Sentence:  The Borgia family has had such a bad reputation over all these hundreds of years. Some of it is merited, and for some of it, they were <WSD>swiftboated</WSD>. The cardinals hired writers to write bad things about them. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To smear; to attack someone or something's reputation using slander, misrepresentation, or false accusations.