Government Says It's OK for Politicians to Lie

This is quite possibly the saddest thing I have ever heard on the current state of politics in America. This is taken from the Seattle P. I…

OLYMPIA -- You just can't keep a politician from lying.

In a 5-4 ruling Thursday, the state Supreme Court struck down a 1999 law that banned political candidates from intentionally lying about their opponents. The high court majority said the law was an affront to free speech.

"The notion that the government, rather than the people, may be the final arbiter of truth in political debate is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment," Justice Jim Johnson wrote in the majority opinion.

The dissent called the decision "an invitation to lie with impunity." That temptation was already in place, said Travis Ridout, a political science professor at Washington State University. Candidates have long felt free to say their opponent had voted to raise taxes 50 times the previous year, hated children or was soft on crime -- regardless of the facts.

Read the rest of the article in the P. I. here.