Digging in the Dirt

David Greenberg--no McCain apologist--debunks the notion that McCain ran the sleaziest campaign in history. As an aspiring historian, I've always found it silly when people say "Politics is worse than ever! We're scraping new lows in political discourse!"

Thankfully, we're not. Greenberg points out some of the finest examples of past mud-slinging, including Abigail Adams' charge that Thomas Jefferson would "ruin and corrupt the minds and morals of the best people in the world." Ouch! Try working that one into a bumper sticker.

Let me add an example of my own, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be doing my job as a big-mouthed blogger. During the election of 1896, one minister described Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan as being "a mouthing, slobbering demagogue" and "a wretched addle-pated boy leading a league of Hell."

So we've left that sort of hyperbole behind. Then again, though, over the past two decades we've seen an increasing vulgarization of political discourse. True, nobody accuses their opponent of being a "slobbering demagogue" anymore. But plenty of bloggers don't have the slightest qualm about calling some politician a "f***head," a "f***tard," or even a "f************."