My dear Mr. Jones, it may be vicious, but it’s not a smear when they’re quoting you directly!
“I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today. On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.
Never write anything that you don’t understand can and will be used against you. The reason I am always careful to articulate my more controversial opinions is that I know perfectly well that they’ll eventually be appearing on Wikipedia or a blog somewhere. Of course, because I know what I’m doing, my critics are usually forced to avoid printing the direct quotes because those never sound anywhere nearly as bad as the inaccurate and exaggerated summaries.
Jones, on the other hand, clearly didn’t. The direct quotes were damning, which is why he had no choice but to resign.