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Original
airing:
"New Beginnings"
November 17, 1995
Episode 1
Re-broadcast:
"Character Assassination"
May 19, 2000
Episode 160
[to listen, click here, and type "Cucuzza"
in the This American Life site search window]
"Character
Assassination"
In preparation
for what is likely to be a nasty Presidential contest between George Bush
and Al Gore, we hear stories of character assassination ... political
and non-political.
Prologue.
Ira with Jack E. Robinson, Republican candidate for Senate in Massachussetts.
Within 24 hours of announcing that he was going to collect signatures
to get on the ballot to run against Teddy Kennedy, Robinson was attacked
in the press. And so he tried a novel tactic: he issued a long public
statement that is simply one of the most remarkable documents of current
political life in this country. He called it The Robinson Report, and
posted it on the Internet for anyone to read. It outlines, in matter of
fact prose and a disturbing level of detail, everything he thinks he's
ever done wrong. It's not clear if this helped him, or if it simply seemed
so strange that people didn't know what to make of it.
Act One.
Those Who Ignore History Are Condemned To Repeat It -- But Those Who Pay
Attention To History Are Also Condemned To Repeat It.
Dirty political attacks go back to the very beginning of the American
Republic. What's different today, says historian Richard Norton Smith,
is that television and the other electronic media have made our contact
with the candidates so intimate. It has greater emotional impact on us
because we see every wince cross a candidate's face. What could be more
intimate than Jack E. Robinson's car crash, recorded on tape? (10 minutes)
Act Two.
Sonny Takes A Fall.
David Foster Wallace reports on a turning point in this year's Presidential
primaries: the moment when John McCain failed to respond well to an attack
by George Bush ... which arguably ended up costing him the election. (19
minutes)
Act Three.
When Slime Is Good.
Former political consultant Ron Susskind says when he began in politics,
he thought there was nothing lower than negative campaigning. But then
in 1980 he learned that sometimes when your opponent attacks you, it can
actually help you. (3 minutes)
Act Four.
Who You Gonna Call?
There is an entire class of consultant who does nothing but help people
and companies that are under public attack. Eric Dezenhall is one of them.
He works for a crisis management firm in Washington DC, and has written
a book about his craft, called Nail 'Em. (9 minutes)
Song: Magnetic Fields "Washington, D.C."
Act
Five. When Attacks Really Count.
There's little in adult life that can hurt as much as a character assassination
attack when it happens in junior high school. We hear the story of how
one boy organizes the entire school against his former best friend, a
guy named Bob Cucuzza. (15 minutes)
Song:
Nancy Walker "Everything I've Got"
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