Letter: Clinton not the shocking liar

A recent letter (“Clinton’s lying shocks conscience”) severely criticizes Hillary Clinton for lying. It is obviously factual that she has sometimes withheld or has not always told the truth (as has been researched and fact checked). The writer, however, grossly exaggerates and is both more biased and more emotional than truthful.

What is really upsetting is the writer’s last statement that “Trump’s … reputation for veracity does not touch the depths of Hillary’s, a level of duplicity that shocks the conscience.” This statement is totally misinformed, and the writer should know better.

The level of Trump’s falsities is widely published by conservatives and liberals alike, as is Clinton’s. PolitiFact, a respected fact checker, has rated 70 percent of the Trump statements as mostly false, false, or pants on fire (its lowest score). This compares to 28 percent for Clinton’s statements.

It awarded Trump its Lie of the Year award for his portfolio of misstatements. None other than Tony Schwartz, Trump’s ghostwriter for “The Art of the Deal,” has said lying is second nature to Trump.

Interested readers, please go online to further check Trump’s pathology. Not just The New York Times or Washington Post, but also editorials in traditionally conservative newspapers endorsing Clinton: the Houston Chronicle, Cincinnati Enquirer and Dallas Morning News.

Online fact checkers: Factcheck.org, Snopes.com, Politifact.com. If you want to have a chuckle as well, listen to Keith Olbermann’s “demonic messiah” piece for 15 minutes at rawstory.com.

This story was originally published October 13, 2016 at 4:32 PM with the headline "Letter: Clinton not the shocking liar."