grandstanding question.
"A classic political story involves a loaded political question. A politician tells his campaign manager to spread the rumor that an opponent has sex with pigs. “We can’t do that. It isn’t true,"the campaign manager protests. ‘I know it’s not true, but let’s make the sonofabitch deny it,” the candidate says. The question only—regardless of any answer—would create doubt in the public’s mind.
The political anecdote has been cited in print since at least 1967. One version states that
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) liked to tell the story about a sheriff’s election in Texas. Another version states that the story involves Lyndon Johnson’s own Texas election. "