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07/07/2004: "Do we need a higher level of political honesty?"

I'm wading through the comments to Megan aka Jane's rant, and came across this one:

Misleading half truths are punishable as securities fraud under the securities laws. If "Farenheit 911" were a stock prospectus, Michael Moore would be going to jail for securities fraud. His "legalistic" evasions - that what he said was literally true, would be of no avail: the omission of facts necessary to make the statement made not misleading constitutes fraud. Q.E.D.
Posted by: DBL on July 7, 2004 08:36 AM

Why not create a special class of statement? We could create some keywords such as "I swear this to be a special truth." A false statement so sworn would invoke perjury type penalties.

I'm sure there would be difficulties in defining and enforcing such a statute. But it would focus political debate on honesty. Who knows, it might even make political debate more honest.