Please give examples of their smoothness at lying. However, some caveats:
Not necessarily an elected politician, but someone who lies in the service of politics.
And let’s leave out TV commentators, pundits and other “news” types, whose first job is to be smooth no matter what nonsense comes out of their mouths, so they might be said to have an unfair advantage.
This came to me when I saw a thumbnail for a CNN video that was apparently an interview of someone I didn’t know, and before I read anything I said to myself “that guy’s a lying liar who isn’t very good at looking honest.” Sure enough, it was a former Trump lawyer. Sometimes it seems really easy to see when they have that something in the eyes and the set of the mouth that says the person has come there to pass off BS as the truth, and who knows it. And I wondered how often it really is that easy.
So show us your smoothest lying liars in the political realm, bearing in mind the caveats above.
Mmm. The fact that Santos got elected doesn’t mean that people didn’t think he was a liar. Some people like being lied to, as long as you tell them the lies they want to hear. How else are we to explain the success of Trump in the US or Boris Johnson in the UK? It’s not as if either man was every widely regarded as honest.
Or, look at Dick Nixon. The man radiated dishonesty; even when he was telling the truth people thought he looked shifty. Not for nothing was he known as “tricky Dicky”. Yet it didn’t stop him being elected President. Twice.
But with Santos it wasn’t the case that people knew he was lying but some people voted for him anyway, He ran for office twice without anyone noticing that his entire resume was made up. That requires smooth technique.
Pretty much any politician will lie to you so by that rationale pick the one who, in your own mind at least, feels the most authentic and truthful.
The fact that they’ve convinced you they don’t lie is evidence that they are the one who’s best at lying.