Last Friday, deep in an angry comment thread on a Daily Kos diary, a pseudonymous commenter calling herself "em dash" reproduced the record of a 2002 criminal conviction of a well-known Cleveland blogger. Later that day Kos himself called attention to "em dash"s comment in an open thread roundup, guaranteeing it would get lots of readers.
Then Monday, by a strange coincidence, "Heights Mom" blogger Cindy Zawadzki posted the same information.
I'm not including links to the sites because I have no interest in feeding their hit counts -- if you really want to know the details I'm sure you can find them on your own. "em dash"'s post was vitriolic comment #220 on an equally vitriolic diary entry from someone in Lorain, accusing Rep. Sherrod Brown of "swiftboating" Paul Hackett and of getting the blogger in question fired. The Heights Mom post was apparently a reaction to this (look at the comments).
In both cases, they printed the details of the blogger's four-year-old criminal record as an attack on his credibility in arguments about current events. Both said pretty explicitly: Don't believe anything this guy says now, don't listen to his opinions, because look! -- he pleaded guilty to a fifth-degree felony in 2002.
Back in high school debate club, we were taught to call this the "ad hominem fallacy". Wikipedia:
A (fallacious) ad hominem argument has the basic form:In politics, digging up old skeletons to discredit an opponent ad hominem has another name: Opposition research. It's something all campaigns do, and most try to hide. It's closely linked to another covert campaign practice -- anonymous sourcing. Voters see both practices as shady negative campaigning, but of course they often work; the old skeletons, when revealed, do take votes away from their owners, and the revealers often do manage to stay low-profile. So "oppo" -- not just about your old votes and speeches, but about your business failures and run-ins with the law -- is something you have to expect if you run for office.
1. A makes claim B;
2. there is something objectionable about A,
3. therefore claim B is false.
... Ad hominem is one of the best-known of the logical fallacies usually enumerated in introductory logic and critical thinking textbooks. Both the fallacy itself, and accusations of having committed it, are often brandished in actual discourse (see also Argument from fallacy). As a technique of rhetoric, it is powerful and used often, despite its lack of subtlety.
But is it now something we have to expect if we write political blogs?
I want you to think long and hard about this. Think about what blogs add to politics -- unfettered, no-holds-barred debate that often involves violent disagreements. Think about the fact that many participants in this process reveal their identities, and many don't. Think about the fact that some participants (like Daily Kos) can spread "information" to thousands of desktops in a few seconds. Think about the number of emails and web ads you've seen, selling court and credit information (and now cellphone records) on anybody to anybody for a few dollars.
And if you live in a city like Cleveland, you might also consider the large number of your fellow citizens, notably African-American men, who are trying to overcome old felony records to build normal lives -- and the importance of getting them to participate fully in the democratic process.
Think about all that, and then ask yourself: Do you really want it to be considered tolerable behavior for a blogger, in the heat of anger or frustration with a political argument, to dig up and publish (anonymously or not) old dirt on an opponent that has no bearing on the argument, but simply serves to discredit the person making it? Do you really want ad hominem oppo research to migrate from the playbook of negative campaigning to the acceptable practices of online political debate?
Well, that's where "em dash", Kos and our own Heights Mom have tried to take us in the last few days. I don't want to go there. Do you?