Whitman: Nothing but the truth

It probably isn’t good style to begin a year of column writing with politics, but seeing as the elections are drawing closer it seems a necessary risk to take. However, this article isn’t focused on the policies of either President Obama or Governor Romney, but instead on one thing: the lack of truth. Neither side of the aisle is blameless, but the most egregious offender has to be Congressman Paul Ryan, who recently spoke to the American populace at the Republican National Convention. Some of the claims he made shocked me, but as the evening progressed I became more skeptical over this man’s assertions.

After a few minutes spent fact checking these clearly exaagerated assertions online, I found the truth, ignored by a possible future vice president. In his speech, Congressman Ryan blamed President Obama for amassing as much debt “as almost all of the other presidents combined.” According to the New York Times, the debt when Obama took office was $10.626 trillion; currently the debt is $15 trillion. Of course, this is by no means a good thing, but it does not detract from the fact that our nation’s elected leaders are lying to us. We’ve trusted Democrats and Republicans alike with the power to pass the laws and policies of our society. Instead, they violate that trust by treating us with the same intelligence as that of an uneducated mob. So instead of taking any politician’s word as fact, I beg you to think for yourself and try to make your own decisions.