swiftboat

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A type of gunboat used by the United States military on inland waterways.

   • The men narrowly missed death when the swiftboat in front of theirs took a direct hit from a Communist rocket-propelled grenade.
   • Kilgore represents one of Willard's guides into the heart of darkness. The swiftboat captain represents another.
   • We felt like Athenian sailors waiting for Persian triremes to blunder into the straits of Messina, but we were probably more like Vietcong irregulars waiting to ambush American swiftboat captains.
2. 2

   A smear campaign based on specious claims.

   • Lately, however, Republican swiftboat attacks have begun to fall short.
   • So I saw this swiftboat TV attack on Jefferson.
   • The Swiftboat strategy aims at hitting the target at his/her perceived area of strength, to discredit and degrade what would have been a political advantage.
3. 3

   To attack a politician with specious claims.

   • No one should have been surprised that the Republicans would try to swiftboat Hillary in 2016, turning an accomplished diplomat into a feckless bungler who lied to cover up her own failures.
4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      To smear

      To smear; to attack someone or something's reputation using slander, misrepresentation, or false accusations.

      • The Borgia family has had such a bad reputation over all these hundreds of years. Some of it is merited, and for some of it, they were swiftboated. The cardinals hired writers to write bad things about them.
      • My wife suggested that in absence of a response by Woody, he was being swiftboated.
      • So you were swiftboated? I was about to be! I was about to be! No, I just said, That's bullshit—first of all, it's William Oliver Stone. And then Dale went back for the files and found them. I did have a record that they couldn't expunge.

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