What does the verb "swiftboat" mean to you?

[KittyWampus]

would anyone be willing to come up with a definition?

Edit- from Wikipedia (gives more examples of the term being used than the ones posted below)

Swiftboating is American political jargon that is used (primarily) as a strong pejorative description of some kind of attack that the speaker considers unfair—for example, an ad hominem attack or a smear campaign.

The term comes from the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth (formerly "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth") and their widely-publicized <1> attacks on 2004 Presidential candidate John Kerry. <2> (For a similar example of a pejorative verb based on a historical incident, see "borking," coined as a result of the fight over the nomination of Robert Bork to the United States Supreme Court.)

Historically, terms like "swiftboating", "Swift Boating", "Swift Boat tactics", etc. were given currency by people who had very negative views of SBVT. Others have strongly objected (see below) to the criticism of SBVT implied by such negative usage.

In a 2005 column "The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan," Frank Rich offered such synonyms for the term as "character assassination" and "smear." Rich's use of the term implied a special connection to attacks on someone's military record: "Character assassination is the Karl Rove tactic of choice, eagerly mimicked by his media surrogates, whenever the White House is confronted by a critic who challenges it on matters of war. The Swift Boating is especially vicious if the critic has more battle scars than a president who connived to serve stateside and a vice president who had "other priorities" during Vietnam." <3>

[cuke]

1. I think Kerry and Cleland were swiftboated, You don't

[KittyWampus]

2. Well, I was campaigning for Kerry and witnessed a paid for group invent a Lie about Kerry.

And the Media ran with it even though it was proven time and again it was a lie.

Now Cleland had an ad run against him with a pix of Osama. IMO, that isn't the same as what happened to Kerry.

[cuke]

So you don't think Cleland was swiftboated?

Even though the ad you refer to was created by a group called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth"?

[KittyWampus]

11. Just because the same Liars did the ad on Cleland wouldn't necessarily imply same tactic.

Putting Osama's face on the ad and implying Cleland was the exact opposite of a war hero by using an image is different, in my opinion, than creating an entire false narrative with people making claims that were untrue.

In Cleland's case, it was by suggestion only.

In Kerry's case, it involved people making spoken/written accusations.

Apparently, the word refers to ANY (or all) smear campaigns?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. I would say Cleland was NOT swiftboated, just smeared.

False PERSONAL testimony should be a requisite of something worth calling a swiftboat campaign. Like if they found someone to say he say Cleland shaking hands with Osama.

Cleland was smeared and slandered, but not swiftboated. If every scurrilous political slander is a "swiftbooat" job then the term losses its very useful, specific meaning.

Ann Coulter wrote a lot of stuff about the circumstances of Cleland's injury, and if that line of attack was fleshed out by a faux independent group it would have qualified.

[cuke]

19. Wherever did you get the idea that swiftboating required accusations from individuals?

That's just crazy. I've never heard anything like that before.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. "crazy" ?

There is only one unambiguous no-doubt instance of swift-boating... the original SBVT effort against Kerry.

What distinguished that campaign from the hundreds of previous independent-expenditure smear campaigns is that it involved people personally falsely testifying as to bad actions by the candidate.

That's why it got so much free news coverage, as opposed to a similar "independent" ad campaign that just said "Kerry flip-flops" or "Kerry supports queers" or whatever.

The swiftboat ads purported to be newsworthy in and of themselves, pretending to contain testimony rather than abstract accusations.

That's what made them unlike other negative campaign tactics, and made "swift-boating" a useful word.
If it just means "smear" or "lie" then it serves little purpose as a term.

[cuke]

22. Yes, crazy

What made the story have legs was the fact that it was a 527 org.

[KittyWampus]

21. Well, the term originated with Kerry. And in his case, it wasn't innuendo.

It was an outright fiction.

just out of curiosity do you see a difference between:

A. a 30 second campaign ad using innuendo, where an image is flashed to insinuate some negative attribute
B. an entire narrative involving actual people making actual false claims?

In any case, it seems the term has simply come to mean 'smear'. IMO, this cheapens the atrocity of what happened to Kerry.

But then, after I started reading Wiki citations etc, I find that even Kerry himself uses the word in its broader meaning.

Apparently, I never got the memo.

[cuke]

23. You're just wrong, again

The Cleland swiftboating was more than just a commercial and no one has ever said that swiftboating requires personal testimony (until now, that is)

Never. Happened.

[jmp]

3. Character assassination ...

Based on lies spewed by liars.

[Make7]

4. Swiftboat - v. To bring baseless charges against someone...

Swiftboat - v. To bring baseless charges against someone that are utterly belied by the evidence, especially if the evidence and facts present a picture that is the complete opposite of what is charged; To practice McCarthyism in the 21st Century.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x190#s

[cuke]

6. Sounds like what the OP is trying to do

the OP keeps implying that Clinton said somthing other than "Kerry and Cleland were swiftboated"

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. Using an "independent" group to run slanderous & false ads against someone

[ingac70]

7. to make up totally false shit on someone. n/t.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. Does it trouble you at all that Clinton used "swiftboat" as an adjective, not a verb?

Or are you just off in outrage land...

[KittyWampus]

12. No outraged. I am now very curious about how the word is used.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. Fair enough. I'm surprised by these responses.

If the word doesn't mean the use of a bogus "independent" group to smear a candidate then it's not a useful word. Any broader meaning than that and the term has no use. But most of your respondents interpret it as something broader.

[KittyWampus]

15. I think -I- am the one doesn't know what it means-that it has become broader in usage.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

17. Yes, overly broad

[durrrty libby]

14. You don't understand the meaning of swiftboated? Did you just fall

off the turnip truck?

[Cha]

9. Lies.. funded by

dirty money.. willing to do anything to keep their dirty money.

[Historic NY]

10. To be bullied, pilloried and libeled in the media........

by those who opposed you. An organized series of swift attacks designed to make the victim look bad.

[MrSlayer]

18. It means to be attacked with lies, half truths and inaccuracies.

Swiftboating does not have to be falsely questioning a person's military credentials.

[Bitwit1234]

24. To me it means what the Obama supporters are doing to Hlllary Clinton

but of course the republicans have done it to her for 20 years, she is used to it now.

The Obama supporters have holy fits when someone pans their Saint. You know the gay bashing thing, the Pledge of Allegiance thing...they were batshit crazy...but then they turn around and repeat rumors with no foundation against Hillary...but then you think to yourself that's the only type of supporter Obama can get.

[gorekerrydreamticket]

25. Organized smear campaign funded/orchestrated by anonymous backers....n/m

my 2 cents