Glenn Reynolds Quotes
With 'swift-boating' now being used by the ignorant as a synonym for false charges, it's worth remembering that it was John Kerry who had to retract his statement about his secret Christmas mission to Cambodia, despite it having allegedly been 'seared, seared' into his memory.
Reynolds, Glenn. Instapundit. PJ Media, 2008.
During the 1988 presidential campaign, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado was accused of womanizing. Reporters from The Miami Herald staked out Hart's Washington DC townhouse and determined that a young woman spent Friday night and Saturday with him while his wife was in Denver. Confronted with the story, Hart's campaign manager said:. Shortly after this statement was made, Hart withdrew from the race. The story was true.
The reason that this is a noteworthy quotation is that it illustrates how the immoral political tactics of the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph P. McCarthy, was turned into a noun and used to describe a type of unethical political behavior the world over. Even in South Africa, labeling political tactics as McCarthyism is an effective accusation. Senator McCarthy himself was censured by the Senate for his tactics of claiming people were communists when he had no evidence of same and claiming that he had long lists of communists in the government when he did not have them.
In this dirty technique some people who knew the candidate at one point in his/her life “organize” and “independent” organization with funding from a partisan individual or organization. They then create attack TV and web ads against the candidate that include serious untruths as well as misleading accuracies. When the candidate is asked about the lies and exaggerations, he/she refuses to comment and only says that he/she cannot be held responsible for anything that anyone says against his/her opponent or anyone else. The candidate adopts a policy of not commenting on any political ads other than the ones he/she is responsible. This produces viscious false attacks on an opponent with the candidate completely shielded from responsibility.
His older brother was running for Consul—the highest elected office of the Roman Empire. The Handbook, was his advice to his brother as to how to conduct his campaign.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, and is known for his American politics weblog, Instapundit.
