Usually this negative political strategy – poisoning the well — is done subtly. It typically involves innuendo. Imagine this scenario: A woman is being considered for promotion. An influential detractor says, “She’s really exceptional, I wonder why nobody likes her.”
One of the advantages of this approach is deniability of intention. Apparently, FBI Director James Comey didn’t care about that. He, and whoever else was in on it, threw caution to the wind. The purpose was to get the poison into the well and blowback be damned — at least for now.
The “beauty” of it, from a devious, manipulative point of view, is that he waited until absolutely nothing could be done to clean up the well he poisoned.
The question we should be asking ourselves is whether we’re going to let the presidency of the United States be influenced by such diabolical politicking. If so, we’re all losers because soon nothing will be too unethical or too evil.
