For over 20 years now, the refrain “Hillary Clinton is a liar” has been drummed into the heads of Americans. We’ve heard it over and over, despite debunked claims, despite no evidence of wrongdoing in the many, many investigations to which she’s been subjected.
I will say flat out that Clinton is not always 100 percent honest. No politician is. Hell, no person is. My kids think Santa and the Tooth Fairy are real because I have perpetuated that lie with them.
Clinton: True And Mostly True
Contrary to popular belief, it turns out that Clinton is more honest than anyone else who’s run for president since 2008, according to Politifact.
Politifact is a non-partisan and Pulitzer Prize-winning website devoted to fact-checking statements made by elected officials. Their website breaks down their process beautifully and in-depth, but one part that’s very important is their rating system.
“The goal of the Truth-O-Meter is to reflect the relative accuracy of a statement.
The meter has six ratings, in decreasing level of truthfulness:
TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
FALSE – The statement is not accurate.
PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.”
Politifact posted a nifty little chart recently that ranked everyone from Obama to Clinton and McCain to Trump. They called it “Who Lies More: A Comparison.” The lying liars are at the top of the list, with Trump, of course, drowning in falsehoods. At the very bottom of the list are none other than Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Clinton is fundamentally more honest than anyone else we’ve seen running for the major political parties in the 2016 presidential election*. And I’m saying that as someone who was all for Bernie in the primaries. The fact that so many people in the country cannot seem to accept that this woman tells the truth far more often than she twists it says volumes about the state of our national media.
*The chart only shows those politicians who have had 50 or more statements rated by Politifact. Some politicians have more rated statements than others. The chart reflects their percentages.
Featured image by Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
