# Can a completely honest man ever get elected to be president of the U.S.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 5, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792 "2007-04-05T00:16:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792/61 "2007-10-01T16:48:10Z")
How are you going to define honesty anyway? Is it telling the truth? Or is it telling what you believe? Because a lot of people believe things that aren’t true. We could get in more trouble following a leader who’s sure that what he believes is true than we would with a leader who’s willing to compromise his beliefs because everyone else thinks he’s wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792/62 "2007-10-01T22:09:16Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] How are you going to define honesty anyway? [/QUOTE] If I had it to do over, I would phrase this OP (from quite awhile ago!) differently. What I wanted to get at was honesty on the issues. The public stance of this candidate would come from how he actually felt about the issue, rather than how the polls, special interest groups or donors would react. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792/63 "2007-10-01T22:15:14Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] 😕 Economists are still debating the [causes of the Depression.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Depression) What did FDR say about it that was a knowing lie? [/QUOTE] FDR believed that the Great Depression was caused by people’s attitudes (“we have nothing to fear but fear itself”). Plus, he was scared of inflation. So, paradoxically, he reduced the money supply whilst trying all kinds of crazy “pump priming” activites (like the NRA, CCC, PWA, etc.). None of these things did any real good-it was the revival of demand (caused by WWII), that ended the depression. ---
**Author:** ![SpartanDC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@SpartanDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpartanDC)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792/64 "2007-10-01T23:28:18Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] FDR believed that the Great Depression was caused by people’s attitudes (“we have nothing to fear but fear itself”). Plus, he was scared of inflation. So, paradoxically, he reduced the money supply whilst trying all kinds of crazy “pump priming” activites (like the NRA, CCC, PWA, etc.). None of these things did any real good-it was the revival of demand (caused by WWII), that ended the depression. [/QUOTE] But he had a point, didn’t he? A paralyzing fear really would be the worst thing that could happen, in terms of getting over the Depression. The rest of what you said relates to (in your opinion) misguided policies, not a lack of honesty. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792/65 "2007-10-03T15:57:56Z")
> [@](#): > > FDR believed that the Great Depression was caused by people’s attitudes (“we have nothing to fear but fear itself”). Tom Clancy said the same thing and he’s no liberal. A large portion of economics is basically the mood of the crowd. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792/66 "2007-10-04T23:07:55Z")
As a follow up to this thread, on July 12th, 2007 Barack Obama said this at an NAACP forum: > [@](#): > > We have more work to do when more young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities across America. The Washington Post’s [fact checker](http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/) has pointed out that this is patently a false statement. The facts concerning the statement could have easily been researched by Obama beforehand, but they were not, he either spoke out of ignorance (and that is the same thing as a lie, to state something as fact when you do not know if it’s true or not) or he deliberately lied to make a statement. I don’t think Obama is really doing anything terrible here, it’s just a bit disappointing when politicians make sweeping pronouncements which can easily be disproven by actual facts. I actually view Obama as being less likely to do this sort of thing than pretty much any of the other prominent candidates, which is why it’s disappointing he’s doing it. It just shows you have to talk a ton of bullshit to get elected President. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2007, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792/67 "2007-10-05T00:24:57Z")
Wasn’t Truman an honest man? At any rate, he was known for keeping himself personally clean while working with the notoriously corrupt Pendergast machine in Kansas City. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-completely-honest-man-ever-get-elected-to-be-president-of-the-u-s/398792.md?page=3)