Swiftboating... what it is and what it isn't...

[Bread and Circus]

Swiftboating is a systematic use of "eyewitnesses" that have some insight, expertise, or personal testimony about an issue or occurence who through their testimony "exposes" a candidate to make them look bad. It uses their personal "credibility by way of experience" to trump your candidate's claim to that same credibility.

The candidate is perceived as using their experience to "get ahead" while the Swiftboaters are "telling it like it is" because their vested interests are kept hidden. This instantly disqualifies the candidate because it injects fear, uncertainty, and doubt that could only be relieved by research into the actual facts of the case (which most people aren't willing to do as they watch politics mostly out of the corner of their eye). Further, the facts of the case are hard to really find out because sand is kicked into researchers eyes as different accounts of issues occur with enough frequency to create more doubt about "what really happened".

Examples:

1.) Kerry runs as a war hero. The right gets a bunch of other "war heroes" to say "I was there, and Kerry was a coward, deserter, badge-finder, glory seeker".

2.) Candidate X runs a strong proponent of reproductive rights. The opposition gets a bunch of "reproductive rights activists" to say "I was there and I saw Candidate X waver on reproductive rights".

3.) Candidate Y runs as a civil rights defender/activist. The oppositions gets a bunch of "civil rights defenders/activists" to say "I was there and I saw Candidate Y waver on civil rights issues".


On the other hand, everytime someone tells a fib about your candidate just to make them look bad does not make it "Swiftboating". It is this latter case do I see the term "Swiftboating" thrown around here quite often. The problem is that when over used, such a term will begin to lose meaning.

Other examples of over used terms around here:

sexist, sexism, mysogeny, racist, racism, race card, race baiting, right wing talking points, Rovian.

There are many more, feel free to add your own.

[DB1]

1. Boiled down, it is just a hair shy of libel/slander