Should liberals/progressives use rumors as a tactic to achieve our goals?
Last Sunday I posted an action item urging readers to send a hand-written letter to Nancy Pelosi in support of impeachment. I based my post on an e-mail I received that morning that said, “…Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it.”
I checked previous e-mails from the sender and found her credible. I also checked “urban legends” online and didn’t find any mention that this was a myth. I cautioned readers that I didn’t know if it was a rumor but that it sounded like a good idea to send Nancy Pelosi a hand-written letter in support of impeachment even if it was.
I have since learned that it is a rumor. According to Undercurrents, the Hartford Independent Media Center blog, Pelosi Staffer Denies She’ll Put Impeachment on the Table if She Receives 10,000 Letters, posted November 14: “I decided to check this out, and I called the Speaker’s office in Washington, DC. The staffer who answered denied the report. The aide told me that members of Pelosi’s staff are aware of the report, but the aide wouldn’t confirm that the Speaker herself was aware of it. He said the report is 'baseless' and that she never made such a statement.”
The sender of the e-mail I received last Sunday also sent me an e-mail stating that it was “a very good rumor,” “a fabulous idea.”
What do I do when I inadvertently spread a rumor, even if it leads to a positive result, in this case thousands of letters to Pelosi?
1. I disclose that I’ve learned that it’s a rumor in the same forum I put out the rumor.
2. I am more careful next time to track down something as significant as this. I should have called Pelosi’s office, too.
No matter how desperate we liberals/progressives feel about the need to impeach Bush and Cheney, I don’t believe we should resort to tactics or tools that are “extreme,” i.e., not based on the truth.
On July 1st, I posted, Read Rove's lips. He has resorted to rumor more than once in order to assure that Republicans win. Here’s an excerpt from my post: From Joshua Green’s 2004 Atlantic Monthly article, Karl Rove in a Corner: “…[N]o other example of Rove's extreme tactics that I encountered quite compares to what occurred during another 1994 judicial campaign in Alabama. In that year Harold See first ran for the supreme court, becoming the rare Rove client to lose a close race. His opponent, Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice…was no stranger to hardball politics….This August, I had lunch with Kennedy near his office in Montgomery….When his term on the court ended, he chose not to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children….At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove's signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception." [emphasis mine]
I checked previous e-mails from the sender and found her credible. I also checked “urban legends” online and didn’t find any mention that this was a myth. I cautioned readers that I didn’t know if it was a rumor but that it sounded like a good idea to send Nancy Pelosi a hand-written letter in support of impeachment even if it was.
I have since learned that it is a rumor. According to Undercurrents, the Hartford Independent Media Center blog, Pelosi Staffer Denies She’ll Put Impeachment on the Table if She Receives 10,000 Letters, posted November 14: “I decided to check this out, and I called the Speaker’s office in Washington, DC. The staffer who answered denied the report. The aide told me that members of Pelosi’s staff are aware of the report, but the aide wouldn’t confirm that the Speaker herself was aware of it. He said the report is 'baseless' and that she never made such a statement.”
The sender of the e-mail I received last Sunday also sent me an e-mail stating that it was “a very good rumor,” “a fabulous idea.”
What do I do when I inadvertently spread a rumor, even if it leads to a positive result, in this case thousands of letters to Pelosi?
1. I disclose that I’ve learned that it’s a rumor in the same forum I put out the rumor.
2. I am more careful next time to track down something as significant as this. I should have called Pelosi’s office, too.
No matter how desperate we liberals/progressives feel about the need to impeach Bush and Cheney, I don’t believe we should resort to tactics or tools that are “extreme,” i.e., not based on the truth.
On July 1st, I posted, Read Rove's lips. He has resorted to rumor more than once in order to assure that Republicans win. Here’s an excerpt from my post: From Joshua Green’s 2004 Atlantic Monthly article, Karl Rove in a Corner: “…[N]o other example of Rove's extreme tactics that I encountered quite compares to what occurred during another 1994 judicial campaign in Alabama. In that year Harold See first ran for the supreme court, becoming the rare Rove client to lose a close race. His opponent, Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice…was no stranger to hardball politics….This August, I had lunch with Kennedy near his office in Montgomery….When his term on the court ended, he chose not to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children….At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove's signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception." [emphasis mine]
Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children….some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile….what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take." [emphasis mine]
(photo: Wired.com)
