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| A Short History of Presidential Smear Campaigns - |
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pax
 Posted:
Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:16 am |
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A Short History of Presidential Smear Campaigns
How to Erase That Smea...
By PAUL VITELLO
When Thomas Jefferson found himself accused of planning to burn all Bibles and legalize prostitution if elected president in 1800, he was ready with a counterpunch that might make today’s most vitriolic campaign operatives stop short. Jefferson’s rival, President John Adams, was endowed with a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman”; and if re-elected he would crown himself king; and, by the way, he was “mentally deranged.” The author of the attacks was not Jefferson himself, of course, but a master poison-pen pamphleteer named James Callender, who, historians have since determined, was bankrolled completely by Jefferson. (For his efforts, Callender spent nine months in prison under the Sedition Act for saying those things about a sitting president; Jefferson pardoned him immediately after defeating Adams and taking office.)
So, if this year’s entries in the annals of presidential campaign smears seem likely to reach depths never before plumbed — the latest example, some would say, being the book “Obama Nation,” which suggests that Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, may be a drug-addicted, Muslim, radical leftist — they probably won’t. For raw, crushing smear power, the 1964 “Daisy” ad, made for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign and suggesting that the election of the Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, would mean the end of life on earth, has still never quite been equaled. And the 11th-hour telephone “survey” of Republican primary voters in South Carolina in 2000, asking “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” will probably keep its place on the Mount Rushmore of smear for a while. But while hermaphroditical characters and nuclear madmen may be missing, historians and others say the 2008 presidential campaign has achieved a level of smear and counter-smear sophistication that is unprecedented.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/weekinreview/17vitello.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16323
Location: Wish You Were Here
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| yankee-in-france
Posted:
Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:14 am |
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Thanks, Pax. Interesting article.
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YIF
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 6999
Location: France
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| SavannahStar
Posted:
Sat Aug 23, 2008 7:49 am |
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Good article, pax. Did you send it to Phantom?  
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**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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