Guest Post: How would lie detectors change the debates?
Scott Lohse, pastor of St. Martin’s United Church of Christ in Dittmer, Mo., won our “Five Minutes with a Candidate” contest and will guest blog here through the election.
As this is posted, the final 2008 presidential debate is just a few hours away. I want you to imagine that it will happen with lie detectors - the challenger in the Ninth Congressional District in Indiana has proposed for that debate later this month.
There are three candidates in the Indiana race: Baron Hill, the Democratic incumbent, Mike Sodrel, a GOP challenger, and a Libertarian named Eric Schansberg.
The reason their debate might be a compelling model for debates on a grander scale is that the challengers who aspire to the seat have issued a challenge to debate while wearing lie detectors.
The lie detector debate is not likely to actually take place because the incumbent dismissed the challenge as a “bizarre” idea. The idea is bizarre, but this is precisely why I sort of like it.
Just imagine both of the presidential candidates hooked up to the lie detector while they field questions. Also imagine on the bottom of the screen we would be able to see a graph like the one that the news stations have been showing us lately indicating the approval or disapproval of their focus group as they watch the debate in real time.
Only this time the graph on the bottom of the screen would show the needle on the lie detector quivering as the candidates speak.
If you are still having trouble picturing all of this, let me tell you what got my mind wrapped around the idea. Does anyone remember a Fox TV show which debuted last year called The Moment of Truth? I don’t know if the show has been renewed or not, but if it is, I will think it is awful — and I will also not miss an episode.
The show goes like this: A contestant pre-answers a list of probing questions about his or her personal life prior to sitting in the “hot seat” in front of the camera. The personal questions are then posed to the contestant in front of viewers and their family and friends; and if they lie the lie detector reveals their deception.
Imagine sitting there, all wired up, and having to respond to questions such as: Do you think you will still be married to your spouse in five years? Or have you ever stolen anything from work?
You get the idea. The awful thing about the Moment of Truth show is that people really allow themselves to be raked over the coals in pursuit of a $500,000 cash prize, which no one ever wins because they can’t last in the hot seat long enough. The fact of the matter is, as much as we might like to think we are honest and honorable, no one can stand up to this kind of scrutiny.
The Bible says “and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (Jn 8:32). The fact of the matter is the truth will likely make us miserable before it makes us free!
Here’s the question: How would your candidate of choice do in the lie detector debate? I’d like to think that I would do ok, but I might be lying to myself. If we all agree that they are not being totally truthful with us then why do we abide it? What could be done to hold politicians to a higher standard of truth telling
Guest blogger Scott Lohse is the winner of our "Five Minutes with a candidate" contest and will post guest blogs through the election.
He is the pastor of St. Martin's United Church of Christ in Dittmer, Mo. He has also served United Methodist Churches in Eastern Missouri towns over the past 30 years including Kennett, Bonne Terre, Jackson, Creve Coeur and Manchester. Scott has also worked as a hospice chaplain and a radio broadcaster. He is also an amateur magician.
Scott has been married for 30 years to his wife Lin. They have three children. He is an avid reader, a news junkie, and he spends more time online than he cares to admit. 
Obama would excel in a lie detector debate, not because he tells the truth, quite to opposite, but he has convinced himself that his lies are the truth, so they wouldnt show up.
Problem is that technology is not perfect, and the data has to be analyzed afterwords. It is not an instant read kind of thing…
They would never go for it anyways Scott.
Dear “If you want peace,prepare for war,” you make an important observation about ‘truth’ I believe. It seems difficult for each of us to think critically about our own point of view. That, however, is just my point of view!…
Dear tim, Do you recall a show older than the one I wrote about which was hosted by F. Lee Bailey where he ‘grilled’ people on the air? He was famous for saying something like, “THOSE WHO THINK THE INFORMATION BROUGHT OUT AT A CRIMINAL TRIAL IS THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH ARE FOOLS.” I guess that applies to debates also.
I have enough faith and trust in both candidates that I don’t think either is blatantly lying when he answers a certain uncomfortable question. Both are honorable men, and I feel that neither would “stoop to conquer”. Besides, both realize that the hardest tumble a man can take is to fall over his own bluff, as Bierce once said.
Do they intentionally evade direct answers to certain questions? Yes. Do they sometimes miscommunicate the true facts? Yes. Is the miscommunication intentional? No.
I think the lie detector is not such a good idea.
There’s one teeny, tiny problem - Lie detectors don’t work.
Scott, I’m reminded of a poster one of my father’s Organic Chemistry students gave him years ago, and it spent a number of years on his office door:
Picture a Raggedy Ann doll face up, halfway through an old fashioned washing machine wringer. The caption read: “The truth will make you free, but first it will make you miserable”
I am watching the debate as it concludes and it occurs to me that each candidate considers himself to be a human lie detector. Ryan there is a lot of ‘truth’ to what you have to say. The ‘intention’ that you mention, however, makes the difference. The sticking point is how do you accuately measure another person’s intent?
Now it’s ‘in the books’ - anything that you think might have set the polygraph buzzing? I for one will tip my hand a bit: hard for me to believe a budget can get balanced without any new taxes or without taking away traditional deductions which, in effect, is indeed a tax raise.
I don’t think we need lie detectors on candidates, but on their campaign commercials. When people are speaking first person, even if what someone says is incorrect, they are usually convinced of their correctness. However when the spin doctors get hold of a candidate’s position and attempt to sound bite it into a minute or less, there are some whoppers floating about out there– both lies by commission and lies by omission. For example: a person can be both pro-life and pro-choice — that is believe they would never personally have an abortion, but that they, for very eminent moral reasons (such as believing in free will) that they cannot impose their belief on other people by force of law. When that gets spun into “Candidate Jones is pro-abortion” a lie has been committed. The same can hold with almost any public policy issue being forced into a little bitty time box.
This is why I do not watch the debates (VP one excluded– that was pure entertainment theater)or listen to campaign commercials. To hold politicians to a higher truth telling I would make them personally watch any commercial to which someone will add “I am Jim Jones and I approve this ad,” and I would require the FCC to pull any commercials which can be proven to misrepresent a candidate’s true stance on an issue. Somehow, the pro-Hulshof commercial representing Nixon’s statements as “bull” by bellowing cattle in the background comes to mind as one of the first to go. (I was captive in a car making a turn at the time it aired and turned it off as soon as traffic allowed.)