What is it about politicians and fibs that can easily be shown false?

On the campaign trail in 2008, Senator Barack Obama told black audiences stories about his parents' involvement in the civil rights protests of 1960s that were not even remotely true.  Over the years, Hillary Clinton has made preposterous claims about everything from being named after the conqueror of Mt. Everest to having been under sniper fire in Bosnia.

We all know that Trump constantly proclaims he is the greatest at just about everything.  Add eyesight to the list.

"Because I had a view – I have a window in my apartment that specifically was aimed at the World Trade Center, because of the beauty of the whole downtown Manhattan. And I watched as people jumped and I watched the second plane come in. ... I saw the second plane come in and I said, "Wow that's unbelievable".'

Trump's apartment, in the penthouse of iconic Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, is 4.1 miles away from where the twin towers once stood.

An object the size of a human body cannot be discerned by the human eye at that distance.  Now, maybe there is a telescope or pair of binoculars in Trump's penthouse.  However, on that day, Donald Trump was apparently not in the penthouse.  At the time the Twin Towers were struck on the morning of September 11, 2001, Donald Trump was reported to be at a business meeting in downtown Chicago, Illinois, almost  800 miles from Manhattan.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Adrian D. Smith, a well-known architect in the Chicago office of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, was in a meeting with Donald Trump. The hyperbolic New York City developer was in Chicago to go over the design of a proposed Trump residential tower in that city that he had decided should be — what else — the tallest building in the world, around 2,000 ft. In the midst of that meeting, the two men got word of the first plane that hit the World Trade Center. “When the second plane hit, we all rushed to the television to see what was happening,” says Smith. “That was the end of the meeting.” And also the end of the 2,000 ft. tower. A few weeks later, Trump’s people came back with a revised proposal – at 900 ft. or so.

Update: Other media reports have Trump in New York that day or the next two days.  It would have been very difficult for him to get back with the ban on air travel.