Speaking of politicians adopting foolish blogger behavior, Del. Hugo’s ridiculous ad attacking his opponent is drawing media attention in the form of a front-page story in today’s Post. It turns out that there’s a word for the tiresome practice of picking out ludicrous blog comments made by nutjobs from the opposing political party and highlighting them as representative of their entire party: nutpicking. (Via TPM)
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Oh great, as if we need yet another way to equate mental illness with bad behavior. I’m so thrilled.
It seems Raising Kaine has raised a NEW issue:
“By attributing the ad to Raising Kaine, Feld said, Hugo wants voters to think Kaine opposes Simmons’s candidacy. Kaine has endorsed Simmons.”
That’s the first time I’ve heard anybody suggest that Raising Kaine should be more careful because people might confuse it with Tim Kaine.
Of course, last year we had anonymous source after anonymous source being quoted in newspapers making charges against Senator Allen. Then those newspapers could be quoted in ads, I guess. Although why an anonymous quote in a paper is more reasonable than a direct quote from a known democratic political operative who worked for a candidate’s opponent, I don’t know.
I agree that in general we don’t want quotes from anonymous comments showing up in advertising, but if a person is known and puts words on the web, the fact that they don’t sign their words doesn’t make them off-limits, and the fact they put them at a web address that uses the Governor’s name doesn’t make them unquotable.
I’m not a fan of negative campaigns, but it does bring a smile to my face watching people who live by the anonymous unverified negative attack get all upset because someone took them seriously enough to quote them.
Not as funny though as watching Raising Kaine and it’s supporters posting with glee from a Washington Post article whose first and primary thrust is that blogs aren’t really news and shouldn’t be given any credibility:
“sourced to comments posted on the Internet instead of more authoritative sources such as news reports or public records.”
The RK message? “Take us seriously, except if something said here attacks democrats, then you should ignore us.”
We did? I don’t remember any anonymous charges against Sen. Allen being printed in newspapers, and certainly not a series of them. OTOH, my memory’s not so hot. Could you point me in the right direction here?