As an example, it is clear that Hillary Clinton simply lied about being under sniper fire. But she is still a candidate and large numbers of people are supporting her. If we were not a liar society and lying was not just an accepted part of how we conduct ourselves these days, she would no longer be a candidate because people would reject that, utterly.

It is absolutely clear that whether by commission or simply by omission, this current Bush administration led us to attack a nation that had not attacked us based on information that was simply untrue. Was the president impeached for that? Not that I recall.

Widespread and systematic lying is part of political campaigning among the electorate itself. Have you received one of these untruthful emails about Senator Obama being a Muslim, not a Christian? You know that’s a lie; so do I. Did you copy everyone in the email chain and tell them this was untrue? If not, why not?

I believe that our major cultural model these days is the television show “Survivor.” On this show, deception is a winning strategy. Last year, one contestant steadfastly maintained that he would not lie because he had promised his child that he would not tell a lie. Guess what? This man ended up lying as part of his strategy for trying to win.

The widespread cultural acceptance, even cultural approval, of lying is corrosive for our capacity both as individuals and as a whole society to make good moral judgments. It is extraordinary to me that with all the talk about how people need to vote their religious values, the one value that does not seem to get recognized as a religious value is truthfulness.

So, do I think that it is important that presidential candidates as well as Presidents themselves be “honest and trustworthy”? Yes I do. But this country will never get that in a leader unless the people themselves decide that honesty is a moral value and start to vote that value. We’ll continue to be a liar society where doing what it takes to win is really our moral compass.