Watch Out For Incoming Mud!

Having thrown a little mud in my time, I can testify that it not only sticks, it can produce an immediate blister on the neck, arm, or face on the one unlucky to be hit by it. When I was a kid we did our mud slinging using the real stuff, daubed onto the end of a stick and hurled across the way at our opponent. They, of course, were doing the same thing and it was not unusual for us all to leave the battlefield with plenty of red spots and bruised egos. But what about the mudslinging we hear every day coming from the politicos? We say we hate it but according to the experts it typically is what works in winning an election. I’m not certain if that’s an indictment of those doing the slinging or those of us who allow the mud to stick and in the end it influences our vote.

As with any and all things, one person’s mud is another person’s facts they feel the need to bring to the attention of the voters. We heard earlier this year one candidate accusing the other of always wanting to be president even though they said they had not previously thought about running. What was the basis for this charge? A paper written while the candidate was in kindergarten! I don’t remember too many details from age six but you do have to give them credit for digging up such an important piece of historical evidence. It was Otto von Bismark who once said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” This comment could easily apply to our election process, and I have made sausages from scratch, therefore, I can fully appreciate what he meant.

Okay you had to know I would be sharing something about the origin of the word:
MUDSLINGING - "wild, unsubstantiated charges; a word, like 'smear,' used to turn an attack back on the attacker. 'Calumniate! Calumniate!' Some of it will always stick,' advised Beaumarchais in 'The Barber of Seville' in 1775. This was based on ancient Latin advice, 'Fortiter calumniari, aliquia adhaerebit,' or 'Throw plenty of dirt and some of it will be sure to stick.' Sometime after the Civil War, 'dirt throwing' picked up some water to become 'mud-throwing,' mud-gunning' and the word that gain pre-eminence, "mud-slinging.' The New York Tribune of April 13, 1876, disagreed with the Latin dictum: 'Mud doesn't stick to Mr. Blaine any better than it does to Bristow. The slander peddlers are having a bad season.'." "Safire's New Political Dictionary" by William Safire (Random House, New York, 1993). Page 471.



Here’s another source that tracks this expression to a slightly different point of origin: MUDD/MUD -- "his name is mudd/Mudd. A reader of our column, reading of efforts to obtain a belated presidential pardon for Samuel A. Mudd, the doctor who set the broken leg of Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, raises the question of whether the popular expression 'His name is mud' should not actually be 'His name is Mudd,' referring to the fashion in which the doctor's name was blackened. In truth, it has been well established that Dr. Mudd was not a part of the conspiracy to kill Lincoln. It wouldn't surprise us a bit if the story of Dr. Mudd and his claim of ignorance may have contributed to the popularity of the expression during the nineteenth century. However, 'mud' in the sense of scandalous of defamatory charges goes back to a time well before the Civil War. In fact, there was an expression, 'the mud press,' to describe newspapers that besmirch people's reputations by throwing mud, as long ago as 1846. So it seems most likely that the expression 'His name is mud' was well established before Dr. Mudd met his unhappy fate." From the "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins: by William and Mary Morris.

That’s at least two ideas about how we came to name the charges and counter charges that fly forth and back, mudslinging. In passing, I do know that the descendants of Dr. Mudd have tried many times over the years to clear his name but have not been able to overturn his conviction as a conspirator with those who plotted the death of President Lincoln. That shows the power of ‘mud’ and it demonstrates why folks still sling it today. In short, it works, and in a game where winning is everything you will see the mud fly. Sad to say, in my opinion, most of the stuff that passes itself off as political discourse gives mud a really bad name. I prefer the memories I have of the wet gooey stuff that raised up a mighty welt on one of my best buddies who just happened, on that particular day, to be in the wrong place at the right time. At least once the soreness was gone, we didn’t even remember it, and we soon found ourselves side by side fishing together on the creek bank. I do hope today’s blog is as clear as mud, but that’s a topic for another day! …….More later.