People don't realize the degree to which bad publicity that is tarring adults, also gets passed on to their children --- in school and other social situations.
The media constantly went after Nixon in the most vicious manner even long before Watergate --- as a Congressman, Senator, VP and finally President. And this venomous hatred was likewise applied to anyone in his White House.
During RMN's first term, Donald Rumsfeld's young children suffered humiliation & rejection & taunting at DC-area schools after a totally false & scurrilous - and never retracted - hit-piece was done against their Dad by the number-one nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, Jack Anderson.
Rumsfeld was Nixon's choice to head OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity). Anderson's hit piece alleged that Rumsfeld severely slashed funding to anti-poverty programs, spent lavishly on office remodeling including bathroom fixtures actually plated with gold, had taken down all the black & white wall photos of stark scenes of poverty put up by his predecessor Sargent Shriver and replaced them with "pastoral scenes," and much more.
Not a single word in the hit piece was true. But Anderson never ever retracted a word of it, even after accepting Rummy's invitation to visit the office and examine the spreadsheets. The most he'd do is verbally admit (almost) to being wrong in person to Rumsfeld, by muttering some excuse like, "Well, I got my information from a source who's never given me bad information..."
And today, just like 45 years ago, the kids in the DC area schools, even those too young to read, hear from their parents, "Wow! Look at what this wretch has done! Isn't one of his children in your class?" And even if they don't personally hear it from their parents, at least one of their other classmates has, and the smear will quickly spread from child to child.
And the taunting begins...
It really opened my eyes to MSM bias.