swift-boat
verb [with object] informal
Target (a politician or public figure) with a campaign of personal attacks: when he got swift-boated, his campaign staffers didn’t sit silently (as noun swift-boating) organized smearing and swift-boating of public figures...
- However we can also lie, spin, smear, defame, swift-boat, and (in one worrying recent case from the sewer) threaten violence.
- I think the idea that you can go into the general election and expect there not to be any negative attacks, or any effort to sort of swift-boat whoever our candidate is, is not realistic.
- It is at least an open question as to whether Democrats this year will attempt to match the Republicans in their willingness to "swift-boat".
Origin
2004: with allusion to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a political action committee that funded an advertising campaign criticizing 2004 US presidential candidate Senator John Kerry's record of military service aboard a swift boat, a type of US Navy patrol craft, during the Vietnam War.