The absurd story believed by many about eating cats and dogs isn’t new. Long ago, some media in a frenzy, picked up a fake story during a presidential campaign up and ran with it.
Article by M. Tomoski in The Plaid Zebra May 10, 2016
Headline: “Hunter S. Thompson once spread a rumor of a presidential candidate’s drug addiction and it was taken seriously”
” ‘Not much has been written about the Ibogaine Effect as a serious factor in the presidential campaign,’ Thompson wrote in an article he later claimed was never meant to be taken at face value. In it, he declares, ‘word leaked out that some of Muskie’s top advisers called in a Brazilian doctor who was said to be treating the candidate with some kind of strange drug.’
“. . . To his credit as an upstanding journalist, Thompson claims he tried his best to question Muskie and even searched the hotel for a Brazilian doctor but was met with obstacles beyond his control.
” ‘I was not able to press the candidate himself for an answer because I was permanently barred from the Muskie campaign after that incident on the Sunshine Special in Florida,’ he wrote, referring to Muskie’s train and a story Rolling Stone had published a few weeks earlier.
“ ‘That crazy son of a bitch got on the train wearing your press badge,’ Thompson recalls another reporter saying. ‘He drank about ten martinis before the train even got moving, then he started abusing people. He cornered some poor bastard from one of the Washington papers . . . ‘
“. . . Hunter had told the man that he could use his press credentials to get a free trip to Miami, but never expected to miss the train himself.
“ ‘About half way through the campaign, I suddenly realized that all these poor bastards out there reading the Rolling Stone believed this madness,’ he said.”
https://theplaidzebra.com/hunter-s-thompson-spread-rumor-presidential-candidates-drug-addiction-taken-seriously/
Article in Daily Kos by Lawrence Lewis, 10/15/24
Article in Dawn by Muna Khan, 10/13/24
