David Limbaugh has helpfully set the limits of dirty politics in his latest article.
"We must understand that dirty campaigning is lying about or distorting your record or your opponent's record. It is not dirty to expose the truth about your policy positions and record or that of your opponent, even when it puts him in a negative light. Such an airing of the record is not only not dirty campaigning, it is essential to inform the electorate."
Let me unpack that for you. It's Dirty Campaigning when Senator Kerry attacks President Bush; it's clean campaigning when President Bush (or his many surrogates in the right wing media) attack Senator Kerry.
Let's take a couple of examples. Is it clean politics for President Bush or his surrogates to attack Senator Kerry's votes on defense spending? Apparently it is, according to the D. Limbaugh theory of Clean Campaigning. But just to be sure let's see what Fred Kaplan of Slate Magazine says about Kerry's voting record on defense.
"In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 years ago. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote against a conference report on a defense bill nine years ago. The RNC takes these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a dozen weapons systems that were in those bills. The Republicans could have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions."
Hmmmm. Now I'm no expert in Dirty Campaigning the way Limbaugh is, but to me, this seems to indicate that perhaps some Republicans are not exactly presenting Senator Kerry's record accurately. I wonder if this counts as "lying about or distorting your record or your opponent's record?"
What am I thinking, these are Republicans!
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