But of course more commonly fraud, theft, corruption, greed and lying are at the top of list.
Sometimes the most erroneous accusations crop up in supposedly liberal or neutral sources, in which case you have to read carefully about what's being alleged. In my experience it typically amounts to an allegation of her being accused of being associated with an alleged wrong-doer, told in the passive voice, e.g. "allegations were made...." There have been investigations of her personal and campaign finances, but no findings of criminal wrongdoing. It would take some time to sort out each claim, but I am absolutely certain that some of the claims are completely bogus, which any critical reader can see for themselves, and I have yet to see any conclusive substantiation of the allegations made against her.
Human rights activists--and I might count myself among them as a follower and supporter-- will remember Braun as being on the wrong side of the Nigerian sanctions debate. Well, the truth is that there were many sides in the debate, as any student of African affairs is well aware, and Braun's position could never have been fairly characterized as one of completely abandoning democracy and human rights in Nigeria. However, she had personal relationships with some members of the military ruler Sani Abacha's family, and her boyfriend/campaign manager had worked for a lobbying firm that at one time had taken on the Abacha government as a client. That led many people, myself included, to question her motives for opposing a tougher regime of sanctions, chief among them a unilateral oil embargo. In retrospect, I find that Braun had a strong argument, although I respectfully feel that she allowed herself to be manipulated to certain degree, and that her rhetoric was a little too rosy. Her sixth and final trip to Nigeria was definitely ill-advised, but since she's admitted as much and apologized to her consituents, it does not strike me as a real issue.
About the harshest criticism I've come across that doesn't tell outright lies is this piece:
Nigeria: A U.S. Senator Is Suckered. The author uses some questionable arguments, like arguing from the negative, and incomplete quotes with no real context provided, but the essence of the problem is there.
You may have seen Saletan's piece in Slate, which is neither completely fictitious nor completely truthful in my view. The biases there at Slate could take days to talk about, and that piece shows some bias and at least one misleading innacuracy I can think of. Slate also published an inflamatory hit piece entitled "Is Moseley-Braun a Crook?" or some such. Whatever.
There was a rumour that the Braun campaign was going to put "the Nasties" online. The Nasties are the cd and sheafs of documentation that Braun gives to reporters before granting an interview. Supposedly they contain documents exonerating her and exposing the source of certain lies that have been used to smear her. Since presumably anybody who reports interviewing her lately (all six of them, ahem) has read them, you can parse what they say and don't say to get a sense of whether you believe there's anything substantial behind the accusations. With a few notable exceptions, most reporters have backed down from repeating certain charges since they initially pounced on her in February.
Well, not having the Nasties myself, it is hard for me say what's what exactly. For the time being, I consider her senate confirmation hearing for the ambassadorship to be exoneration enough, as none of her colleagues, with the notable exceptions of Helms and Fitzgerald, found anything wrong in her activities, either in her handling of campaign funds or her visits to Nigeria.
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