There's been so much debunking of the salacious rumor propagated by Larry Johnson that the nonappearance of the tape has become a story in its own right, to the point where the Democratic nominee had to take the media to task for asking him about it.
Anyway, continuing on my Hunter S. Thompson jag, I thought it would be worthwhile (beore we get to the unveiling) to point out this isn't a new tactic. In Better than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, Thompson recounted how LBJ employed it:
All I really wanted to tell you was this ancient and honorable story about how Lyndon Johnson first got elected to Congress, when his (heavily favored) opponent was a wealthy local pig farmer….
Remember that one, James? Sure you do. It’s a wonderful story, and I suspect it will cheer you up.
It goes this way: The year was 1948, as I recall, and Lyndon was running about 10 points behind, with only nine days to go…. He was sunk in despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday, they say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference at two or two-thirty (just after lunch on a slow news day) and accuse his high-riding opponent (the pig farmer) of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children….
His campaign manager was shocked. “We can’t say that, Lyndon,” he said. “It’s not true.”
“Of course it’s not,” Johnson barked at him, “but let’s make the bastard deny it.”
A healthy reminder that nasty politics has often been a bipartisan affair.
Oh, and check it out, I found the whitey tape (!):
***REMINDER: MUST CREDIT
No comments:
Post a Comment