Smear Campaign

Mo Vaughn refused Boston's request that he undergo an alcohol evaluation, saying yesterday the Red Sox are using his arrest on drunken driving charges as an excuse not to sign him. The first baseman, acquitted last week in Dedham (Mass.) District Court, said the team told him it would not resume negotiations on a long-term deal until it was certain Vaughn does not have a drinking problem. But Vaughn said the request was the first volley of an effort to blame him if he leaves via trade or free agency.

When a friend called to say that the Clout Page of the Daily News was using my nickname to poke fun at Happy Fernandez' campaign for mayor of Philadelphia, I had to stifle a yawn. With a name like "Butter," I've been ribbed a lot over the years. Staff writer Gar Joseph referred to a letter I sent to friends and business contacts, asking them to help Fernandez raise funds for the primary. Joseph wrote: "If I were a tennis-playing, Wellesley-and-Harvard- educated mayoral candidate trying to appeal to rowhouse Philadelphia, I don't think I'd want somebody named Butter or Muffy sending out invitations.

Tim Udinski was livid. Just a year after becoming the head lacrosse coach at Lansdale Catholic High School, he was out, ostensibly because of heated arguments with players and an assistant. Udinski thought the decision unfair, one the school wouldn't have considered for someone like longtime football coach Jim Algeo. So last fall he launched a scheme to prove his point, authorities say. Udinski sent anonymous emails to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, first claiming Algeo sexually solicited a player, and then accusing the new lacrosse coach, Nick Pison, of sexually assaulting students, officials said.

For the second day in a row, Lt. Gov. William W. Scranton 3d yesterday charged his Democratic rival for governor with running a "smear campaign. " Scranton demanded that Robert P. Casey retract his latest television ad, which says Scranton voted against public hearings on regulations relating to nuclear accidents. Casey refused. "Today we see another example of his peddling absolute untruths," Scranton said in a news release. He said it was "part of the Casey smear campaign.

This story is about a controversy ignited by a local activist, fueled by a local congressman, seized upon by the national media, about a subject as big and unfathomable as a dark, thunderous sky: Who owns the Holocaust? Was it a uniquely Jewish event? Or a horrifying illustration of man's inhumanity to man? Who's entitled to keep the flame lit? Bear those questions in mind. It's important not to lose sight of them as I recount what is, essentially, a smear campaign. At issue is the appointment of John K. Roth of Claremont McKenna College as director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Attacks have been made. Political signs and bumper stickers have been posted. At least one candidate has gone to cable television. And there's even a Democrat to spice up the ballot. For Montgomery County voters unaccustomed to two-party tilts for Court of Common Pleas judgeships, the Nov. 2 election offers a race between First Assistant District Attorney William R. Carpenter, the GOP pick, and Norristown lawyer Andrew B. Cantor, the Democrat. The quiet man in the campaign equation - and the third candidate for two vacant seats on the bench - is William J. Furber Jr. He has already been appointed and is virtually assured of winning one of the two 10-year terms.

John C. Martin says he just wants township government to stay free of influence peddling. Irene W. Ewald calls it a smear campaign. The gentility characteristic of Charlestown's board of supervisors meetings was ruffled Monday when Martin, a supervisor for 16 years, brought the issue of an ethics ordinance up for discussion. The meeting began with the supervisors approving preliminary plans for the 11-home, 84-acre Charles Merriwether Subdivision. Then, reading from a newspaper article about a similar measure rejected by Haverford Township commissioners last fall,, Martin brought up an ethics ordinance.

Slime, the perfect side dish with turkey. The slimers from Nickelodeon's Family Double Dare and What Would You Do? - television programs brought to life - play the Spectrum for two shows, 1 and 4:30 p.m. Sunday. The live version is one that children adore, because side- by-side with kids, adults compete to accomplish physical challenges and get covered in icky stuff while trying. Whipped cream, pudding, gelatin, glop, slop, gak - if it's slimy and it sticks, the Double Dare crew uses it. As usual, some participants are chosen in advance.

An attorney for a fired East Pikeland police officer said in a civil court proceeding last week that he had evidence indicating that East Pikeland Police Chief Kirby Bloomquist had sex with various women while he was on duty. Jeffrey Abramson, an attorney for fired Officer Scott Blevins, raised the allegations in court Wednesday as he requested permission to introduce sworn statements by three women in a civil court appeal of Blevins' firing. In an interview, Bloomquist responded that the sex accusations were an "absolute smear campaign.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jon S. Corzine, stung by the furor over derogatory remarks he allegedly made about Italian Americans, launched a counteroffensive yesterday against his accusers but said he would not "confirm or deny" whether he made the comments that caused the controversy in the first place. With U.S. Sen. Robert G. Torricelli at his side to show support, Corzine tried at a news conference to put the best face possible on the first major crisis of his campaign against former Gov. Jim Florio for the Democratic nomination to replace retiring Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

Tim Udinski was livid. Just a year after becoming the head lacrosse coach at Lansdale Catholic High School, he was out, ostensibly because of heated arguments with players and an assistant. Udinski thought the decision unfair, one the school wouldn't have considered for someone like longtime football coach Jim Algeo. So last fall he launched a scheme to prove his point, authorities say. Udinski sent anonymous emails to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, first claiming Algeo sexually solicited a player, and then accusing the new lacrosse coach, Nick Pison, of sexually assaulting students, officials said.

FORMER NEW ORLEANS linebacker Scott Fujita , a union leader with a record of criticizing the NFL's player-safety record, sees elements of a "smear campaign" in a bounty investigation that has sullied his reputation. Some NFL players agree, and question whether Fujita's three-game suspension has something to do with retribution. "I'm not saying the NFL is intentionally lying," Fujita, who now plays for Cleveland, said in an interview with the Associated Press. "I've been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they may have just been working with the information they've been given, even though much of that information was inaccurate and lacked credibility.

NEW YORK - I was on Broadway when I suddenly walked right into Center City Philadelphia. It was weird - a big banner on the stage of the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre announced "PHILADELPHIA WELCOMES DELEGATES" and other signs told us we were at a 1960 presidential nominating convention. When the show started, Derek McLane's nifty set with rotating walls spun out to reveal a room in the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, which looked like the real thing from five decades back, down to the moldings.

NEW YORK - Dominique Strauss-Kahn formally asserted Monday he was not guilty of charges he tried to rape a hotel maid, but drama unfolded outside the Manhattan courtroom as protesters jeered the former International Monetary Fund leader and as lawyers for the housekeeper said she was eager to testify despite a "smear campaign" against her. Strauss-Kahn's attorneys offered a rival account of the May 14 encounter at his $3,000-a-night Manhattan hotel...

NEW YORK - The intense rivalry between Facebook and Google just got juicier. In a twist seemingly out of a Hollywood thriller, Facebook hired a prominent public-relations firm to try to plant stories in leading news outlets criticizing Google's privacy practices. The efforts backfired when the firm approached a blogger who went public with the offer. The latest Silicon Valley drama has also evoked chatter of smear campaigns, secrecy and even Richard Nixon. It took the once-secret blogger known as Fake Steve Jobs to help sort it all out. Facebook said it had never authorized or intended to run any smear campaign against Google.

READING the numerous narrow-minded views pertaining to the building of an Islamic community center two blocks away from Ground Zero was both sickening and disheartening. The hate and fear spread by people with such views are reminiscent of the same hate and fearmongering that led to the Jewish Holocaust and the relocating of Japanese-Americans into internment camps during World War II. Because Islam is not a religion so familiar in the U.S., it's easy for many to isolate, persecute and ridicule anyone who is Muslim as being less than American.

The whisper campaign hinting at Sen. Barack Obama's supposed allegiance to radical Islam is the ugliest falsehood in the presidential race. In case you haven't heard, here's the thrust of the lies about Obama (D., Ill.): He's a Muslim sleeper agent, you see, pretending to be a Christian. If he's elected president, you see, Muslims will destroy the United States from within. Until now, the smear campaign against Obama was confined mostly to anonymous e-mail. But the rumors crawled into the daylight momentarily this week.

Rich Rodriguez wanted to focus on the future when he left West Virginia to coach Michigan's football team. A month later, Rodriguez was compelled to talk about the past. "There seems to be a campaign to try to smear me," Rodriguez said yesterday during a hastily scheduled conference call. "I haven't said anything until recently, when I felt I needed to defend all the false accusations. "It has just gotten ridiculous over the last couple of days. " An investigation into missing files from Rodriguez' former office revealed the academic records of West Virginia football players are secure after a newspaper report raised questions about missing paperwork.

The case of two former Folcroft officials charged with illegally videotaping police officers undressing in the department's locker room went to the jury yesterday after eight days of testimony. In closing arguments, defense lawyers told the jury that they may not like what happened in Folcroft, and that they may not like the defendants, but that there was no evidence to support charges of invasion of privacy, wiretapping, and tampering with public records. Prosecutors have alleged that Anthony Truscello, 69, the former borough manager, and codefendant Joseph Zito, 52, a former Folcroft Council vice president, illegally used surveillance equipment to try to discredit former Police Chief Ed Christie.

TATTLE yesterday talked to gossip's man of the hour, Jared Paul Stern, seeking his side of the story in his "extortion" scandal with billionaire Ron Burkle. Stern has local ties, growing up in the Rittenhouse Square area and attending the Philadelphia School before moving to Canada in 1979. He's low-key, sounding nothing like the slickster you might expect from reading about his dealings. He's smart, a graduate of Bennington College who majored in literature. He also has a sense of humor.