Political lies should not be acceptable

I already cast my absentee ballot for a Republican candidate (who since withdrew). But I am aghast at the level of discourse between the remaining candidates.

It is not only the debates, it is the commercials. They repeat unsubstantiated charges coupled with scary music, usually leveled, unanswered, against Donald Trump.

We heard the news conference by Mitt Romney, a person I greatly admire, where he repeated all the negative things he could come up with against Trump, some factual, some questionable, and some imaginary. What surprised me was that he used some of the same tricks that were used against him when he ran for president four years ago.

For one thing, Romney charged that Trump will not release his income tax records at this time because they contain some "bomb" that would destroy his candidacy. Four years ago, Sen. Harry Reid held press conferences charging that Romney would not release his income tax records because Romney hadn't paid income tax for 10 years. The only proof that he offered was that he heard it from some unnamed friend.

The news media gave it wide coverage, as if it were true. This all proved to be false.

Recently, when asked about it, Reid explained, without regret or apology, "Well, we won, didn't we?"

Another false charge that Romney made is that Trump is a poor businessman. He listed a number of Trump's businesses that failed. Romney should know, better than anyone, that someone with a number of businesses will have some of them fail. That's the nature of business.

The truth is both Romney and Trump are excellent businessmen.

How can Romney use the same dirty tricks that were used against him?

What has happened to our country where politicians can state lies and imaginations as fact, and this is acceptable?

Ken Geisinger

Bradenton

This story was originally published March 13, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Political lies should not be acceptable ."