General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDesperately spinning, repubs today on Morning Joe accused Obama campaign of Willy Horton tactics.
Actually, Joe Klein brought up the Horton ad and the Swiftboating and Dan Senor made the linkage.
Here is a case of being able to dish it out, but not being able to take it.
If I were Dan Senor, I think I'd go on vacay for a while...his b.p. can't be too good right about now...
6000eliot
(5,643 posts)no_hypocrisy
(46,251 posts)Woody Guthrie gets it right.
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/woody_guthrie/
lunatica
(53,410 posts)CTyankee
(63,914 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)and is sitting on the floor crying for his mother.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)my little tiny violin to provide them with a little background music with their whine and cheez.
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)and besides, this is not 'Willy Horton' or 'Swiftboating' this is catching Romney in one lie after another about his business affairs. Fair game, I think.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,450 posts)to do basically anything that helps his chances of re-election and/or helps people in general.
Atman
(31,464 posts)Dukakis DID let Willy Horton go. That is indisputable. But "Swiftboating" means to deliberately, repeatedly tell a lie about someone's credentials in order the lessen their credibility.
Dukakis didn't stand a chance when the ad was aired, instilling fear in the electorate at a time when crime was high, and there wasn't enough time for people to really get the facts. Oh, and then there was the silly tank/helmet situation.
Swiftboating was something entirely different, and these guys on the news shows are totally misrepresenting what the term means -- to intentionally tell a lie, as opposed to intentionally telling the truth.
.
CTyankee
(63,914 posts)to be more generic. I agree that we have the better case because we are telling the truth, and I wish we could have that conversation on shows like MJ. Perhaps we will be able to at long last since this is now a talking point. I think Joe Klein was heading in that direction but Senor interrupted him with his question and then there was a lot of cross talk.
I hope Ed Schulz or Al Sharpton takes it up...
BumRushDaShow
(129,797 posts)that broadbrushed the entire black community as criminals and almost 25 years later, we're still trying to dig out from that ugly stereotype.
I refuse to allow folks to summarily dismiss that disgrace of an ad ignoring what it eventually spawned (see Charles Stuart case in MA as one example from not long after that election). Kerry is a rich man and can survive but the damage has been almost irreparable to law-abiding citizens in the black community over 2 decades later.
JHB
(37,163 posts)Atman
(31,464 posts)It just shouldn't be a part of the discussion. "Swiftboating" is about deliberately lying. Willie Horton was about deliberately scaring people. Swiftboating was a lie. Willy Horton really happened. It is very important that we don't become like the morning commentators and begin using the terms interchangeably. They have extremely different meanings.
CTyankee
(63,914 posts)that's why I said they were desperately spinning...
BumRushDaShow
(129,797 posts)Really?
Bwaaahahahahaha! This must be killing them because they are whining so much about it now!
CTyankee
(63,914 posts)Those amazin' republicans. Funny how they collapse in a whimper...
SDjack
(1,448 posts)alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Swiftboating, Willy Horton, aren't these GOP specialties?
DainBramaged
(39,191 posts)TrollBuster9090
(5,955 posts)And if that isn't enough,
REMIND THEM WHAT SWIFBOATING smear tactics are, and which rich plutocrat got paid off with an Ambassadorship to Belgium for FUNDING them!
These Republican tactics are so brilliant they make three dimensional chess look like mud wrestling!
CTyankee
(63,914 posts)But let's eat this dish cold...as the saying goes...
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Baitball Blogger
(46,775 posts)Major non sequitur.
BumRushDaShow
(129,797 posts)in order to essentially "black bash" while gluing it onto Dukakis. They got a twofer with that. It eventually lead to nationwide manhunts for and sensationalized newspaper headlines about falsely accused black males, some of whom are finally getting out of jail thanks to DNA testing. The GOP is evil.
Baitball Blogger
(46,775 posts)But there has to be a better term to describe that phenomenon where each level you go down, you have to count two degrees of distance in measurement.
BumRushDaShow
(129,797 posts)To them, it was killing two birds (the entire black community and Dukakis) with one stone.
They deserve every goddam hit they are getting now and more.
For what you're describing, stuff that was lying dormant is literally replicating like a virus now that you pull back the layers and dig deeper. Think Farrah Fawcett's old Faberge shampoo commercials where she "told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so and so on". So you find one document, it leads to 2 documents that each lead to 2 documents (or more each) and so on and so and so on.
21st century term = going viral.
Baitball Blogger
(46,775 posts)CTyankee
(63,914 posts)Klein came on and said that in his career writing about presidential campaigns he had seen what is happening now only 2 times before: Dukakis and Kerry campaigns. The panel members jumped in and the discussion spun out from there on...
Robbins
(5,066 posts)The party of willie Horton and Swifboats are now complaning about attack ads.That Is Rich.
I have no problem with these ads because Obama Isn't lying.Unlike those lying swifboaters.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)in hopes that something will hit.
amusingly, no one checked the sights.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)I have no quarrel with harsh attack ads, provided that the ads are factual. The Willie Horton ad was a gross distortion of the facts (with just a titch of racism) and the Swiftboat ads were just plain fictional accounts of John Kerry's service in Vietnam. And both of these were launched by campaigns and third-party groups.
Mitt's problem began with the Bostom Globe and other legitimate news outlets asking legitimate questions about his business resume, and his been exacerbated by Romney's own refusal to release his tax returns.
Romney's getting devoured in every news cycle, and he has no one to blame but himself.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)singing Mitt Romney is much scarier than Willie Horton.
Lex
(34,108 posts)And it's still early days. I hope Obama's campaign has more and more just waiting. I suspect they do.
Atman
(31,464 posts)If he's so important to the Romney campaign, why is he wasting 3 hours of his morning on what is, according to the GOP, a third-rate Liberal news station? Just cashin' in, that's all.
.
CTyankee
(63,914 posts)to have a paycheck...
grasswire
(50,130 posts)I missed that.
CTyankee
(63,914 posts)happening. Her name is Campbell Brown. That's all I know at this point...
CanonRay
(14,125 posts)Are they copyrighted?
Kablooie
(18,645 posts)Even if the charges were true, which they aren't, how can they talk about their own tactics as being dishonest and unfair?
Zyzafyx
(124 posts)I agree that he needs to get outta the kitchen.
Zyzafyx
(124 posts)Rec.
Marr
(20,317 posts)say that sort of thing is unacceptable? How does that work?
I mean, even if you accept their claim that simply describing Romney's *actual* situation is akin to smearing your opponent with lies, it still only amounts to, "no fair hitting me back".
otohara
(24,135 posts)the kings of swift-boating calling foul, is downright hilarious.