Not that some of you necessarily need the help, of course. If Primary Season on DailyKos has taught me anything it's that some of my fellow kossacks have a death-like stranglehold on jackassery and all its various oddments.
But this is for those of you who wish to dabble in douchebaggery, get your feet wet in the ancient art of bullshit smears. There really is no wrong way to do it, but I thought a handy guide might help some of you.
So join me below the fold for a lovely numbered list of the things you should consider adding to your budding hit-piece.
1) Out of context quotes
This is a staple of any hit-piece that ever received more than 50 comments (by definition, it's not a hit-piece at all if there are fewer than 50 comments defining it as such; the honey spot is right around the 100-200 area. Anything other than that, and soul-chilling pain sets in).
While you can make use of ellipses (...) to snip the quotes, your best bet is to take a quote that is currently being widely discussed or -- even better -- was being widely discussed. That way, it's fresh enough in the memory where people will say "Yeah, I remember her saying something like that!", but it's stale enough where the people with any sort of decency will say, "Hmm...sounds familiar, but is that really what she said? I'd better take a google break..."
Exhibit A:
Who on earth would believe that the confident, inevitable democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would utter words like; Attacking democrats is the fun part of election" Wooooooooooooooooooooohheeeeeeeee! Queen Hillary Clinton is mad as hell. She just turned up the hit more than she can handle.
See what he did there? Clinton never uttered those words, but by putting them in quotes (well, half quotes; nothing ruins a hit-piece like typos. Well, that and the truth), he gave them an air of credibility, sort of like putting a bow-tie on a wino. His hope was obviously that people wouldn't double check his work.
What you do is take the vague idea behind the quote using as many of the same words as possible, twist them around into something sinister, and presto! Hillary Clinton sounds like an asshole. Everyone's a winner! Especially you, the real asshole.
2) Misleading stories
Here's a wonderful example.
For this, you need the following things:
- Your candidate's opponent's comment / press release / action
- A deep understanding of misinformation (see FOX NEWS for more information)
- A lobotomy (optional)
You take the story (preferably something unimportant, like motivating young people to vote). Now, instead of truly understanding what's going on, you figure out a way to change the story from a non-issue into the Second Coming of Lucifer. Depending on the situation, you would use different tactics.
For instance, in the example above, some people tried to turn it around into a fight for the locals, claiming the locals were unhappy about it. Still others decided to exploit the poor, saying that it wasn't fair to poorer students. Still others lobbed base accusations of carpetbaggery around.
See how that worked? We went from a non-issue into hurting locals, ignoring the poor and fraudulent elections. How magical.
Clearly, those tactics won't work in every situation. All you need to do is figure out what group of people (gays, minorities, women, beekeepers, whatever) could possibly suffer from the actions of said candidate, and then magnify the fuck out of it.
So, to illustrate, "Hmm, this might not work for people from every class" becomes "POOR PEOPLE ARE GETTING FUCKED BY OBAMA!"
Or "I don't know if all women would really support this" becomes "EDWARDS IS A MISOGYNISTIC PIECE OF SHIT!"
You get the picture. A little willful misunderstanding on your part, and you have just chosen to become everything I hate.
3) Leave out huge, relevant chunks to the story
This is a good one, too. I can't find a link to any diaries about this (maybe some of the Clinton folk can help me), but this was about that idiocy where people were saying that Hillary didn't tip a waitress. I want to say it was on the front page, although after I re-read the FP post (by DHinMI? I think, apologies if I'm wrong), his point wasn't really about Clinton and the "lack" of a tip.
In any event, the story was that Clinton or Clinton's campaign or someone who once said "Hillary Clinton" in casual conversation didn't tip the waitress. There was an explosion until lorelynn (I still can't believe it) did some solid work and debunked it quite handily.
So, the story was that the tip that was left was misplaced or was not properly split amongst the waitresses. That story turned into Clinton stiffing a waitress, which I think turned into a discussion of the Clintons' practices of sacrificing a goat on each new moon to Balor.
Whatever the case or progression of hysteria, the story was pretty easy to debunk. A little research and we were right there. But why do that when you can just selectively choose quotes, leave out other quotes, and then have a pulsating hit-piece?
Leaving out key chunks of any story is a wonderful way to proclaim your ass-hattery to all who may read your diary. Another good example is Edwards' $400 haircut. There were several diaries calling his dedication to the poor into question after this expensive haircut, none of which addressed how it was after hours, the barber was brought into the hotel and the barber himself charged Edwards for transportation, after-hours work, etc.
But why does any of that matter? The important thing is that you slice out whatever part of the story that makes your hit-piece weaker. So, get to cutting, you budding bullshit surgeons!
I hope the above helps you to be all the jackass you can be.
But the best advice I can give you is to never give up on your dreams. Keep lying, keep selectively quoting, keep on misleading everyone who reads your pieces.
In time, with enough hard work and dedication, you too can achieve "Yokozuna Jackass" status.
And then, we'll all know who to avoid reading.