Has there ever been a president whose parents were so viciously attacked as Obama's?

[Drunken Irishman]

I get Bush because his father was president, but I don't even remember, during the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, many people going after him. He was old news. Yeah, Hillary had that line that it would take a Clinton to clean up a Bush's mess ... but that's insignificant compared to the attacks we've seen from the right on Ann and Barack Senior. They've been vile and hateful and awful. I don't think anyone would ever dare attack Romney's parents in that way ... and I certainly don't remember Clinton's mom coming under attack like this.

It's just so dirty and amazingly horrible. There are some attacks that go beyond the pale and I think this is one. I've never heard a First Mom (even if she's not around to defend herself) called a whore before or a prostitute or a porn star.

The level these people would stoop to makes me ashamed to be American.

Seriously.

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. Not in my lifetime. nt

[Scootaloo]

2. I'm no scholar, but I'm sure the answer is "never"

At least, not without some actual, deserved political scope (Maybe someone bashed Dubya over Poppy's reign as head spook, or maybe John Adams the younger took some hits over John Adams the elder, I dunno)

Now here's the question for the followup; would we be seeing these attacks if they were not a mixed-race couple? Or even if hte genders were swapped, and his parents were a white man and a black woman? The idea of a white woman with a black man still terrifies the overwhelming majority of the Republican base.

[murielm99]

3. I believe Clinton's parents took some terrible attacks,

especially his mother. The opposition tried to portray them as white trash. I don't think anyone should be called that. At the time, I did not even know what that meant!

[SheilaT]

4. No. Never.

The candidates themselves have always been considered fair game.

Andrew Jackson's wife, Rachel, is believed to have died prematurely because of attacks on her character, that she was bigamously married to Andrew Jackson. The attacks were vicious in a time when the sanctity of marriage was truly an important part of life. The way she was attacked makes the current birthers seem like nothing.

It's important to recall that throughout our history presidential campaigns have been very hard fought. Every single election cycle there's this brand new idea that this time it's worse than it has ever been. Basically, that's not true. It's always the worst it has ever been.

Today we have the internets, which makes the spreading of untruth more rapid than before, but the willful ignorance of most people is a constant.

[Journeyman]

5. John F. Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was attacked for. . .

being a bootlegger; for having strong connections with the Mafia; for supporting Joseph McCarthy; for being antisemitic; for being a Papist; for consorting with socialists; for being friendly to the Nazis; for lobotomizing his daughter, and then denying her mental issues; for having numerous affairs; for being an unscrupulous businessman; for allowing his ambitions to override his familial obligations; for not supporting the United States while he was its ambassador to the United Kingdom; for believing the Battle of Britain had nothing to do with the defense of democracy; for engaging in questionable investment practices; for making a fortune buying up distressed mortgages; for engaging in insider trading and market manipulation (tactics which were legal at the time but later declared abusive); for being a crook, a whoremonger, and a defeatist.

There was much evidence to support many of the attacks against him.

And he was attacked equally -- or so it seems today -- from both the Left and the Right.

[Cha]

6. Another way to ask that is..

Have any other Parents been Viciously attacked so Falsely? You know..with the Smears and the Lies?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. Not in our lifetime but Palin's hero was a real winner....

John Quincy Adams claimed Jefferson was the son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a half-black father and when he was up for reelection he accused Andrew Jackson of murdering his own mother to hide that she was a prostitute and claimed his wife was a slut.

[silvershadow]

8. No question about it. The answer is no. What they have done to Obama is vile. n/t

[Skittles]

9. the graciousness of Michelle and Barack make them really stand out, too

yes INDEED

[secondwind]

10. join the club.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. I remember that Miss Lillian got her share of criticism

Last edited Sun Sep 23, 2012, 08:35 AM - Edit history (1)

along with Jimmy Carter's sister and brother.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. To be fair, Billy Carter was quite the drunk fuckup

[BarbaRosa]

12. I may be sent to my room for this one,

but I recall some dumping on Barbara Bush, and her beautiful mind.

[bemildred]

13. No, but family has been fair game at least since Carter.

I remember vicious attacks on Jimmy's family too, his daughter Amy, his brother Billy, tame stuff by modern standards, but quite a shock at the time.

[CBHagman]

14. Try Andrew Jackson, or perhaps earlier.

See the story of Rachel Jackson below.

[url]http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_timelines/timelines_first-ladies-07.html[/url]

Wearing the white dress she had purchased for her husband's inaugural ceremonies in March 1829, Rachel Donelson Jackson was buried at the Hermitage, her home near Nashville, Tennessee, on Christmas Eve, 1828. Lines from her epitaph – "A being so gentle and so virtuous slander might wound, but could not dishonor" - reflected Andrew Jackson’s bitterness at campaign slurs that seemed to precipitate her death.

Born in Virginia in 1767, Rachel Donelson journeyed to the Tennessee wilderness with her parents when only 12. At 17, she married. But her husband’s unreasoning jealousy made it impossible for her to live with him. They separated in 1790, and she was told that he was filing a petition for divorce.

Andrew Jackson married Rachel in 1791, but after two happy years they learned that a divorce had never been obtained. Her first husband brought suit on grounds of adultery. After a divorce was granted, the Jacksons quietly remarried in 1794. Although it had been an honest mistake, whispers of adultery and bigamy followed Rachel. Jackson was ready to avenge any slight to her.

[bemildred]

15. Yes, there is some amazing stuff in 19th century US politics too.

They got right down in the racism and misogny and wallowed in it back then.

[Missycim]

16. Shrubs parents were (rightly so)

nt

[HopeHoops]

17. I don't think so, but they sure went after Clinton's daughter.

[treestar]

18. No, never

I can't even think of who Nixon's or Reagan's parents were. And there was little in the news about Clinton's parents. Miss Lillian was not attacked like that, even though the Carter family was at times considered a bit eccentric.

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. Clinton's mother was often referred to as a "barfly" by right wingers

Barbara Olsen, the right wing pundit who was killed in the plane that hit the Pentagon on 9/11 (and wife to Ted Olsen), referred to Virginia Kelly as a "barfly who was used by men." She subsequently apologized. That was a month before she was killed, if i remember that shark attack, Gary Condit summer correctly.

[Hippo_Tron]

21. For once I'd love for somebody to respond to Newt Gingrich's anti-colonialism bit...

With regards to Obama Sr., by reminding him that the United States exists because a bunch of people here were tired of colonialism. The only options he would have would be to say he's wrong or admit how he really feels, which is: "That's different because they were white."