During the 1964 presidential election race, Lyndon B. Johnson suggested that his campaign team air an ad alleging that an opponent had once had sexual relations with a donkey. An advisor pointed out the claim was untrue. "I know it's not true," Johnson replied, "but I want to hear him deny it!"

Somewhere along the line, and I hope it wasn't in a Hunter S Thompson story, I heard that Lyndon Johnson said "Never get caught sleeping with a live pig or a dead woman."

I think its actually Edwin Edwards (fmr Gov of Louisiana) who said "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."

Your version sounds like an apocryphal variation.

Do you have a source for that?

From "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72", p. 247:

The race was close and Johnson was getting worried. Finally he told his campaign manager to start a massive rumor campaign about his opponent's life-long habit of enjoying carnal knowledge of his own barnyard sows. “Christ, we can't get away with calling him a pig-fucker,” the campaign manager protested. “Nobody's going to believe a thing like that.” “I know,” Johnson replied. “But let's make the sonofabitch deny it.”

It's often said that politicians have "no morals" but this - ig verified - really demonstrates a complete lack of decency that is quite galling to me. Subverting democracy with smutty name-calling, seriously; and these are supposed leaders of the people.

Such a small thing would so sully the office of the POTUS so as to genuinely discredit the USA for me.

What's worse is I fear that such a fiend would have no shame for doing something like this. If I were supreme ruler of Earth politicians doing such things would be censured and forced to clean Mumbai sewers for the rest of their days.

Fully agreed. As a Canadian, I was disgraced by the attack ads put forth by our two most recent contending parties that I did not vote.

How can I vote for either of them, when they are both miscreants?

Luckily there are more than just 2 parties to vote for... true, the PC and Liberals were the top dogs but the oft-overlooked NDP certainly bumped things up last time and the Green - well, they were given a seat off in the backwaters of BC... oh, and a few other regional/sort-of-national parties as well - there are alternatives if you're willing to test them out.

Well yes and no. Imho, a vote for anything other than the two who can actually win is as good as no vote at all.

Sometimes I think they are put there by the main parties to steal votes from their opposition on issues they cannot possibly accommodate.

that's the exact intention of attack ads, they disenfranchise voters, and this is usually very good for incumbents.

I first heard it from Hunter S. Thompson in "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72", so I would take it with a grain of salt... (and it was a pig not a donkey.)

That's awesome. I really hope that is a true story.

Somehow I am fascinated by the Child Pornography argument. It seems that Child Pornography is in our day and age one of the very few universal themes that nobody tries to challenge. It has become a subject so holy, that as soon as someone pulls it out, it puts the opponent in a long winding act of defense. Old versions of this "ultimate evil" arguments such as "Nazi" or "Communist" appear far more relativistic than child pornography. But it is going to be very interesting to watch over the next years how this issue is going to unfold.

"Think of the children!" -- works every time.

I'm assuming you have some sort of evidence to back up this conjecture with?

I'm guessing he's referring to Roman Polanski (sex with a 13 year old girl) and Victor Salva (sex with a 12 year old boy). I wouldn't say that '2' is 'so many Hollywood directors'.

Media are quick to call those acts 'pedophilia', which is a psychological term, not a legal one. In reality, 'pedophilia' refers to "a sexual preference for children, boys or girls or both, usually of prepubertal or early pubertal age". It has little to do with acting on those preferences. In the US, the legal terms for the act would be 'statutory rape' (pubertal before the age of consent) or 'child molestation' (prepubertal). The age of consent varies between states (16-18), and even more so between countries (from less than 12 to 21+) [1].

Just to illustrate that this is culturally defined and that the raising of the age of consent is a fairly recent development:

"In the United States, by the 1880s, most states set the age of consent at 10-12, and in one state, Delaware, the age of consent was only 7. A New York Times article states that it was still aged 7 in Delaware in 1895" [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Age_of_Consent_-_Global.sv...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#History_and_soci...

"sex with" implies consent. Both Polanski and Salva raped their victims, full stop.

There's also the infamous "Virgin Killer" album. There was a big edit war on Wikipedia over it that made the news.

I'm guessing that he's referring to the story involving Corey Haim. He did an interview with Nightline a while back and said that pedophilia was Hollywood's number one problem. After the interview a number of former child stars spoke out about the commonality of child sex abuse in Hollywood. It's one of those stories that you don't want to blow out of proportion and paint all of Hollywood with a wide brush, but you certainly don't want to dismiss the issue either.

Roman Polanski is one. Also a lot of the movie industry initially supported him despite him being guilty.

How many?