When politicians lie about what their opponents say, they degrade our democracy and disrespect voters. If they were to represent their opponents accurately ... then we could simply listen to both candidates and make up our minds on the merits. A candidate who lies about his opponent's position is not willing to let us do that. Instead, he puts us in the position of having to go prowling around on the web if we want to have any idea whether or not what he says is true.

When the McCain campaign says that "Senator Obama's solution to high gas prices is telling Americans to make sure their tires are inflated", and when McCain himself suggests that Obama thinks that inflating tires is "enough to break our dependence on Middle Eastern oil", it's as though they were saying: we are going to adopt a strategy that will force you, the voters, to spend hours of your lives checking each and every one of our statements for accuracy.

In politics, lying is cheating.