That was a cordial, reasoned response, and I appreciate it.
My only problem in what you wrote is using surrogates to do the dirty work. It's like I don't like to call Cindy names, so I get a couple newbies to sign up on FR and have them do it for me.
I hate it that politics has come to this.
More than anything, I like truth though. I don't know if I found the right site or not, but I was trying to educate a liberal about Halliburton, about which I was woefully ignorant. I searched on google and almost every site had something terribly negative to say about it.
I found factcheck.org and noted that they call both the left and the right on lies and fabrications. Didn't take the time to check it all out because I don't have that much time for that.
What I did find, however, was a .pdf legal document in which Cheney divested himself for good of all interests in Halliburton, by a 40-40-20 split to three charities, once his tax and other obligations outstanding were satisfied due to his taking part of his salary while he headed Halliburton spread over a couple to five years, can't remember exactly.
I'm also aware that any investments owned by Bush and Cheney are placed in blind trust for the duration of their time in office. That's what you get into trying to ferret out the absolute truth. I am totally in favor of exposing the lies of the left with real facts and criticizing one's political opponents without resorting to namecalling.
Thank you for your little essay. It went down better with me than being trashed personally for refusing to cross my line in the sand about trashing someone else.
This whole business will blow over, like everything seems to do. Trust me, the media will tire of her and move on to something else in due course, and she will be left high and dry, and no doubt in need of some serious help. I applaud the efforts of those who work tirelessly to expose the fabrications in the agenda being played out at Camp Crawford, and I was glad when Bush stood up to them and saying we weren't leaving.
I know getting into the war was controversial, but we went in with approval of both parties and it's a done deal. To pull out now would be a gross betrayal of any good we have gained there, the Americans who have died for the cause, including civilian contractor employees, and of the Iraqi people who are happy to be free of Saddam and putting their own lives on the line and spilling their blood along with ours.
I liked your comments; you are plainly sincere and thinking things through, which is often a hard course.
There is a fundamental difference between private life and public life. What are virtues in private life are often utter folly in public life and as public policy; and things that would be wrong as private conduct can be a legitimate form of service to others. In the abstract, we instinctively reject the idea that it could ever be right get a phone call from someone, grab a shotgun, and then go break down the door and invade a stranger's home. Criminals do that -- but so do SWAT teams.
Human nature is why surrogates and paid advertising are advisable and sometimes absolutely necessary in making negative attacks in political campaigns. People mostly do not like being forced to know and think about unpleasant things and commonly react against the person who is forcing them to do so. People tend to want a sugarcoated world and get angry at the first person to tell them of dishonesty or misconduct in someone or something they care about; and, even as to strangers, many prefer the illusion that the world is somehow better than it is. As T.S. Eliot put is, "Humankind cannot bear much reality."
The use of surrogates and paid advertising for negative attacks -- which is a basic tenet of campaign management -- helps to makes politics less harsh and more truthful. The bitterness engendered by direct confrontations between candidates is avoided; and, due to the risk of adverse public reaction and suit for defamation, managers, parties, surrogates, and advertisers insist that negative attacks be backed up with conclusive documentation.
In years of experience with Republican campaigns and opposition research, I have never been asked to contrive a false allegation and all cautions have been to the contrary. There are many times that allegations believed to be true were not used because they could not be fully proved. The hard part is usually getting approval by candidates for well-founded negative attacks. Even though elections are win or lose competitions, even at the risk of losing, most candidates tend to want genteel campaigns without lasting bitterness.
I am separately sending along by email a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by academic Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "In Praise of Negative Campaigns." The article makes similar points.