OpEd by: Stu Cvrk
Character assassination is a key political tactic of the Left. It is the process of damaging or destroying an opponent’s character and reputation in order to diminish public confidence in the target. Those they cannot defeat in the marketplace of ideas they attack on a personal level. A poignant example was the Democrats’ attack on Clarence Thomas during his US Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1991. Anita Hill, a former Thomas assistant, made unsubstantiated sexual harassment allegations. The Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy, used these allegations to turn the hearing into a circus.
Given the tactics relative success (Thomas was confirmed by a narrow 52-48 vote) – the Democrats have continued to employ character assassination to destroy Republican nominees for federal appointments with varying degrees of success. Who could possibly forget the travesty that was the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing just last year? The smear campaign led by Christine Blasey-Ford and coordinated by Democrat US Senator Feinstein and others was shameful and a new low for Democrat character assassinations. The sexual harassment allegations were wholly unproven innuendos – as became obvious when Blasey-Ford and others could provide no corroborating evidence.
A variation on the theme is the “politics of personal destruction,” which was perfected by the Clintons during Bill’s impeachment crisis in 1998. This tactic involved accusing unnamed Republicans and others of engaging in a smear campaign against Clinton, when in fact their legitimate questions about Clinton’s behavior ultimately exposed his perjury, suborning of perjury, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. Although he was ultimately impeached, his conviction was not upheld because he was essentially saved by the legacy media and the Uniparty who excused his felonious behavior. The Clintons taught the political class how to lie with impunity during their eight execrable years in the White House, and the politics of personal destruction became enshrined in the book of Democrat political tactics.
The evolution of the media after President Reagan’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 was a wonderful sight to behold! Passage of the Fairness Doctrine had led to a controlled media for nearly 40 years and stifled alternative political views. Its repeal has led to a veritable explosion of alternative media – cable networks, conservative talk radio, internet news sites, blog sites, etc. – that provide a smorgasbord of opinions across the political spectrum. No longer do Americans receive their only news and commentary from a handful of legacy media sources who preached the Uniparty political line!
Nowadays, social media provides a unique capability for citizen journalists to examine open source media, including voluminous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) releases of government documents, public statements by elected officials and candidates for political office, YouTube videos, and other sources. As those of you who closely follow political, national, and world events know, the intrepid independent citizen journalists are almost invariably WAY ahead of the legacy media in breaking bombshell stories – and in fact in leading the legacy media to the real action, and not to the spinning that occurs daily to enable Uniparty and globalist policy objectives.
And these citizen journalists are making a real difference! There is no way we would know about the DoJ/FBI/IC/Obama White House cabal to the extent we do – and all the interconnections, communications, timelines, and interwoven actions – without these diligent folks. We are also keenly aware that the legacy media won’t do the jobs that real investigative journalists are supposed to do. As we have seen throughout the Age of Trump, they are nothing but paid propagandists for the Democrat Party and Deep State. And the exposure of this very fact – that some if not many in the legacy media have been bought and paid for by the Clintons/Obama/DNC/others via Fusion GPS – are feathers in those same citizen journalists’ caps. All the while, the legacy media continues to try to obfuscate and bury that truthful, sourced reporting. The digging and resulting analyses accomplished by the “mushrooms in dark rooms on keyboards” have led to much consternation – and even panic – among the legacy media who have lost market share. As a result, the legacy media and their political allies have adopted the Democrat tactic of character assassination, and updated it to include and doxing (the exposure of a private citizen’s personal information) to attack their competition in the independent media. Witness NBC’s recent attacks on Epoch Times, and the Times’ excellent response to those attacks here.
Character assassination is the last refuge of scoundrels, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson (7 Apr 1775). When the facts don’t support the arguments to be made, then go after the opponents’ character. And by their actions, ye shall know them as the leftists they are! After all, the Left has honed the tactic of character assassination as a political tool against enemies for decades. To return to the Clintons again, do you remember their personal attacks on Ken Starr, the Special Counsel, in the 1990s?. And what about their use of a host of political operatives to do their dirty work? They include names like Paul Begala, Lanny Davis and George Stephanopoulos, who continue to infect the body politic and the airwaves with their pro-Democrat drivel to this very day!
Or how about Obama’s personal attacks on Romney during the 2012 campaign?
And of course, the Democrats’ personal attacks against POTUS began during the 2016 campaign and have continued through the present day. One thing to remember: Democrats will ALWAYS identify whom they fear most by the virulence of their targeted personal attacks. Their targeted attacks on citizen journalists and Republican opponents are just a page from their playbook. But here’s the deal: most of us on the Right have become quite insulated to personal character attacks. We know that that is part of the Democrat playbook and expect it to happen.
At the same time, we have witnessed the Democrats’ corruption of federal agencies and their illegal targeting against innocent Americans who happen to be their political foes. This includes the serious crimes committed by a cabal, and orchestrated by the Obama White House and Clinton campaign. And, we’ve also seen violent attacks against Republicans and Trump supporters around the country. Elected Democrats have tacitly endorsed these actions for the past 32+ months. Often times, they have been carried out by Antifa, which is the de facto violent arm of the Democrat Party. After seeing the real crimes by Hillary Clinton and the Obama regime exposed (albeit not prosecuted -yet!), do they seriously think that some sticks-and-stones character assassinations and unproven personal attacks are going to throw us off our feed? That just ain’t gonna happen!
Social media is great because it provides a degree of anonymity to folks, and people can express their opinions and support their arguments with facts, logic and analyses. It is for this reason that I and many other independent journalists maintain a presence on Twitter in order to amplify our messages to the public. I could care less about the private lives of the people I read daily on Twitter (unless they’re pedophiles or guilty of serious/violent crimes). I care about the analyses and the commentary and the associated logic. I trust but verify everything I read from all sources – as should you!
As for you character assassins on the Left out there, my message is this: let those of you without sin cast the first stone at us. That you are casting them at all is all the proof we need that you fear us greatly – and are indeed acting out of desperation to try to escape the hangman. We know it’s because many of you are complicit in the crimes committed by the Obama regime; crimes against US citizens and a sitting US president. The attacks aren’t going to accomplish what you think they will, i.e., depress our activities or turn away our readers and followers. In fact, the attacks will steel our resolve to help continue to politically and judicially remove the Deep State cabal, including the lying perps in the Democrat Party – and in the legacy media, too!
Stu Cvrk served 30 years in the US Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. An oceanographer and systems analyst through education and experience, he is semi-retired and presently works part-time for a defense contractor in support of a number of Navy command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance programs ashore and afloat. Stu is a graduate of the US Naval Academy where he received a classical liberal education which serves as the key foundation for his political commentary. He threads daily on Twitter on a wide range of political, military, foreign policy, government, economics, and world affairs topics.
Follow Stu on Twitter @STUinSD
