> Politicians rarely lie outright; it's too easy to catch. They usually use equivocating language, or phrase statements that make you believe that they're commi

> Politicians rarely lie outright; it's too easy to catch. They usually use equivocating language, or phrase statements that make you believe that they're committing to one thing when in reality they are committing to a much narrower band of truth. Even then, if you look closely, there's still quite often a clear and outright lie, just cushioned in "equivocating language" (nice term, btw). It's just that all the cushioning tends to make pointing out the lie within seem like a petty thing to do. And in the case of politician-to-politicians they tend not to do that to each other because they recognize the game being played and rather not risk getting theirs in turn. If it does happen, it gets ugly fast, and both parties are worse off. BTW I don't disagree that there's also a large amount of "equivocating language" going on, without any outright lies in the middle of it. Maybe that's even more common. Doesn't mean they don't lie, quite a lot more than people whose career doesn't depend on it. Also (but this is just opinion) if "equivocating language" is used to deliberately give people / the public a wrong idea, that's not far from lying either. Even if it's "technically" true. And then there's still quite a large number of politicians, on all sides of the spectrum, left/right, popular or not, powerful or not, that I have seen knowingly speaking some pretty damn big lies, and not seeing any consequences for it.