Dirty politics? Smears? Bashing? Using the media?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

A few snippets from the article.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/the-complete-history-of-dirty-politics-a-qa-on-anything-for-a-vote/

The 19th century was very big on that. In the election of 1800, one of the dirtiest in American history, the venomous hack writer James Callendar (secretly hired by Thomas Jefferson) assailed then-President John Adams as a “repulsive pedant” and “a hideous hermaphroditical character,” whatever that means. Later in the 19th century, Martin Van Buren was accused of wearing women’s corsets (by Davy Crockett, no less) and James Buchanan (who had a congenital condition that caused his head to tilt to the left) was accused of have unsuccessfully tried to hang himself. Oh, and Abraham Lincoln reportedly had stinky feet

Even no less an authority than the New York Times (sorry) was guilty of this. In the epic William McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryan contest of 1896, the Times, which supported McKinley, published a series of articles in which prominent alienists discussed quite seriously whether Bryan was crazy. One expert wrote: “I don’t think Bryan is ordinarily crazy … but I should like to examine him as a degenerate.”

This committee also wrote letters to columnist Ann Landers purporting to be from ordinary citizens terrified of the prospect of a Goldwater presidency. And they sent CIA agent E. Howard Hunt to infiltrate Goldwater campaign headquarters, posing as a volunteer, where he gained access to advance copies of Goldwater speeches and fed them to the White House, causing Goldwater to complain that whenever he put forth an initiative, the White House immediately trumped it.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. kick