By now, all of us should know that there isn't anyone Democrats can nominate who the Republican slime machine "won't be able to attack." And since their methods of attack do not depend on being truthful, there won't even be a time when all the attacks are on the table, and we know everything we're dealing with. (If they're making up smears, they can always make up a new one if they start losing their punch.)
But if, as now seems likely, Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, we have a powerful weapon, if we know how to use it. People like him, and with the excitement he's generating, most people who aren't paying close attention yet would rather not believe attacks leveled at him. And we have a template for what to do with that: Ronald Reagan.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not one buying into the Republican hagiography that "everyone" thought Reagan was a great president and remembers him fondly. I despise Reagan's policies, and direction of American society during his administration was miserable for anyone who disagreed with him. I'm talking about Reagan the candidate, and not his optimistic persona, but one of the things that was most infuriating about him: the phrase "there you go again."
In the 1980 debates, in response to substantive issues raised by Carter, Reagan repeatedly dodged critiques by responding "there you go again." It was absolutely maddening -- it was a non-response, it was almost Zen in how it "un-asked" the question. The "again" implied that Carter was rehashing something Reagan had already dealt with, only he hadn't. And he got away with it because people liked him, and that made pursuing the point seem like badgering.
So what does this have to do with us, and how we deal with phony right-wing smears? Well, we have long been struggling with how to handle blatantly false smears. As Harry Frankfurt explained in his classic essay, "On Bullshit", combating bullshit is very difficult, because it requires considerable effort to prove it false, but requires little effort for the purveyor to just make up new bullshit. Furthermore, research has shown that repeating a false story in order to refute it can paradoxically lead to the listener/reader trusting the story more, because they've heard about it from more sources, and they may end up mentally associating the authority of the debunker with the story, rather than the rebuttal. But we also know that it's dangerous to leave such smears unanswered. So what to do?
I think the answer is to knock down the idea that such smears could be true, without repeating them or putting the effort into a detailed rebuttal.
If you're dealing with a right-winger directly (in person or by email blast), give "there you go again!" a try. In person, say it with a smile or a knowing chuckle. It's infuriating, which will make their response less rational, and it'll be doubly infuriating if they're actually old enough to remember Reagan. If you want to add a little more fuel to the fire, you can add "can't you guys ever argue real issues instead of just making stuff up?" (And be sure to 'cc everyone they sent the original to, so their unsourced smear is undercut.)
If you're dealing with a well-meaning person who's been duped, associate the smear with other dubious email rumors, and commiserate about how sad it is that there's all this false information circulating, so they can realized they've been duped with minimum embarrassment. "This is like those panicky messages about an email tax, or the ones that try to get you to send your money to Nigeria." If there's any kind of opening ("He seems really good, but I've heard...") then follow up by trying to bring them into the fold, "He is really good." Getting them to begin to be invested in the candidate and questioning one smear is the best way to armor them against more smears.
As Glenn Greenwald pointed out this week, the Obama campaign has successfully fended off the smears so far, but we ain't seen nothing yet. But between this year's record levels of pro-Democratic/anti-Republican sentiment and Obama's charisma and personal likeability, we have a historic opportunity to strike a blow against these low tactics. The way we can all help is by defeating them without repeating them.
"There you go again!"