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Swiftboating: A New Low in Dirty Politics

By Taylor Marsh, AlterNet. Posted September 12, 2006.


John Kerry, John Murtha and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga have all been targeted by Republican-funded smear campaigns. As the fall election cycle revs up, who will be swiftboated next?

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Political dirty tricks have long been a staple of American elections. But now there's a relatively new black art in the mix -- a form of attack politics funded to the tune of millions and featuring a wide network of surrogates eager to get into the fight. It's dirty tricks on steroids, and it's called swiftboating.

The term "swiftboating" was coined in the 2004 presidential election, when a bunch of Navy swiftboat veterans, bankrolled by Texas tycoon Robert J. Perry, formed the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and targeted Democratic candidate John Kerry. It's come a long way in a very short period of time, with Perry's original cash quadrupled and then some. The practice of swiftboating is usually applied to a candidate, particularly a veteran, but any politically active person who challenges the Republican powers-that-be can become a victim. The launch of such an attack is tantamount to a charge of cowardice, with a whiff of treason hovering somewhere nearby.

Although swiftboating was perfected in 2004, the actual practice started in 2000, when primary challenger George W. Bush went after veteran and former P.O.W. Sen. John McCain in the South Carolina primary. Veterans had formerly been off limits, but Bush's 2000 presidential campaign changed the rules forever. Now Republicans even go after generals. Bush's campaign was orchestrated by Karl Rove, whose mentor was hardball political guru Lee Atwater, and it succeeded in taking McCain out of the presidential running. Later, swiftboating was utilized by the now-disgraced Ralph Reed, who successfully attacked decorated war hero and triple amputee Sen. Max Cleland.

If a victim dares to let a swiftboat attack go unchallenged ... well, look what happened to John Kerry. Candidates have learned the hard way that they have to fight back.

Campaigns of misinformation

Swiftboating has little to do with the truth. It's a smear campaign waged on misinformation and allegations so damning the public is disinclined to give the target the benefit of the doubt. The significant money that goes into swiftboating campaigns is hidden as much as possible and used in unmistakably shifty ways. The group doing the swiftboating is usually a 527, a tax-exempt organization that can raise limitless amounts of soft money.

The next time you hear something negative about a candidate from a group you've never heard of, ask yourself who stands to gain from the attack? The next time you hear outlandish allegations popping up out of nowhere, check and see if a "Vets for Fill-in-the-Blank" group is involved. Since the success of Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, scores of similar groups have proliferated. But it doesn't have to be a group; individual candidates are taking up the task of swiftboating their opponents themselves.

I recently chronicled the Republican campaign to smear Rep. John Murtha for The Patriot Project, an organization created to combat swiftboating. However, Murtha's swiftboating goes well beyond just one group. A whole network of conservatives from news organizations and cable channels to bloggers and radio hosts is set on destroying Murtha.

The swiftboating of Rep. Murtha is the most deeply rooted and far-flung effort since the attack on John Kerry. It's even spawned a political candidate to run against Murtha in '06, Diana Irey, who has her own "Vets for Irey" site. The swiftboating began when Murtha changed his mind and spoke out about Iraq. The anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are organizing against Murtha, with original swiftboater John O'Neill launching a coordinated attack against him in October, right before elections.

Swiftboaters don't follow any rules. Even a parent caring for a deathly ill child is fair game.

Rep. Curt Weldon has been swiftboating veteran Joe Sestak for months. When Sestak's 5-year-old daughter, Alexandra, was clinging to life because of a malignant brain tumor, Weldon criticized Sestak for having his child treated at a hospital in Washington, rather than one in Philadelphia or Delaware. After that, Weldon attacked Sestak for wearing the uniform, a charge that was easily rebutted.


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Taylor Marsh blogs at taylormarsh.com.

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View:
Just like the boy that cried wolf one too many times!
Posted by: Thundergod on Sep 12, 2006 12:17 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This election is different...

The spin masters have cried one too many times!

When you start taking Texas rednecks farmlands with eminet domain for superhiway from Mexico to Canada and selling it to a foreign power and charge tolls to the locals you will see the redneck bush supporters kicking this administration out...

I'm not boasting...

This is a fact!

Bye bye neocons!

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More Spin from some of the dimmer in the dim side
Posted by: bullwhip7 on Sep 12, 2006 12:46 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This from Silver Chips Online - Montgomery Blair Highschool's Online Newspaper

The history of mudslinging
...
History shows that these sorts of unsupportable attacks and seemingly childish antics are not new to the election game. Candidates for all sorts of public office have engaged in name calling and public denunciations of their opponents from America's earliest days as a democracy.

Not even one of our most admired founding fathers was safe from personal attacks. According to a BBC news article, during the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson was "accused of favoring the teaching of 'murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest,'" by his opponent.

Perhaps one of the most venomous elections was in 1828, when John Quincy Adams was running for President against General Andrew Jackson. According the same BBC news article, Adams was "nicknamed 'The Pimp' by the campaign of his opponent…based on a rumour that he had once coerced a young woman into an affair with a Russian nobleman when he had been American ambassador to Russia."

In response, Adams' supporters came out with a pamphlet which read: "General Jackson's mother was a common prostitute brought to this country by British solders! She afterwards married a mulatto man with whom she had several children of which number General Jackson is one!!"

Then, there was the relentless slander and ridicule that Lincoln endured. According to an article in the Bradenton Herald, his opponents made fun of his "slang-whanging stump speaker" style, Newspapers made fun of his looks ("a horrid looking wretch"), and cartoonists pictured him in racist scenarios. One man from Georgia proclaimed that Lincoln planned to "force inter-marriage between children - that 'within 10 years or less our children will be the slaves of Negroes.'"

Merely two decades later, during Grover Cleveland's election in 1884, Cleveland, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was accused of fathering an illegitimate child, according to a Scripps Howard News Service article. Cleveland's supporters in turn called his opponent a liar.

By the 1950's, with America's red scare shadowing over much of the country, sympathy with communism replaced sex scandals as the most vitriolic accusation one candidate could hurl at another. Scripps Howard News Service article reports that Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy even accused the entire administration of President Harry Truman of harboring communists.


So saying that dirty poltics has reached a new low, is in essence, BS, lies, damned lies and more democratic spin.
Incidentally, Kerry also had a group of swiftboaters who played clips of Hitler speeches and compared them to Bush policy.

Spin, Lies and attempts at manipulation.

Yeah.

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» Fight fire with fire... Posted by: Conservasaurus
» RE: Fight fire with fire... Posted by: ReallyBearish
» Now you can't even trust democrats Posted by: Conservasaurus
» Can't tell a slap from a bullet Posted by: ReallyBearish
» But, Bill was getting it! Posted by: Conservasaurus
» Liberals may represent the most risk! Posted by: Conservasaurus
fire
Posted by: rsaxto on Sep 12, 2006 1:19 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We need to fire every Republican running for office in November who doesn't spead out against swiftboating for those who don't speak out against swiftboating are traitors to democracy for they only believe in greed, greed, greed. Swiftboaters are neofascists who believe in destroying democracy all over the world.

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Other swiftboaters
Posted by: PJH67 on Sep 12, 2006 1:51 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I can name a few other swiftboaters:

George Soros, Moveon.org, the Dailykos.

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» PJH67 Posted by: lamar
Pundits and bloggers
Posted by: lamar on Sep 12, 2006 6:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Excellent piece, except that swiftboating can't really happen to Markos Molitsas because Molitsas doesn't have the political handcuffs of an elected politician, plus he owns a platform from which to counter the swiftsilliness. In my opinion, part of the insidiousness of swiftboating is the inherent inability of the candidate to counter with full force. If the swiftshitties want to attack political pundits and bloggers, let them have their red meat, maybe an artery will harden. Politicians running for office can't throw down the gloves like a blogger can. I'd like to see the swiftboobs engage with the Kos crowd and see what kind of response they get when the target of the smear attack can fight back without political repercussions.

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Who is next for swiftboating?
Posted by: nim on Sep 12, 2006 8:18 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wasn't the ABC "fictionalized", "compressed time" docu-drama a smear of the Clinton name - a slap at the Senator?

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» ABC's docu-drama - right on! Posted by: Conservasaurus
» RE: ABC's docu-drama - right on! Posted by: drmflorida
» Ouch Posted by: Conservasaurus
Arousal from a cultural vegetative state
Posted by: kencohen on Sep 12, 2006 9:03 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Camus wrote, "terror makes fear and fear stops thinking". The Republican strategy to continuously provoke fear keeps people from thinking. Hyperbolic ranting myths have been promoted as truth.
However, as the strident refrains begin to have a familiar ring, as the real truth bleeds through the veils of self delusions, the American people will once again think rather than reflectively react to fear.

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» Camus - is that soap? Posted by: bullwhip7
Political power is in the Marketed words.
Posted by: common intelligence on Sep 12, 2006 10:09 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I never can understand why the Demos just don't folow the simplest of rules in marketing. "imitation is the sincerest form of flatery".
The point here is the lables the neocons use are highly thought of and applied in order to indelibly imprint on the short term memories of those with nimble awareness. This means the use of "sound bites" and quick blasts news items directed in the mediamentally registered and imprinted in a split second. Karl Rove understands this and has written a whole program which he talked about, in not the same words as mine here but stratigically applied in his talks to PNAC neocon types about taking over the government. Again in not the same words as I am using here.

The lableing of groups like have been mentioned "Veterans for Freedom" is one such typical application. It dignifies a respected group and an ideaology, immediately. Lest one beware of the source. But that is not registered in the one that hears the words you see.

What I'm getting at is a simple question and suggestion to the Democratic party, "Start using the same stategy". "Use the words that count and are embraced in the heart of the American mind set and we will asssure a strong offensive line in the election of ideas and candidates."

Use the identical techniques, except for the lies and deception. But more so, DO NOT Let the opposition take the debate off focus. REdirection the attention away from the subject is "their" nasty technique when they are loosing. Typically tha is exactly what is being done now during the 911 anniversary. The best thing that cn be done is when Bush or Roves cronies speak a blundering admission of guilty, RUN with it. Bush has just admitted 911 had nothing to do with Iraq. Why the hell have none of the Demos capitaized on that? The idiot gave you the bloody ammunition and no one picked up the gun!

Never let the bastard off the hook, gaff'm and keep'm!

I just hope someone in the Demo camp picks up on this because all the effort I have put forth to get the Demos to listen have fallen on deaf ears.

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» "intellegence"??? Posted by: drmflorida
» RE: "intellegence"??? Posted by: lamar
» But who controls the marketplace? Posted by: thoughtcriminal
Propaganda and the War of Lies
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Sep 12, 2006 12:45 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It does seem that more and more people are becoming aware of the insidious and sneaky nature of Republican corporate propaganda and their obsession with framing issues and emotional manipulation. However, trying to use these techniques to promote 'leftist politics' is a very bad idea - then you end up with Stalin instead of Hitler, and there isn't any real difference between the two.

Better is to work at exposing the intellectual lies as well as the emotional manipulation that is so prevalent in the US media environment today. Remember that the government lies to the public as a routine practice; these lies are more believable when disseminated via various think tanks and academics to corporate 'journalists' who are assigned to cover stories by their editors, who answer to the corporate media boards. Wealth business leaders also lie to maintain profitability, and they also use the corporate media and academic institutions to spread their message.

So, how does one tell a lie from the truth? In this case, one might look at what the previous-to-GW #1 US War Criminal had to say (Kissenger, that is): "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer". One thing you can look for is logical self-consistency; another is a reliance on emotional manipulation and a desire to avoid factual information. Audiences that get all their information from TV are very gullible - so either turn the TV off, or start watching for the emotional and intellectual manipulation techniques being used by media broadcasters.

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Unfortunately
Posted by: Mewsician on Sep 15, 2006 2:27 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the issue of "swiftboating" comes down to the same, simple premise that all complaints about the current regime come down to: none of this would be a problem if we weren't a nation populated by such a huge percentage of people too lazy, dim, incurious, hate-filled, narrow and contemptuous of intellectual pursuit to understand the difference between "the truth" and "that which I agree with and makes me feel good to hear." The most grievous enablers in what's happening to this country are the corporate media lapdogs who prevent anything remotely resembling the truth from being provided to the general public. Readers of Alternet don't suffer from the above list of maladies because they know better than to fall victim to the Fox News mentality. But sadly, the combination of an utterly failed media and a public so overfed and uninformed has conspired to produce a confederacy of dunces. And the rest of us are shit out of luck.

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And in case you doubt me
Posted by: Mewsician on Sep 15, 2006 2:34 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
check it out:

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1172

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