deceptive oration

From pp. 160-1 of Dallek’s JFK biography:

“Whimsically taking advantage of the climate of suspicion and the extraordinary ignorance of his audience, Smathers shamelessly described Pepper in a speech as an ‘extrovert’ who practiced ‘nepotism’ with his sister-in-law and ‘celibacy’ before his marriage, and had a sister who was a Greenwich Village ‘thespian’.”