How to Spot Political Lies and Liars – Buz Blog

“Truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged.” – Unknown

Honest politicians are such a rarity, that those few in that category, become known as “statesmen”. They are much harder to spot now days because most so-called reporters fail to ask challenging questions to politicians and follow-up questions to statements or actions by the politicians. There are ways to check the truthfulness of what a candidate or office holder is saying.

A liar will not answer a direct question. He or she will deflect. If you ask such a politician if his mother is, or was, an active member of the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood, a liar would avoid a direct answer. He would say, as Senator elect Abdul El-Sayed stated, that he was not raised by his biological mother. When pressed further El-Sayed declared, “I have never had these conversations with my mother.” Finally Abdul came out with a statement about the Muslim Brotherhood, “I have no ties. We have no ties”, disavowing the organization and saying that questions about any connections were based on “hearsay evidence from a tweet.” Notice that he never answered the original question about his mother’s role with the Muslim Brotherhood. He was never asked a followup question about the ample evidence of his family’s relationship with that terrorist group.

Another example of not answering a direct question was during the Senate hearing for Biden nominated Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. When asked for her definition for the word “woman”, (a direct question) her answer was “I can’t…Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.” How any Senator, of either party, could vote for a nominee who couldn’t answer such a direct, easy question, is beyond comprehension. Yet, this “genius” was confirmed and now sits on our highest court deciding complex legal issues. A logical mind would conclude that she surely could define what a woman is, but was lying because she might later have to decide transsexual sports, restroom and sex change operations for children, if she was confirmed.

Another ploy of liars is not to answer the question asked, but answer a question they wished had been asked. For instance, a school board member might be asked why voters should vote for a new bond issue since the current one is still in effect. If that board member answers that the schools need to repair the schools roofs and infrastructures, that board member didn’t answer the question, probably because he or she wants the new bond money for pet projects or doesn’t want to answer questions about how the current bond money was used or wasted.

Projection is a favorite tool of the liar. When Democrats are asked about the widespread fraud in Minnesota, California and USAID, they will usually respond that those frauds are small when compared with Trump’s corruption. They can give no examples of what corruption Trump or his administration has committed, but without a followup question or two that a real journalist would ask, they don’t have to answer for the enormous fraud and corruption in blue cities and states.

Politicians in both parties use these “tools” to evade answering tough questions and to confuse the voters. Most of the time, these obfuscations work. These lies wouldn’t work if we had an impartial, inquisitive media that aggressively sought the truth.