Anatomy of a Scandal Smothered by Misinformation

Before the Woke Era, the Fighting Gamecocks of the University of South Carolina had a rowdy 

weeklong pep event called “Cocks Week.” Kind of like a collegiate Mardi Gras where anything 

goes and often did. No longer. But there was one Big Thing back in the day. Almost came out.

It’s a complicated story. It involves a rivalry prank between USC and Clemson in 2012. Somebody’s bright idea to steal Clemson’s honorary mascot that year, who just happened to be a prominent state politician with a rumored penchant for rowdiness even after graduating from Tiger U. many years before.

Not to get too lurid about it, things happened. The way sometimes things, uh, happen. At some point in the wee hours, the grapevine reached the campus police, who intervened and ended the proceedings. There was no immediate hubbub. But there was gossip and soon an urban legend memorialized in the form of a poster seen in dorm rooms, connected by whispers to a Polaroid somehow smuggled from police files to persons unknown.

Where things stood until a few weeks ago, when the Republican battle for the presidential nomination had intensified to a neck-and-neck(?) battle between two formidable competitors. Anonymous sources now report that one of disgruntled also-rans, a huge Sopranos fan, had knowledge of the long buried event in Columbia and had even procured one of the old posters. He wanted some kind of political compensation for remaining quiet. 

Fortunately the threatened candidate had as one of the major supporting PACs, a mover and shaker named Reid H_ [censored] with his own powerful resources by way of the Epstein Island crowd. In a truly brilliant maneuver, he hijacked the blackmailer, acquired the poster and immediately released it somehow to a firm that specialized in altering the identities of famous personages for use in porn products.

Interesting word choice.

Which is how Taylor Swift got dragged in, absolutely innocently, to the tabloid story that was widely promoted, especially in semi-honest but Trump-averse publications like Breitbart News, as a scandal involving the superstar singer and the Kansas City Chiefs, who also wear bright red football uniforms. One reputation saved, another only lightly dappled with the kind of mud that generally in the record biz increases album sales. This instant headline grabber sucked the air out of the true story as only world class misinformation can. Who would ever believe such a comparatively drab bait and switch? Taylor is sexy. The other is, well, you know, not.

In the aftermath, the scandal-mongering PAC executive withdrew from the presidential campaign, which had become slightly embarrassing to a foreign contributor called Soros-Something or Something-Soros, and the candidate was left to struggle on alone, still fending off decades old rumors of serial infidelities but nothing as career dynamiting as what could have been. The takeaway lesson is that preemptive misinformation works.

Unfortunately, the other lesson, lost on the candidate, is the virtue of being silent when others are being mysteriously oppressed by murky accusations that don’t even pass the smell test with NYT reporters after a second martini. The failure to learn this lesson by piling on for personal political gain can make people mad. How things can pop up out of nowhere to bite you in the ass.

The paw prints on the face have nothing to do with Swift;

They’re the perfect makeup for a Clemson Tigers alumna.