The Bush Smear Campaign Project

I want to start a mini think tank here, and if anyone is up for it, help me out.

What strikes me about the Swift Boat group is that their status as an organized political group is really the only unique thing about it.  Perhaps this is paradoxically a lucky thing for Kerry; the usual smear campaign artists in the GOP got too big for their britches and actually formed a 527 group that is regulated by laws, instead of just using unofficial and unregulated channels.

Which was pretty stupid, you ask me - these guys had the whole Internet to use for the purpose of disseminating outrageous lies about John Kerry, and they went and formed an official organization, solicited donations and legal advice from prominent Texas Republicans, and bought television ads.  If they'd read Joe Trippi's book and started a Swift Boat Veterans for America blog, they could've probably gotten the same $$ and put the same lies out there without leaving a clear paper trail leading right to the White House.

Still, we gotta deal with the lies, and I want to propose a different sort of counter strategy than fighting smear with smear.

George W Bush, like his father, runs and wins elections with these tactics.  Countering each one on its own terms is difficult, as we've seen, for an opponent.. because they start at such a low level and are so flat-out ridiculous, it is unbecoming for the opponent to address them.

And so the rumors just grow and do more and more damage, while Bush (Jr. or Sr.) stands on the sidelines and has his spokespeople issue denials of responsibility, and pretends he can't stop this stuff.  

I thought it was just a rerun of McCain in 2000, but it was the father, too - using surrogates to make up stories and spread them around.  Here's David Nyhan in the Boston Globe from October 29, 1992:

Whose campaign took up the Lyndon LaRouchites' deranged claim that Michael Dukakis had undergone psychiatric shock treatment and amplified it? Ronald Reagan slipped that one to the Duke, slyly winking that he wasn't going to "pick on an invalid," haw haw. Where was George [Bush Sr.]? Smirking, stage right.

Who benefitted from the craven rumor sparked by Republican Sen. Steve Symms of Idaho that Kitty Dukakis had burned an American flag? What Symms did in '88 for Bush is echoed by the '92 role of another fang-and-claw Republican right-winger, Rep. Bob Dornan of California, chief sorcerer [..] behind the Clinton-as-KGB-dupe story Bush invited Dornan to the White House to conjure.

Bush has long had a fondness for chainsaw-artists whose specialty is ripping the flesh off the opposition. [..] How about Mary Matalin, Atwater's successor, sprinkling attack faxes involving Clinton's wife and possible significant others?

Oh, look, here's Philip Gailey in the St. Petersburg Times from October 25, 1992, sounding really familiar:

George Bush has had his share of bad political breaks this year, but the  most striking thing about his re-election bid has been the ineptitude of the president and his advisers.

Bush himself squandered the one issue that offered Republicans their most  promising line of attack against Bill Clinton - character.  -snip-

But instead of focusing on Clinton's credibility, the president and his surrogate campaigners gave in to their desperation and began questioning the Democratic nominee's patriotism. Bush criticized Clinton for leading anti-war  demonstrations in England, where the future governor of Arkansas was studying as a Rhodes scholar.  Even more despicable were Bush's attempts to raise suspicions about the trip Clinton made to the Soviet Union as a student, as if  Clinton traveled to Moscow to pick up his orders from the KGB.

It gets even sleazier. It turns out that the State Department searched its files looking for dirt on Clinton that the president could use to embarrass the governor. Finding nothing on Clinton, the sewer rats of Foggy Bottom checked the department's files to see what, if anything, they could turn up on Clinton's mother.

Now the issue is the character of the Bush campaign - not Clinton's loyalty  to his country. The Bush crowd apparently knows no limits when it comes to  smearing an opponent.

I want to ask for your help to list and categorize as many of the various Bush-orchestrated smear campaigns and whisper campaigns as we can.  Uncovering a clear pattern seems like it might be key to debunking the whole lot of them. I'm sure there are more smears coming down the pike for Kerry once the Swift Liars are dealt with.  

Furthermore, I suspect that they may turn out to be divisible by category, which would be an effective way to organize a rebuttal.  Also, it might be funny to start predicting the next smears before they even get made up. I picture something like this:

The Bush Campaign Smear Directive:

Plan A: Attack Opponent's Patriotism

Plan B: Attack Opponent's Sanity

and if all else fails,

Plan C: Attack Opponent's Family

Things might be "heating up" and "getting nasty" this August according to the SLCM, but remember.. Bush is only on Plan A, with a few subtle remarks (cf Scott McClellan saying Sen. Kerry was "losing his cool" and "lashing out") giving me a premonition of what's to come.  Plan B: Unstable Kerry, a guy who kinda sorta exactly resembles Psycho McCain, Hysterical Gore, and Crazy Dean.  (To which I say, I've been crazy, crazy people are friends of mine, and Senator Kerry is not crazy...)  

So... list your favorite Bush smear campaigns below!

•  Here we go! October 27, 1992

  The Houston Chronicle
  Bush camp calls Perot "crazy"

  GREG McDONALD, TONY FREEMANTLE; Staff

  The Bush campaign Monday depicted Dallas billionaire Ross Perot as a ""crazy man'' suffering from ""delusions'' for believing that Republicans had planned to smear his daughter and ruin her
  wedding.

  At a campaign stop in Denver, President Bush's spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, said Perot had not offered "one shred of evidence" to back up his account that he dropped his presidential bid in July to protect his daughter, Carolyn. "And yet this man, who might be president of the United States, continues to make these ludicrous charges."

  Perot said Sunday he had dropped out of the race after learning from ""top'' Republicans of a plan to release a doctored photograph of his daughter and send operatives to ruin her August wedding. He also said he had learned that the Bush campaign wanted to wiretap his Dallas office.

  August 21, 1992
  New York Times
  by MICHAEL KELLY

  -snip-

  Nina Totenberg, the National Public Radio correspondent who has become a villain among conservatives for disclosing Anita F. Hill's accusations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, found herself on Wednesday night being followed on the floor of the convention by young men who interrupted her work by repeatedly yelling: "Nina, Nina. Have you had an affair."

  The harassment looked spontaneous to Ms. Totenberg. But Pat Mullins, the Republican chairman of Fairfax County who is a leader of the Virginia delegation, said, "Oh, that is very deliberately done." He said he had arranged the harassment of Ms. Totenberg because she had asked President Bush at a news conference at his summer home in Maine whether he had an affair with a former aide.

  Informed that the question had been asked by Mary Tillotson, a reporter for CNN, Mr. Mullins said: "Oh. Are you sure. I could have sworn I read something about her asking it."

  by daria g on Sat Aug 21, 2004 at 08:47:55 AM PDT

•  1992 GOP Convention: Jane Fonda smear, take 1

  The New York Times
  Abroad at Home; Merchants of Hate
  August 21, 1992

  by ANTHONY LEWIS

  [...] But the collapse of the Soviet Union did not faze Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson or the others who speak for the Republican Party today. They bashed the un-Christian and the un-straight. They bashed Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. And they even managed to flog the Red menace.

  If the Democrats won this election, Republican chairman Rich Bond suggested, Jane Fonda would be sleeping in the White House "as guest of honor at a state dinner for Fidel Castro."

  -snip-

  The nastiness had a purpose, and that was the second significant point in the convention. The idea was to take people's minds off the real issue in the 1992 election: the economic suffering of millions of Americans.

  -snip-

  That is why Republicans on and off the floor talked about everything they could to get people's minds off jobs and pay and their hopes for their children -- that is, real subjects.

  Day after day some Bush surrogate spoke of Governor Clinton's sex life. But probably nastiest of all were the references to Mrs. Clinton.

  Literature sold in the Republican "Spirit of America" hall next to the arena called Mrs. Clinton a "femi nazi." The Reverend Robertson said she and her husband were out to "destroy the traditional family." That of a woman whose efforts to help children learn were praised by the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy in a 1989 book.

  Of course every effort was made to keep President Bush above the slime -- to give him deniability. He sounded Presidential. But anyone who thinks his attack dogs were acting on their own must believe in Peter Pan.
  

  
  

  by daria g on Sat Aug 21, 2004 at 08:53:44 AM PDT

•  Bait and Switch may also be part of it

  Step One: plant an ugly rumor or smear (Symms-R,ID saying Kitty Dukasis burned an American Flag, push poll a rumor about McCain's "love child.")

  Step Two: When the opposition answers an attack, question the opponent's sanity.  (Did McCain have a nervous breakdown because of his time as a POW? Wow, Al Gore just "went crazy" during that speech!  And now, Kerry's "uncool, or unhinged," for daring to respond.

  Step Three: Change the Subject! They don't answer questions about the actual charge. "...The White House has never questioned Mr. Kerry's record...it's those shadowy groups.."

  You're absolutely right, it's high time someone held them to account for the content and sources of their own attack ads.  

  Take action. There are many good diaries here that list the contact information for major newspapers.  Collect examples of this type of campaigning, share them here and then share them with the media.

  Send comments and questions via the feedback pages of the television broadcasters. The more reliable information we can disseminate the better.  

  A person here, a person there; and pretty soon we might even have our very own answer to "In-Accuracy in Media"!  
  

  by greatbasin2 on Sat Aug 21, 2004 at 10:07:45 AM PDT

•  Some examples

  Bush trashed McCain in 2000.  [Source: The Times (London), 11/23/99]...

   "There have also been rumors that GOP rivals are trying to dig up his medical records." [Source: Maureen Dowd, Op-ed, Denver Post, 11/22/99] ...

  Bush campaign looked smear McCain's military record in 2000. ... he shouldn't be entrusted with nuclear weapons." [Source: Elizabeth Drew, Op-Ed, Washington Post, 11/19/99] ...

  Former Admiral Stockdale says Bush supporter called him for dirt on McCain's Vietnam service.  [Source: Vice Admiral James Stockdale, New York Times, 11/26/99] ...

  Bush called McCain a "say one thing, do another" politician... when in fact this is a man who yesterday authorized calls into the Commonwealth of Virginia calling me an anti-Catholic bigot." [Source: Bush Press Conference, Cleveland, Ohio, 2/29/00] ...

  source
  Note The Liberty Post has a Fair Use copyright statement.

  Also a good article in Blue State
  

  by greatbasin2 on Sat Aug 21, 2004 at 10:31:23 AM PDT

•  Repost from another thread -

  David Nyhan, Boston Globe, October 29, 1992:

  [In New Hampshire], Bush [Sr.] licked Sen. Bob Dole with a last-minute TV spot falsely claiming Dole would tax home heating oil, triggering Dole's blistering riposte to Bush: "Stop lying about my record." Never mind Iran-Contra, out-of-the-loopmanship, Iraqgate, S&L coverups; let's stick to pure domestic politics. The name Willie Horton ring a bell?

  Whose campaign took up the Lyndon LaRouchites' deranged claim that Michael Dukakis had undergone psychiatric shock treatment and amplified it? Ronald Reagan slipped that one to the Duke, slyly winking that he wasn't going to "pick on an invalid," haw haw. Where was George? Smirking, stage right.

  Who benefitted from the craven rumor sparked by Republican Sen. Steve Symms of Idaho that Kitty Dukakis had burned an American flag? What Symms did in '88 for Bush is echoed by the '92 role of another fang-and-claw Republican right-winger, Rep. Bob Dornan of California, chief sorcerer - I can't say source - behind the Clinton-as-KGB-dupe story Bush invited Dornan to the White House to conjure.

  Bush has long had a fondness for chainsaw-artists whose specialty is ripping the flesh off the opposition. Remember the late Lee Atwater's deathbed conversion to Catholicism and his public apology for the dirty-trickstering he'd performed to elect Bush? Maybe Perot remembered. How about Mary Matalin, Atwater's successor, sprinkling attack faxes involving Clinton's wife and possible significant others?

  by daria g on Sat Aug 21, 2004 at 01:37:38 PM PDT