Full episode
160: Character Assassination

Prologue

Host Ira Glass talks with Jack E. Robinson, Republican candidate for Senate in Massachusetts. Within 24 hours of announcing that he was going to collect signatures to get on the ballot to run against Teddy Kennedy, Robinson was attacked in the press. And so he tried a novel tactic: He issued a long public statement that is simply one of the most remarkable documents of current political life in this country. He called it The Robinson Report and posted it on the Internet for anyone to read. It outlines, in matter-of-fact prose and a disturbing level of detail, everything he thinks he's ever done wrong. It's not clear if this helped him, or if it simply seemed so strange that people didn't know what to make of it. (5 minutes)