Ken Arromdee wrote:
Anyone searching for ["kerry swift boat"] is
specifically searching for the
controversy, not just searching for Kerry.
"Kerry" has common meanings unrelated to John Kerry on any level (and
no common meanings along the lines of the sexual connotation
arbitrarily assigned to "santorum"). All of this is beyond our
control.
If the santorum article only showed up when searching
for "santorum
sexual slang" there wouldn't be any problem.
I've seen no evidence that there *is* a problem (of our creation).
[T]he Wikipedia article is better than another page
that's even worse.
Talk about damning with faint praise. He might prefer the Wikipedia article
over the other one, because even if it harms him, it doesn't harm him as
much as the other one. Trying merely to be less harmful than other web
pages is an abominably low standard. We can do better than that.
How does the Wikipedia article harm him? The webpages created out of
malice will continue to exist (and appear in Google search results)
regardless of our actions. The existence of an article documenting
the matter in a neutral, dispassionate manner (and making clear that
the association stems from an organized campaign against Rick
Santorum) actually benefits him.
"Person X is like shit" is unpleasant in a
very different way from "person
X is a liar". The latter creates an unpleasant association with that person
only to the degree that that person is believed to have committed unpleasant
activities. The former creates an unpleasant association on an emotional
level.
As Rob noted, the claims regarding Obama's birthplace have resonated
on an emotional level to a huge extent. And I would argue that the
potential damage was far greater, given their widespread perception as
literal truths. (People might draw an unpleasant association between
Rick Santorum and the concept described via the neologism, but no one
has been led to believe that he literally *is* "the frothy mixture of
lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.")
You can write a balanced article that reports the
claim that Obama is a liar
without making the audience think Obama is a liar. You cannot do this when
the article is about comparing a person to shit.
I see no material distinction preventing us from documenting the
matter in a balanced fashion.