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Trump says anyone would collude, but in the 2000 election, I called the FBI
In September of 2000, when Al Gore and George W. Bush were tied in the polls in their race for the White House, I was preparing to play Bush as Gore’s debate prep sparring partner. What happened next ended my role in that campaign, but serves as a contrasting precursor to events in a presidential campaign 16 years later.
The day before our first practice, I received a package of materials from an anonymous source that contained several VHS tapes and “debate materials” and a letter indicating that more documents where on the way. Naturally, I popped in one of the VHS tapes.
The minute I saw George Bush dressed in shorts practicing for a Tim Russert style interview, I knew my role in the Gore campaign was over. The hundreds of hours of preparation studying public tapes of Bush, reading volumes of briefing books, practicing speech patterns and phraseology even at the dinner table, much to the chagrin of my family, was utterly wasted. I stopped the tape after about 15 seconds, picked up the phone and notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation and immediately recused myself from the campaign.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 20 2017, @02:51PM
Folks, it's a fact that dirty people are attracted to politics. It's also a fact that even a lot of good people who get into politics get themselves dirtied. And, all the while, these dirty bastards portray themselves as clean, wholesome, upstanding member of society.
If I had the dirt, I'd use it. Collusion? Maybe. I wouldn't necessarily use the dirt to help another dirty bastard win. But, I would truly love to undermine a dirty bastard. Unless, of course, that dirty bastard was less dirty than the alternative.
In this past election, I would have undermined Clinton, and refrained from undermining Trump. Neither position makes me a hero or anything. That's just my position on their relative dirtiness.
In the Bush - Gore circus, I'm afraid that I would have sided with Bush, then regretted it later. That is, I would have been happy to undermine Gore, and I would have refrained from undermining Bush. All these years later, I can't help wondering just how bad Gore would have been. At least he didn't have Cheney injecting poison into him day in and day out, justifying torture, and the denial of basic human rights to some newly classified species of humanity.
Bottom line, politics is all about dirt. If you've got the goods to bury your opponent, you might as well use it.