Won't go into the whole story,
but I used the term 'Swift-Boated' the other day, and the young man didn't understand the connotation. In a nutshell, it means to reverse the facts, as in the 2004 presidential campaign, when the Swiftboat 'captains', (old men dressed like captains, hired by Karl Rove, for a TV commercial), turned Sen. John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, into a virtual war deserter in an effort to support the re-election of President George W. Bush, who it all but turned into a war hero despite his never stepping out of the Texas National Guard. P.T. Barnum would appreciate and approve, and a new lexicon evolved. Dirty, despicable? Yes, but it won the election for W, because, for a BUNCH of ignorant, naive people, facts just don't matter.
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