Almost thirty-five years ago to the day, then-Sen. Edmund Muskie, Democratic Presidential candidate from the great state of Maine, stood in a snow-and-sleet storm and defended the honor and integrity of his wife. A letter had been published under her name in which the Senator had, among other things, referred to northern residents of his state as "Canucks" - an insulting term for Canadians familiar to any who have lived along the northern border (I grew up three hours from Toronto; closer than to NYC). Muskie's overreaction - he has ever since been captured with wetness on his cheeks; the ultra-conservative publisher of the Manchester, NH newspaper insisted he was weeping, and if he was, who could blame him - cost him dearly, as support slipped away among Democrats.
In the winter of 1971, Richard Nixon was in trouble. Any poll you read had his numbers in the mid-40's, and Sen. Muskie, the presumptive Democratic nominee, beat him by more than the margin of error time and time again. Muskie was not tainted by Vietnam, and dissociated himself from Humphrey and others in the Johnson Administration. Commenting again and again that the nation was still waiting on the "secret plan" for ending the war, Muskie had no idea, as 1971 turned to 1972, that Nixon would soon unleash the most vicious bombing campaign in world history against North Vietnam, and would also unleash the most vicious political smear campaign in history to derail the ordained candidacy of the only Democratic politician who could beat Nixon.
The author of what has come to be known as "the Canuck letter" was part of a team of political infiltrators and trouble-makers led by a cherub-faced young Republican from southern California named Donald Segretti. Segretti and his team dubbed their work "ratfucking". Mostly juvenile, adolescent nonsense - sexual innuendo, disrupting schedules, the political equivalent of "Do you have Prince Albert in a can? You better let him out!" - these pranks cost the Democrats money and time, distracting them just enough to keep them off balance.
The role of the press in this entire process was vital. Had the "Canuck" letter not been published, Muskie most likely would have beaten Nixon, and our entire history would have been very different. The press, however, then as now, was eager to be a vehicle for unsubstantiated charges, gossip-mongering, and the battle of personalities that is often presented as a substitute for real politics. Now, however, the place of ratfucking has become much more open, and much more sinister.
When Dick Cheney gives an interview and is not called on his lies, that is ratfucking. When the White House press corps refuses to put information in context, including calling lies what they are, that is ratfucking. When reporters whine when bloggers call them on their fatuousness, their laziness, and their plain errors of fact, that is ratfucking. When the Speaker of the House is embroiled in a phony "scandal" over a non-issue, that is ratfucking. We are living in a time when the insidious actions of our (previously) most criminal Administration are now part and parcel of the political process, aided and abetted by a press that sees itself as under siege, on the one hand from the most secretive Administration in American history, and on the other hand from "liberal bloggers" who keep insisting they do their job properly.
Even though we don't have pizza being delivered to Democratic Caucus meetings, or stolen letterhead being used to slander the private lives of politicians (why steal when you can make your own on the home computer?), we now have public figures allowed to present, without question, comment, or interruption, nonsense and lies to the American people. Worse, we have enablers in the press who insist that this is the way things should be. I would prefer to remind these lazy, stupid, ignorant folks that they are participants in the biggest ratfuck in American history. In other words, they are being taken for a ride, and loving every minute of it.
