The political season is hard upon us. Even the completely apolitical person knows this by the avalanche of nasty attack ads flooding the radio and TV airwaves and slick voter hit pieces crowding the mailbox. From ancient Greece to present day, political campaigns have been infamous for deception, malicious innuendo, disinformation and character assassination.

Innocence provides little protection against attack by professional smear artists. "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny." So Hamlet warned the innocent Ophelia concerning the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and "the oppressor's wrong." George Washington, our most revered - and, arguably, our most virtuous - president, learned the truth of Hamlet's saying through bitter experience. General Washington, our premier Founding Father, was subjected to a torrent of scurrilous abuse, slander and libel by political opponents and the radical press of his day.

The practice of character assassination has come a long way since the days of Prince Hamlet and President Washington. Today's practitioners have turned their disreputable service into an artful science, combining age-old dishonesty with the latest technology, backed by multi-million dollar war chests.

New Generation of "Artists"

Generally recognized as one of the Democrat Party's top outfits in this mudslinging science is the Washington, D.C.-based campaign consultant firm of Doak, Carrier, O'Donnell, Wilkinson, Goldman & Associates - referred to hereafter as Doak & Associates. Best known as political strategists for former California Governor Gray Davis, the principal partners in Doak & Associates became infamous for nasty campaign tactics not only against Republican opponents, but also against Davis' competitors in the Democrat Party.

The Doak Gang outraged many Democrats with its dirty tricks for Davis in California's bruising 1992 Senate primary with fellow ultra-liberal Dianne Feinstein. In 2001, the Doak-Davis gubernatorial campaign smear tactics went so low that even Los Angeles Times writer Robert Scheer, a hardcore Marxist and pro-Vietcong campus revolutionary from the 1960s, felt compelled to denounce them as "pigsty politics" and "the lowest of low roads."

Recently Doak & Associates unleashed a California broadside against a longtime favorite target of the radical Left: The John Birch Society. This time, instead of using their trademark TV attack ads and mailers, the mudslingers decided to use the Voter Information Guide, the official ballot guide issued by the State of California and paid for by California taxpayers. The Birch Society first learned of the upcoming smear on July 23, when it received a letter at its headquarters from the office of California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. The letter, dated July 20, informed Society officials that they had but a few days to challenge inclusion of the Society's name in an argument for a proposition that would appear on the November ballot. The letter began:

Dear John Birch Society,

This letter is to notify you that your name or the name of your organization appears in a ballot argument in the Voter Information Guide for the November 2, 2004, General Election.... If you or your organization do not want to be included in the argument, the following procedure can be used to attempt to have a court order the removal of portions of the argument that identify you.

The letter went on to explain that there was only a 20-day window of opportunity to challenge the ballot inclusion - and that the clock was already ticking. "Time is of the essence," the letter noted. "No amendments or changes to the ballot pamphlet may be made without a writ of mandate from the court issued on or before August 9, 2004." Time was, indeed, of the essence. By the time JBS officials received the notice, on Friday afternoon, July 23, almost four of the 20 days had already disappeared. Weekends would wipe out another six days of the response period. Practically speaking, this left only four or five days of response time, since filing too close to the August 9 deadline would likely invite charges of dilatory action and could jeopardize a favorable court ruling. This time squeeze is important to keep in mind, as events would later show that this was an integral part of the smear strategy.

So, what is in the voter guide that prompted the letter from Secretary of State Shelley's office? According to the draft text sent with the letter, the JBS reference appears in an argument for Proposition 62, the so-called Open Primary Initiative. The pertinent verbiage states:

FACT: A former KKK Grand Wizard and John Birch Society members have been nominated through closed primaries here in California. The Open Primary guards against extremism.

"This is a typical example of the 'sandwich smear,'" charges G. Vance Smith, president and CEO of The John Birch Society. "Liberal-left politicians, radical activists and their media allies have been employing this despicable tactic for decades, demonizing anti-Communists, conservatives, Christians - anyone opposed to their radical agenda - by falsely associating them with Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and other contemptible groups notorious for racism, violence and totalitarian ideologies. And no organization has been subjected to this smear tactic more viciously, unfairly and frequently than The John Birch Society. What is especially odious and alarming about the Prop 62 smear is that it is being propagated in an official voter guide sent to millions of California voters, at taxpayer expense, under the guise of constitutionally protected 'free speech.' This is a very deliberate, deceitful form of attack that is extremely difficult to defend oneself against. If the smear artists succeed in using this weapon against the Birch Society, they will be emboldened to turn the same smear tactic against other opposition groups and individuals."

Proposition 62 is a scheme of Californians for an Open Primary, a "bipartisan" front group headed by left-wing activists of California's Democrat and Republican parties. Democrat heavyweight Leon Panetta serves as Prop 62's honorary co-chair and number one big gun. Panetta represented the Golden State's 17th congressional district (Monterey, California) from 1977-1993, before moving on to become President Bill Clinton's budget director, then White House chief of staff.

Prop 62's political strategists are veterans from the Gray Davis political machine, including Doak & Associates partners David Doak, Tom O'Donnell, Frank Wilkinson and Mattis Goldman. Californians for an Open Primary lists as its actual co-chair Garry South, credited as the driving force behind the state initiative. This speaks volumes, as Garry South is infamous for sledgehammer politics.

"When I think of Garry South, I think of Luca Brasi from 'The Godfather,'" Jack Pitney, a political science professor from California's Claremont McKenna College, told Associated Press in a 2003 interview. For those unfamiliar with the Mario Puzo novel and the ultra-violent movie trilogy about a Mafia dynasty, Luca Brasi was the hulking, cold-blooded henchman noted for killing with his bare hands, chopping folks up and stuffing them in the furnace.

It was Garry South who provoked fellow leftist Robert Scheer to decry the Gray Davis campaign's "pigsty politics." In his 2001 Times column mentioned above, Scheer wrote that "Davis' top political operative, Garry South, conducted one of the meanest political smear jobs in recent memory." Scheer referred to South as "Davis' hatchet man" who dished up "anonymously sourced dirt" in "a no-holds-barred smear" of his opponent.

That's quite a statement, considering that Scheer is no faint-of-heart sissy himself when it comes to smearing. As a dedicated Marxist-Leninist, Scheer edited the militant Ramparts magazine during the 1960s, was a principal founder of the Communist-dominated Peace and Freedom Party, and led delegations of U.S. revolutionaries to Communist Cuba, North Korea and North Vietnam. He proved during his Ramparts years that he was comfortable with Communist leader Vladimir Lenin's dictum on smearing the opposition. "We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth," said Lenin. "We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, scorn, and the like, toward those who disagree with us."

When he later graduated from Ramparts to the Los Angeles Times, Scheer learned to adapt to the Times' more subtle smear technique. But Garry South and the Doak Gang at Prop 62 prefer the Leninist full-throttle attack mode.

On May 19, 2004, the CBS 60 Minutes program gave a glimpse into the smear power of Doak & Associates. In a light-hearted piece on political ads that was more tribute than critique, CBS' Steve Hartman told viewers: "David Doak and Frank Wilkinson make political ads for a living, so I invited them here to see if it was possible to make a negative ad about me - a former Eagle Scout and all-around nice guy. And with that, they went to work."

Not only did they go to work, but they did so with great delight. "They seemed to be having an awful good time," noted Hartman. "They promised me the ad would be technically accurate," he said. "But when it came time to watch it, I could hardly recognize myself."

Doak and Wilkinson had crafted a television ad that cast Hartman in a negative, but amusing light. "After seeing that ad," Hartman announced, "I decided two things. First, from now on, I'm not going to believe anything I hear in a campaign commercial." "And secondly," he said, in mock anger, "I'm definitely not watching that guy anymore." By "that guy," Hartman was referring to himself. The obvious message being that even when our logical side tells us these negative ads are (in Hartman's words) "all gross exaggerations, if not outright fabrications," our emotional side "falls for their scare tactics."

The problem with the 60 Minutes piece is that it painted the Doak Gang's operators with a humorous brush, as likable rascals, rather than the deadly character assassins they are. They had presented the CBS reporter as an incompetent journalist, not equated him with Adolf Hitler, Jack the Ripper, or Jeffrey Dahmer.

Same Target, New Tactics

Which brings us back to the California Voter Information Guide and the ticking deadline. As most readers of this magazine know, The New American is an affiliated publication of The John Birch Society. This writer received a photocopy of the letter from Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's office shortly after it arrived at the Society's office on July 23. It would have been difficult to choose a more inopportune time to drop a time bomb into our schedule. Our staff was short-handed and in the midst of a number of publication closing deadlines, with crucial personnel away on speaking engagements, other assignments, or vacation.

As a resident of California, your correspondent became the petitioner in the action now known as Jasper v. Shelley. Aware that time was of the essence, we hastily contacted our legal counsel and held a series of teleconferences to determine a course of action. It was quickly decided that we must immediately obtain representation of a law firm in California with experience in the state's election code. That was no small task, but after sifting through a number of referrals, we quickly availed ourselves of an excellent attorney near Sacramento.

Attempting to remedy the Society's concerns short of legal action, our counsel contacted attorneys for Californians for an Open Primary. Although the Society had nothing to do with Proposition 62 and had taken no position on the initiative, the Prop 62 attorneys insisted that the damaging reference to the Society must remain in the state's official ballot pamphlet. Having failed to reach our adversaries with reason, we were left only with recourse to a difficult legal challenge.

Our petition in Jasper v. Shelley was filed in Superior Court of the State of California on July 31, eleven days before the specified deadline. The petition states, in part:

Petitioner submits that the reference to The John Birch Society by the proponents of Proposition 62 in their "Rebuttal To Argument Against Proposition 62" [in the Voter Information Guide] is misleading, for several reasons: 1) voters will be misled into believing, without any factual or legal basis, that members of extremist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan ("KKK") are the type of candidate nominated in a closed primary system, when in point of fact the overwhelming majority of all California politicians, of whatever political inclination, have been nominated in closed primary systems or variations thereof; 2) voters will be misled into believing that The John Birch Society is somehow associated with the KKK, as a racist, exclusionary or otherwise socially deplorable organization, which is false; and 3) voters will be misled by the mischaracterization of The John Birch Society as an "extremist organization." Voter information guides are intended to inform, rather than mislead or inflame. Moreover, The John Birch Society is not a political party, and therefore any reference to members of The Society is irrelevant as to whether or not an open primary voting system is advantageous for California voters.

The petition further declares that a court-ordered deletion of the John Birch Society reference "will not substantially interfere with the conduct of the election," given that the voter guides had not yet been printed or distributed. "Further," it says, "deletion of the reference to The John Birch Society will have no impact on the election process, and indeed will serve voters by removing voter pamphlet information likely to mislead them."

In a declaration accompanying the petition, this writer briefly addressed the wrongness of associating, in the public mind, The John Birch Society, a patriotic, educational group, with the Ku Klux Klan, a violent, terrorist organization. The John Birch Society has always been a premier champion of the U.S. Constitution, individual rights (for all persons, regardless of race, color or creed), Christian-style civilization, respect for the law, and opposition to anarchy and all organizations supporting totalitarian ideologies.

Accordingly, our declaration noted:

[The John Birch Society] is opposed to the Klan and we have in the past actively opposed the Klan with much more than lip service. A member of our staff, Delmar Dennis was the federal government's star witness in the trial of KKK Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, which resulted in Bowers' conviction. Bowers was on trial for the 1964 slaying of the three civil rights workers - Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman - in Mississippi. At great risk to his life, Mr. Dennis, a Baptist minister, worked undercover for the FBI inside the Klan, gathering crucial evidence. Throughout 1968, Dennis traveled for the Society's Speakers Bureau, relating his experiences to thousands of Americans and received death threats from the KKK. Rev. Dennis was again the key witness in the 1994 trial of Klansman Byron de la Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Thus, Rev. Dennis, a longtime staff member of The John Birch Society, provided the key testimony that resulted in two of the most important convictions of notorious Klan leaders (Bowers and Beckwith) in modern times.

Has any member of the Prop 62 staff (or all of the combined memberships of the organizations they represent, for that matter) come anywhere close to matching that kind of heroic record of anti-Klan achievement? They're not even in the same ball park.

We also produced for the court a copy of the 1963 report on The John Birch Society by the Senate Fact-finding Subcommittee of the State of California. That body conducted an extensive investigation of the JBS and vindicated the Society against the then-mounting smear campaign. The official California report stated, in part:

We have not found the society to be either a secret or a fascist organization, nor have we found the great majority of its members to be mentally unstable, crackpots, or hysterical about the threat of Communist subversion....

We believe that the reasons The John Birch Society has attracted so many members is that it simply appeared to them to be the most effective, indeed the only, organization through which they could join in a national movement to learn the truth about the Communist menace and then take some positive concerted action to prevent its spread.

Our investigation and study was requested by the Society, which had been publicly charged with being a secret, fascist, subversive, un-American, anti-Semitic organization. We have not found any of these accusations to be supported by the evidence.

Incredibly, in their response to our petition, attorneys for Prop 62 took special pains, first of all, to complain repeatedly that we had been dilatory in our filing. "The writ petition was filed," they protested, "...a full 10 days after the commencement of the 20-day 'public examination' period" and "a mere 10 days before the Voter Information Guide was scheduled to be printed." Amazing! The architects of the smear, after dropping their bomb on us, feign that they are the injured parties, after we, their intended victims, promptly responded, despite difficult circumstances. In a little more than five working days, we had responded with our petition, a full 10 days ahead of the already truncated deadline.

The Garry South-Doak Gang mudslingers were obviously upset that we had succeeded in responding in a timely manner. Strategic timing is a very important weapon in the arsenal of the political smear artists. They are pros at delivering the last-minute hit mailers and television attack ads. A key part of their strategy is to allow the opposition no time to respond to the smear. They know that few organizations or individuals can muster the legal and financial wherewithal in a timely manner to fend off these vicious attacks.

However, they had other plans as well. In their pleading, the Prop 62 team argued that the court should not delete the reference to The John Birch Society, since it is common knowledge and (they claimed) self-evident that the Society is extremist. As proof of this assertion, they submitted that they had run an Internet search on Google.com in which they matched the Society with "right wing," "ultra conservative," "extremist," "radical" and "radical right wing." Lo and behold, their searches turned up hundreds of matching hits! Of course, virtually all of these citations are mere repetition of the same baseless charges by left-wing political activists and journalists of the same ilk as the Prop 62 radicals.

Unfortunately, Judge Gail D. Ohanesian ruled in favor of the smear gang, denying the Birch Society's petition. The voter pamphlet has been printed with the smear intact. The Prop 62 folks were quick to crow about their victory, casting themselves as the spotless, innocent Ophelias triumphing over the powerful forces of evil. In an August 9 press release, Prop 62 campaign manager Samantha Stevens declared:

Lawsuits like these are an attempt to distract the voters from the real issue. The party bosses and those who hold power in Sacramento are using every underhanded scheme they can think of to derail the Open Primary.

"Distract the voters." "Party bosses." "Underhanded scheme." The Prop 62 smear machine was describing its own operations, not those of The John Birch Society. The amoral practitioners of the Big Smear are more brazen and deceitful than ever.

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