Slinging Mud all Over the Web

April 28, 2006 7:55 AM

"Welcome to the brave new world of high-tech political assassination, where back-stabbing blogs, scathing cartoon skits and slander served up online are the weapons of choice." (Warning: sound, Flash and video links.)
posted by Otis (6 comments total)

No, this is high-tech political assassination.
posted by smackfu at 8:16 AM on April 28, 2006

new way of old things
medium is differant
message is the same
posted by edgeways at 8:20 AM on April 28, 2006

Nothing new here, just more personal, and from A LOT more directions. Bad as it is, maybe by weeding out the scumbags who run for office, we can find some honest men people who hadn't achieved power via soul-selling compromises.
posted by rzklkng at 8:24 AM on April 28, 2006

Well, some of those are pretty stupid, as you might expect from typical candidates and their pals, but here in North Carolina, Joe Sinsheimer, the former Democratic opposition researcher behind JimBlackMustGo.com, has done some excellent work in waking up the press and political establishment to the fact that our current (Democrat) state House speaker needs to step down, and has probably done more than any other commentator to help the issue get real traction. Before Sinsheimer's site went up last fall, no one - *no one* - was publicly talking about ousting Black, and political analysts at the Raleigh N&O were routinely downplaying his corruption and failing to investigate and report some of the more salacious stories. Now, every major newspaper in the state has called for Black's resignation.

Viva la intarwebs.
posted by mediareport at 8:28 AM on April 28, 2006

The Web does offer a certain amount of anonymity that can be useful for extremely negative or personal attacks that would probably never be attempted by an 'official' political campaign. For example, no one knows who created that Charlie Crist site (the second link in the post.)
posted by Otis at 8:36 AM on April 28, 2006

I think one should distinguish between assassination and "character assassination".
posted by hattifattener at 10:55 AM on April 28, 2006