I agree that the discussion about the daughter may be over the top..at least some posts. IMO, much of it could have been avoided if McCain/Palin had been up front about it on the day of her selection. As is often the case, the cover-up compounded the problem of the original act...no one to blame for that but themselves.
But, is it vicious to point out that Palin:
is under investigation by a Republican legislature for alleged abuse of power
actively lobbied for earmarked funds for the "highway to nowhere" before she was against it after Congress killed the funding
was a fundraisier for Sen. Steven's PAC, but has "thrown him under the bus" since his indictment
holds an extreme position on abortion (total ban) and abstinence only education
has surrogates claiming that she has foreign policy experience because of the geographic proximity of Alaska to Russia
Is it really more vicious then many of the "guilt by association" claims made about Obama?
Or ace's claim that Obama and all democrats are either liars or ignorant?
-----Added 2/9/2008 at 06 : 40 : 44-----
Quote:
Originally Posted by abaya
In other words, I'm not surprised or offended by "vicious" treatment of either candidate, and to some extent, I think it's necessary. No one ever said that a presidential campaign should be pleasant.
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A brief history of
political mudslinging:
examples:
* 1800: Jefferson hired a writer named James Callender to attack President Adams. He wrote that John Adams is "a repulsive pedant," a "gross hypocrite," and "a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensiblity of a woman."
* 1876 the opponents of Rutherford B. Hayes spread around a rumor that he had shot his own mother in a fit of rage.
* A Democratic newspaper told voters that Lincoln should not be elected president because he only changed his socks once every 10 days.
* 1912: Theodore Roosevelt is shot in the chest while preparing to give a campaign speech, then proceeds to deliver it anyway: “I don t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose!”
* 1828: a Republican pamphlet said Democrat Andrew Jackson was "a gambler, a cock fighter, a slave trader and the husband of a really fat wife," an insult for which he never forgave his opponents.
* 1844: Democrats call Whig candidate Henry Clay on his "supposed baggage train of gambling, dueling, womanizing and "By the Eternal!" swearing." Clay lost.
* 1836: Congressman Davy Crockett accuses candidate Martin Van Buren of secretly wearing women’s clothing: “He is laced up in corsets!”
"If you vote for Nixon, you ought to go to hell." -Harry S Truman, campaigning for John F. Kennedy, in 1960