for two millennia have tried to sway voters with half-truths, innuendo, emotional appeals, whoppers, and direct lies. (See advisor Quintus Tullius Cicero's recently published advice to his candidate brother in 64 BC -- How to Win an Election.) Nothing new; no big deal; voters have common sense; it will all get sorted out in the marketplace of "ideas."

Lies seem destined to become standard operating procedure, perhaps with little embarrassment and little adverse impact -- except to our democracy

But a second perspective is the dangerous -- fatally dangerous -- use of the Big Lie to pervert democracy: Repeat a falsehood long enough and it becomes political if not actual truth. This tactic characterized Senator Joseph McCarthy's campaign of fear and his baseless charges that, in large (if shifting) numbers, Communists had infiltrated U.S. national security institutions, especially the State Department. A corollary of the Big Lie, propounded by New Yorker writer Richard Rovere, one of McCarthy's severest critics, was "Multiple Untruths" (smaller lies) that could be thrown at opponents in profusion and were confused, confusing, and hard to refute. "McCarthyism" in the sense of "red-baiting" is not part of today's politics. But demonizing opponents with emotive untruths -- at least by the extreme wings of each party -- is certainly in vogue.

Another issue in dealing with lies is the complexity of untangling fact and opinion. It is opinion that President Obama has mishandled the economy. It would be a factual lie to say that no new jobs have been added to the economy since the recession ended (there have been 2.5 million new ones). But it is a mixture of fact and opinion to say that the job recovery since the last recession has been slower than in other recessions (true) and that this slow rate of growth is due to the failure of President Obama's policies (opinion). And this mixture of fact and opinion relates to most backward-looking statements of causality (President Obama caused the slow rate of jobs growth) or forward-looking predictions (if the Democrats are re-elected jobs, growth will continue to languish).