Bob McCarty Writes

The inability of presidential candidates — namely Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — to tell the truth has received a lot of attention in both traditional and new media during recent months. Today, however, it appears a solution is available that could help voters detect a lie as it emerges from a candidate’s mouth.

That solution, as reported in an MSNBC article this morning, comes in the form of a hand-held lie detector developed for the Pentagon and set for use later this month by U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan.

Touted as an anti-terror device by Pentagon officials who hope its use will help soldiers identify terror suspects in advance of a car-bomb or other attack, the device carries the potential for peacetime applications as well.

Imagine the practical benefit to voters if presidential candidates — Democrat and Republican alike — are monitored by hand-held lie detectors each time they speak in public. Americans would no longer have to struggle to determine whether or not a candidate is being truthful.

While experts warn that this device is not 100 percent accurate, I’m willing to risk a few “false positives” — or “false negatives,” depending upon how you look at it — when it comes to scrutinizing the endless stream of pledges and campaign promises made by presidential candidates.