# The worst smear tactic used by the left and the right **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 10, 2016, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-smear-tactic-used-by-the-left-and-the-right/745759 "2016-02-10T22:40:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-smear-tactic-used-by-the-left-and-the-right/745759/41 "2016-02-20T18:26:01Z")
The whole 1988 Presidential [Willie Horton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton) ad. The Republicans said it proved the Democrats were soft on crime, letting a murderer sentenced to life without parole out on work release so he could escape. The Democrats retaliated by saying using the ad proved the Republicans were racist. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-smear-tactic-used-by-the-left-and-the-right/745759/42 "2016-02-20T19:00:37Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Vietnam, we lost, and the country was worse off for it. That nation would have been better off sooner had the communists not won the day. What do you mean “we” Kimosabe? 2 million Vietnamese died in our attempt to prevent that, but the reality was that we (the USA) lost before that by not allowing elections to happen, because we knew that most Vietnamese would had voted for reunification. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-smear-tactic-used-by-the-left-and-the-right/745759/43 "2016-02-21T02:49:41Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > For the war years, the most powerful person other than the emperor was the War Minister rather than the PM. Tojo held both hats, but he was not a dictator, either as he had no authority over the Navy and only constitutional authority over the other ministries. I agree with you that Tojo was never a dictator. In practice, though, Navy Minister Shimada was pretty damn useless, and basically did whatever Tojo wanted. Here’s another fun fact about Japanese governmental dysfunction during the war. The War Ministry and the Naval Ministry only had authority over the Army and Navy Chief of Staff over stuff like budgets. The Chiefs of Staff also had direct access to the Emperor and could determine their own policies without consultation with the ministries. (And, in fact, the Navy Chief of Staff, Admiral Nagano and Minister Shimada couldn’t stand each other, and were pretty constantly at loggerheads.) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-smear-tactic-used-by-the-left-and-the-right/745759/44 "2016-02-21T03:55:20Z")
I think that, like all the worst tactics, there is something valid in there that makes it appealing. In this case, it’s that you need to acknowledge that there could be negative reasons, and that, if your stated reasons don’t hold, people will infer that you have unstated reasons you are unwilling to talk about–which will probably be bad. I think we do have to acknowledge oil as part of the issue. I don’t think it’s the whole issue. I strongly think it was tied both to the terrorist bombings and the fear of weapons of mass destruction. But I think the naive idea that a democratic Iraq would be more amendable to cheap oil for the U.S. was also part of the calculation. As was probably some spite after what happened to his father. I’ll leave others to come up with an example of the other, as all of mine describe people on the board, and I don’t want to start a fight and hijack this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-smear-tactic-used-by-the-left-and-the-right/745759/45 "2016-02-21T08:59:31Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Ascribing the worst possible motivations IS kinda cheap, but to forego that doesn’t require that we accept the other side’s noble rhetoric as gospel truth. This. I concede that the rhetorical technique to OP describes can trend towards cheap shots. But to take PR men at their word is also highly inappropriate. People and nations need to be judged -carefully- by their actions. Over at Vox, [Max Fisher](http://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/11022104/iraq-war-neoconservatives) discusses why we invaded Iraq. That is a serious historical question and it’s wrong just to take the claims of administration hacks at face value. Fisher sees it as having little to do with weapons of mass destruction and a lot to do with the pernicious effects of ideology. This ideology, known as neoconservatism, “… mixed humanitarian impulses with an almost messianic faith in the transformative virtue of American military force, as well as a deep fear of an outside world seen as threatening and morally compromised.” And its proponents were _obsessed_ with Saddam Hussein during the 1990s. They would take any excuse they could find to invade Iraq. After 911 they found one. The key is discuss motivation _carefully_: it’s _harder_ to get such topics right. As for spreading democracy, Cheney had little interest in it and wanted to install strongmen. In the event we invaded without clear thinking at the top regarding reconstruction, and ended up with chaos and quagmire. It’s hard to square such absence of planning with benevolent intentions. It’s sort of like robbing a bank while having vague intentions of donating part of the loot to an orphanage. Sort of like interpreting Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov as a hero as opposed to a confused man. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-smear-tactic-used-by-the-left-and-the-right/745759.md?page=2)