Based on the full text of Chris Christie’s GOP convention keynote speech as prepared, the New Jersey guv uttered the word “truth” 20 times.

As an actor playing the role of the truth-teller, I thought he was awesome. I haven’t caught his act before at this length and it was hard not to get swept up in the truthiness that somehow seemed implicit in his New Jersey accent.

As an actual truth-teller, he was a fraud. Here’s where he lost me once and for all last night:

“We have a nominee who will tell us the truth and who will lead with conviction.”

Really? Portraying Mitt Romney – who has been on both sides of most major issues, who would rather lose the election than divulge how he made his millions and how he sheltered them from taxes -- as a man of honesty and candor, tells me something very clear and very sad about Gov. Christie’s “authenticity.” It’s fake.

Lately I’ve seen several pieces arguing that Mitt Romney is the biggest liar ever to run for president. I doubt that. But I do believe that no modern candidate has ever managed to get this far while divulging less about either his biography or his program.

Said Christie:

“Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to put us back on the path to growth and create good paying private sector jobs again in America. Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy.”

Really? Mitt Romney has a tax plan. It starts with everyone in America paying a lower income-tax rate. But Romney says it will be revenue neutral because he will close enough loopholes and deductions and tax credits to offset all the revenue that the tax cuts would others forego. Without the offsets, the tax cuts for everyone (no tough talk there) would add trillions to the “debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy.”

What deductions and credits will he eliminate? He won’t say.

Said Christie:

“Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world's greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an American citizen and her doctor.”

Really? Mitt Romney wants to repeal the national health reform that is based on the Massachusetts health reform that was his own signature accomplishment as governor and replace it with something better. Where’s that replacement plan?

I haven’t followed Christie’s term in New Jersey closely. According to the New York Times editorial this morning, Christie didn’t tell the truth about that either.

Said Christie:

“Now we must lead the way our citizens live. To lead as my mother insisted I live, not by avoiding truths, especially the hard ones, but by facing up to them and being the better for it.”

I agree, except that I have no idea if Christie is telling the “truth” about his mother’s commitment to “truth,” I know he is lying about Mitt Romney’s commitment to hard-truth telling and I fear he is wrong about “our citizens’” devotion to hard-truth-hearing.