It is hardly uncommon for politicians to lie, especially when their careers are threatened by a sexual transgression — John Profumo about Christine Keeler, for example, and Bill Clinton on not having had ‘sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky’. But there is a particular kind of distortion of the truth that is rare over here but almost routine among American presidential candidates; and this is the way they embellish their personal histories to maximise their appeal to voters. It’s been going on for ages among candidates of both main parties, but presently most scrutiny is directed at Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and Seventh-day Adventist — denier of global warming, Darwinism and most other fashionable creeds — who has surprisingly jumped in the polls to the front of the Republican field.
Carson’s story is one of rags to riches in which a violent temper as a boy was cured by study of the Bible. But none of his school contemporaries remember this violence, especially an incident in which he says he tried to stab a young friend. They all remember him as a peaceful young chap. His life, as described in campaign speeches, is more turbulent than anyone else can recall, and his boasted achievements and triumphs in adversity have proven impossible to verify. In particular, his claim to have been offered a scholarship to the United States Military Academy at West Point has been proven unfounded.
Then there is Ted Cruz, the Hispanic senator from Texas and another Republican candidate, whose campaign speeches have been much enriched by his vivid descriptions of the exploits of his Cuban-born father — now 76 and a US citizen — during the Castro revolution in the 1950s against the dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
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