The Wrap-Up Smear Redux

December 10, 2024 by Kevin Finn

I've written before about the Left's habit of resorting to lies, projection, and one or more of the Logical Fallacies. They do this because if they stated their intentions openly, more often than not rational people would laugh them out of office.

Telling folks who never went to college or who paid off their loans that they would soon be on the hook for someone else's $100K tab for a master's degree in Lesbian Dance Theory is a good way to find yourself unemployed. Changing the language is another leftist tactic. Call someone anti-choice rather than pro-life, or anti-migrant instead of pro-sovereignty and you change the entire discussion.

Dan Bongino frequently says that you can judge the rightness of your actions by the degree of outrage it engenders in your opponent. If the Left reacts like rabid dogs to your choice, you know you're on the right track. If they're quiet or even worse, supportive then you should probably rethink your decision.

One despicable tactic was described by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She was deep in the throes of psychological projection when she said this on CNN: “It’s called a wrap-up smear. You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, everybody is writing about this charge. It’s a tool of an authoritarian.”

A classic example of this is the "Pee Tape" hoax against President Trump.

They've been doing it for years, especially when it comes to nominations of Republicans to Cabinet positions and seats on the Supreme Court. Some of these nominations sparked significant controversy and opposition, usually because of the nominees' political leanings, records, or personal conduct. But some stand out because of the degree of the nominee's opposition to the Left.

For example, in 1987 President Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. He faced resistance from Democrats due to his conservative views on issues such as abortion, civil rights and judicial restraint.

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who, along with Chris Dodd (D-CT) invented the "waitress sandwich", took the high road (sarcasm alert!) and declared that“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, [and] schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution...”

Opposition to Bork was so intense that it inspired the creation of the new verb "borking."

Ironically, under orders from Democrats, rogue law enforcement agencies have broken down the doors of Republican conservatives like Roger Stone and Donald Trump in nighttime raids.

President George H.W. Bush selected Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court in 1991. He faced bitter opposition from Democrats after allegations of sexual harassment were levied by a former colleague, Anita Hill. Ms. Hill requested anonymity in her statement to the Judiciary Committee. A senator from Delaware named Joseph Biden would only accept a supposedly-confidential signed statement. Somehow, it was leaked to Nina Totenberg of NPR and Tim Phelps of Newsday and a national firestorm ensued.

Thomas responded to these charges saying, “From my standpoint as a Black American, as far as I am concerned, it is high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that, unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you.” It sounds like the very definition of the wrap-up smear.

Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2018. His confirmation hearings seemed to be going well until allegations of sexual assault were suddenly raised against him by Christine Blasey Ford, at which point it became one of the most contentious in modern U.S. history. Ford's story imploded and even her friends disputed her account. Wrap-up smear? Almost certainly.

We've seen this same tactic utilized most recently in the nominations of Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard.

Democrat senator Chris Murphy warned that Gaetz's nomination to the position of attorney general reflected Trump's plans to persecute his opponents. Reports surfaced that Gaetz engaged in illicit drug use and sexual misconduct with a minor but after an investigation, no charges were filed. Gaetz has since resigned from Congress and withdrawn his nomination, and the story is still developing.

Tulsi Gabbard took a wrecking ball to Kamala Harris's prosecutorial record during their 2019 debate. Later, Gabbard left the Democrat Party, saying that the party promotes 'cowardly wokeness,' and 'anti-white racism'. She was then briefly placed on a TSA watch list over her foreign travel and overseas connections, the blame was placed on an algorithm.

Soon after president-elect Trump nominated her to the position of Director of National Intelligence, almost 100 NSA officials signed a letter criticizing her alleged fondness for dictators. One wonders if any of those officials also signed the Hunter Biden laptop letter.

In contrast, over 250 veterans signed a letter of support for Ms. Gabbard. Signatories included political commentator Jack Posobiec ,retired Gen. Michael Flynn, former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) and Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL). They referred to her as “…a leader whose courage and convictions we know firsthand. A warrior whose vote cannot be bought, and whose integrity cannot be folded. We are honored to call her one of our own."

Finally, Pete Hegseth, a former Minnesota National Guard officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was tapped by Trump to head the Department of Defense. He shares Trump’s desire to restore meritocracy and end the promotion of diversity, which he has said diverts attention away from the military's core mission of combat preparedness.

When allegations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking surfaced, over 100 Navy SEALs came to D.C. to tender their support and colleagues and former coworkers are loudly backing him as well. Responding to the allegations, Hegseth said in an op-ed, “The press is peddling anonymous story after anonymous story, all meant to smear me and tear me down. It’s a textbook manufactured media takedown. They provide no evidence, no names, and they ignore the legions of people who speak on my behalf. They need to create a bogeyman, because they believe I threaten their institutional insanity. That is the only thing they are right about.” It fits the pattern of the wrap-up smear.

The political arena is contentious. There are no perfect candidates, as all human beings are flawed and we all make errors of judgment. An accounting of these lapses is as necessary as the need to make amends.

What is destructive to the Republic is the deliberate fabrication and dissemination of calumnious narratives. By the time they’re exposed, irreparable reputational damage has been done and trust in our institutions is eroded. Polls show that Americans are losing trust in government, media and public institutions which makes it harder for us to solve problems.

The simplest and quickest way to begin rectify this situation is for people to tell the truth.

Simple, but not easy.