Back in 2007, Hillary Clinton was the front-runner for the Democrat Party’s nomination for US President as the primaries approached. But there was an early foretaste of things to come when David Geffen, an important fundraiser for the Clintons, switched to Barack Obama. He explained: “Everyone in politics lies, but they (the Clintons) do it with such ease it is troubling.”
The Clintons never sued for libel. But proving that a politician has lied is actually very difficult at law. To call someone a liar is to impute bad character and to prove that requires you to show three things. First, that an untruth was said. Second, that the person saying it knew it was untrue. Third, that the untruth was said maliciously, with bad intent.
Without all three, you cannot prove anyone a liar. Even if you prove the second condition, without the third you would have simply shown that he is, to coin a phrase, an untruther, not a liar. And it is the political careers of untruthers, and the consequences of political untruthiness, that this column is about.
I’m aware that, right now, there are many people claiming that Joseph Muscat is a liar, given that he hasn’t given any sign of intending to fulfil the promise to resign if the new power station’s March deadline is missed.
Naturally, I dissociate myself completely from this imputation of bad character. I think Muscat is a pillar of society and his lady wife a flying buttress of culture. The Madonna is the star of the sea, Muscat’s government is a beacon of hope, and both are a refuge of sinners.
So, I am definitely not saying that Muscat lied with ease when he assured Dissett’s Reno Bugeja, just a few months ago, that he would keep his promise to resign if the deadline wasn’t kept. He didn’t lie; he was simply at ease with himself while making a promise that might possibly turn out to be untruthy.
Here’s the question: If the promise isn’t kept, will that trouble the Maltese electorate the way the Clintons troubled Geffen?
When the Mistra scandal broke out in the middle of the 2008 general election campaign, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando publicly burst into free-flowing tears at the accusations. He was believed and then elected on two districts; had he been disbelieved, there and then his electoral chances would have been over. But that doesn’t mean the public always has zero-tolerance for untruthers.
American voters never stopped believing that Bill Clinton was ‘Slick Willie’ – least of all married women, one of whom publicly voiced the thoughts of many when she said that one look at Bill was enough to tell her that he would be difficult to handle for any wife. And, yet, some of Bill’s strongest support came from middle class, middle-aged married women. When, in the Lewinsky case, he was caught in an outright untruth to camera, he (eventually) won the public’s support against the prosecutors bent on kicking him out of office.
Hillary Clinton’s career is even more interesting. She was least popular 20 years ago, when she was more forthright about her political views. She has since developed into a cynical, guarded politician – and is back as the frontrunner to capture the Democratic nomination in 2016.
As the political theorist David Runciman has pointed out, Hillary’s untruthiness (my word) is unlike Bill’s. Like Tony Blair, Bill Clinton is glib enough to deceive himself – slippery enough with his own conscience to think that it’s not an untruth if you believe it, or, at least, if you’re saying it with the best intentions. He’s a sincere untruther.
Hillary Clinton would never fool herself that way. In an emoting age, politicians like her and Gordon Brown will always find it more difficult to be elected, although they might still succeed.
Politics in the age of the sound-bite offers a third kind of untruther: the politician who presents himself as breaking the mould, often blurting out truths conventional establishment politicians might not... only to turn out to be as establishment and rehearsed as the rest.
Muscat didn’t lie; he was simply at ease with himself while making a promise that might possibly turn out to be untruthy
Nicolas Sarkozy was notorious for his incendiary ‘blurted truths’. But his quasi-racist remarks about Muslims were carefully rehearsed despite experts having previously assured him that what they implied was not true (as I know directly from someone he consulted).
Boris Johnson, the London mayor and Tory darling, is another man of copious untruthiness, according to Max Hastings, who employed him as a journalist: ‘I would not take Boris’s word about whether it is Monday or Tuesday.’ His gaffes and semi-shambolic image are the product of careful management. Hastings published that opinion in The Guardian but it sank without effect. Johnson remains popular and touted as David Cameron’s successor.
It’s not untruthiness in itself that brings politicians down. Electorates have a complicated relationship to untruthers because political credibility has a complex relationship to truth. Simon Busuttil is believed to be an honest politician by many people who do not, so far, find him nearly enough a credible leader.
Meanwhile, I doubt many people believe that Joseph Muscat really trains regularly at the gym; I’m not sure how many people believe that the decision to sell passports was taken after the general election. But, so far, he remains more credible than Busuttil.
Political credibility depends on the perception of the ability to deliver. An untruther who’s perceived to love power sincerely may be more credible than an honest politician who’s considered too good for the compromises of politics.
Why? Electorates sometimes vote against their own best interests but they’re not irrational. A politician who loves power isn’t necessarily dangerous to them if his wish to remains in office tames his excesses and directs him to oblige them. Electorates can easily calculate (or miscalculate) that an opportunistic politician can be a safer choice than one like Alfred Sant, who was perceived to be too true to his convictions.
If Muscat’s promise turns out to be untruthy, public perception will change, of course. Currently, Muscat’s rhetoric has borrowed a lot in techniques and positioning from the likes of Bill Clinton, Sarkozy and Johnson. A broken promise would shift him, in public perception, to be an untruther closer to the Hillary Clinton mould, which electorates regard more warily. But the damage need not be significant.
It’s not because people will believe that the real point of the promise was the lowering of utility bills, not the power station. Without the new power station, Labour’s promise would have seemed very similar to the one it made in 2008, when it promised to halve the (then) surcharge.
The 2008 promise was not believed because it seemed to be financially reckless. In 2013, that aspect was addressed by evoking private sector participation through a new power station.
What will make it an untruth that doesn’t matter, politically, are two things. First, if the deadline is exceeded only by a short time. ‘Short’, in politics, is something that can be stretched and there will be a partisan struggle to persuade the public about what counts as short.
Second, it won’t matter if the promise is financed by China, with no sense of apparent risk to Maltese taxpayers. Why would the untruth matter, to the many voters who think of politics as a game, if the trouble needed to wangle out of it spurs the Prime Minister to be ingenious in giving people other things they want?
It’s only if the Chinese turn out to be, transparently, the political equivalent of loan sharks, that untruthiness will begin to matter. Otherwise, it’s still too early for the Maltese electorate to be troubled.
ranierfsadni@europe.com