Hit Job Assessment

Logically, the basis for selecting politicians should be focused on their positions on relevant issues. Voters should be looking at the candidate’s “world view” and knowledge of how the economy actually works and what laws are necessary and unnecessary or harmful. Most political campaigns stay away from real issues.

 

Voters hire who they like. It helps if a candidate is good looking and pleasant and makes no controversial remarks. However, Trump won by making controversial remarks the voters agreed with.

 

Candidates should have broad knowledge about the economy, the rule of law, the intelligent, judicious use of resources and good judgment.  But political campaigns are often clouded with emotional content designed to throw voters off track.  

 

We’ve seen many political campaigns where opponents have use the “politics of personal destruction” formerly known as liable, slander and malice, This usually involves cooking up a scandal the opponent will be forced into defending.  This is called a “hit job”.

 

It is reminiscent of the accusations leveled at Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill in his Supreme Court Nomination hearing in 1991. The accuser was a Liberal Democrat activist, the accused was a Conservative Republican and the accuser’s story was hard to believe and impossible to verify.

 

Currently the media is obsessing about hit jobs concerning personal behavior with no regard for measurable accomplishments. Accusations need to be proven. If they are false, then liable suits need to be filed against the false accusers.  If they are true, the guilty parties need to fess up and try to recover or take the consequences.

 

When John Kennedy was elected President at the beginning of the “sexual revolution”, his serial adultery was kept secret. The media didn’t want to jeopardize the start of the sexual revolution with a series of scandals and they were all Democrats.  On balance, Kennedy was a good President, not perfect, but good. He started with tax cuts to expand the US economy, handled the Cuban missile crisis, ended the Mafia’s grip on the unions and supported the end of job discrimination for Blacks. His mistakes included the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion to free Cuba and his failure to cure his sex addiction.

 

A similar complete assessment needs to be made for all who are accused of misbehavior, so that their strengths and weaknesses can be used to show the entire story.

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader