Posted on 05/26/2007 1:49:34 PM PDT by Eurotwit
A few weeks ago – in between Hillary Clinton’s official entry into the presidential race and the first Republican primary debate of the cycle – the fiery online conservative forum Free Republic marked a decade in operation as one of the premier online forums for right-wing political discussion.
It also experienced one of the biggest internal battles to rock the site since the 2000 election of George W. Bush -- a tumultuous campaign year that nearly tore the site apart, as its founder and chief administrator first cleansed commenting ranks of Bush supporters, then, later, rallied to his support.
At the heart of the latest controversy: the fight over the conservative bona fides of Rudy Giuliani.
Over the past few weeks, chaos has reigned in the “Freeper” community as members sympathetic to the former mayor's candidacy claim to have suffered banishment from the site. They were victimized, they say, by a wave of purges designed to weed out any remaining support for the Giuliani campaign on the popular conservative web forum. Another significant chunk of commenters have migrated away from the controversial site over the action, according to a number of former site members and conservative bloggers who have been tracking the situation.
In a plaintive post on the blog “Sweetness & Light,” exiled commenter Steve Gilbert, who says he does not support the former mayor’s campaign, blasted the site’s new “anti-Giuliani, anti-abortion jihad.” Since George W. Bush was elected president, he wrote, “there haven’t been any large scale [Free Republic] purges to speak of – until now.”
The fight began one month ago, when site founder Jim Robinson posted an anti-Giuliani manifesto titled: “Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee would be a dagger in the heart of the conservative movement.” Then the virtual ax started to swing. Longtime posters to the freewheeling discussion threads, used to serious no-holds-barred web etiquette, were still stunned by the intensity of the anti-Rudy activity; conservative blogs buzzed with the development.
“Jim Robinson has been going on a tear demonizing Rudy Giuliani, because Rudy (agreeing with the vast majority of Americans), is personally opposed to abortions on a moral level…” complained a user on the GOPUSA Web site. “Anyone who posts any support for Giuliani at the site, if it's at all forceful, will be banned.”
(“Normally, we don't allow complaints about other conservative forums,” chided the moderator, but “…because it is being discussed all over the Internet, I'll make an exception.”)
Just a few months ago, Rudy Giuliani placed second in an early Free Republic straw poll; now, his support on the site has been virtually eliminated. “After the ‘April Purge,’ I don't think there are any Rudybots left around here,” noted Free Republic commenter “upchuck” in one recent post. “And if there are, they're not posting pro-Rudy stuff :).”
The forums weren’t the only venue for the Free Republic’s new antagonism toward Mr. Giuliani, which coincided with a wave of comments expressing similar sentiments from other corners of the conservative movement. A few days after Mr. Giuliani’s equivocal Roe v. Wade comments at the Republican presidential debate on May 3, a new “STOP RUDY NOW News & Information Thread” was featured on the site, and a newly-created stand-alone category debuted via a link from the homepage: “The Giuliani Truth File.” (So far this campaign season, Mr. Giuliani is the only candidate – Republican or Democratic – to be singled out for that level of scrutiny from the Free Republic.)
Why Rudy? Why now? Some conservative bloggers and former commenters contacted for their view of the continuing controversy say they believe that site founder Jim Robinson holds ideologically middling Republicans like Mr. Giuliani responsible for the GOP’s congressional loss and current woes. (They asked that their names be kept out of this story for fear of antagonizing the famously frisky site regulars.)
Others claim that the former mayor’s top-tier status is spurring frantic site administrators into action. Finally, one popular theory holds that the Free Republic is secretly hoping for another Clinton presidency that would send its Alexa ratings soaring back to levels it hasn’t experienced since its halcyon days of the Clinton impeachment, when a since-soured relationship with blog pioneer Matt Drudge and overwhelming anti-Clinton sentiment in Republican ranks helped make Free Republic one of the hottest Web sites in the nation. It hasn't recovered that luster since the Bush administration took over.
“It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s an observation,” said one blogger, who describes himself as a half-hearted Mitt Romney supporter. “They’ve still got a brand name that means something, but they’re not what they were in terms of real-world impact. A Hillary presidency would get them there.”
Robinson himself could not be reached for comment, but his original post laid out his case against Mr. Giuliani – a graphics-heavy presentation of some of the former mayor’s most damning moderate quotes in mainstream media venues, along with a color-coded report card tracking his less-than-doctrinaire positions on abortion, immigration, gays and guns.
Robinson, it should be noted, famously blasted George W. Bush’s presidential candidacy back in 2000, before a dramatic late-campaign about-face that saw him emerge as one of the GOP ticket’s biggest supporters. But whether or not Free Republic experiences a similar election-year shift this cycle, the site’s current campaign is spreading a dangerous primary-season meme of Rudy Giuliani as big-city liberal – and turning one of the most influential web forums in conservatism into an exclusive gathering place for those who share that view.
My mistake. I was thinking of the New York Sun.
FYI
Me too, and me neither. I wouldn't vote for Rudy in any primary, but I'd be forced to vote for him if he somehow won the nom. I think the primaries will preclude that (at least I'm hoping and praying so).
Ditto for McCain. ptui
Did you have something to offer on the subject, or are you here only to insult others? If there is something I have posted that you think is not truthful, please be specific and post a link so that I may respond. Truth is something I highly value.
I never heard of the BZ thread. Could you shoot me a link?
Or better yet, take a look at his posting history and see it in context:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?name=Travis%20Mcgee
Like so very many here, it appears that he got caught up in the passion of the Illegal Immigration issue and lost his objectivity.
You can see that on this particular thread (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1612338/posts)things were getting out of hand and Jimrob was telling people to cool it. Travis wouldn’t desist and got bounced.
Perhaps it is because he was so outspoken on so many other II threads that it became a ban instead of a suspension, who knows.
There are a couple of points that need to be addressed here.
The first is that EVERY website has its “pimples” (or carbuncles, if you prefer ;’} FreeRepublic is no exception. What IS exceptional is that 1. They’re highlighting our foibles, and 2. We’re not afraid to examine them. Painful as it may be, we don’t run away from the complaint. This article is a hit piece and nothing more than sour grapes from a bunch of rejects. By posting the article here and responding to it, we are disproving their claims.
Another thing that keeps coming back to me is that, unlike the phony “diversity is our strength” crappola that the left attempts to foist on all of us, FreeRepublic was created as a forum for like minded people (Conservatives). There is not litmus test involved to join, so lots of folks join in who THINK they’re conservative, and then bristle when the prevailing objectives of this site (or any other) do not match their own particular sense of reality.
Finally, the Internet attracts all sorts of personalities. One of the things that keeps me coming back to FR is the comments from members. FreeRepublic has taught me that Conservatives routinely do EVERYTHING better than Dhimmis. We are, by & large, more thoughtful, more articulate, better organized, more patriotic, and more reverent than leftists. Conservatives are inherently more funny.
Conservatives are also more brutal when provoked. When properly focused against our enemies they can be merciless adversaries. I’ve also noticed that some can be bullies. This PD guy was one of the more notorious. I am amazed that he lasted as long as he did.
Not every poster at FR has the equivalent grasp of language, grammar, history, and politics. With some, posting is second nature. Some struggle to say what they want. I get the impression that more than a few are lurkers because they don’t want to invite the “pukin dog” treatment. Mores the pity because I really want to know what they think, too. I believe that it is more civil here now, and that this change will attract more thoughtful conservatives.
So, a big raspberry to The NY Observer, Rebecca Sinderbrand, and the disrupters. Viva FreRepublic!
Sure as long as the budget is balanced cut all the taxes you want. It’s pay me now or pay me later.
Ptui is the right word for him.
“Giuliani ‘not confident’ war will turn around”
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/14/giuliani.lkl/
Doesn’t he realize this could demoralize our troops and embolden the enemy?
And some people think he is our great WOT guy??
To the extent that certain posters were actually paid operatives of the Giuliani campaign, or really indistinguishable from same, I totally agree with banning them. However, the suggestion that Giuliani would be as bad a President for our nation as Hillary is overboard IMO. We face a genuine danger of having Hillary and her whole criminal political machine back in the White House, and we must be very clear on the importance of preventing that. We need an electable GOP nominee to keep Clinton out, and depending on how things play out, how the polls go, who jumps into the race and who jumps out, it’s quite possible that Giuliani will be the best option. It’s also quite possible he won’t be. But taking the attitude that he’s some sort of evil incarnate is just destructive hyperbole that increases the risk of getting ourselves another Clinton administration.
I hope he comes back as Pukin Dog. He told me when William Oefelein (NASA love triangle astronaut) was vindicated he would rub my face in it. Too bad he's not around today...LOL.
Really!!!? Well, I wonder then why I was attacked repeatedly by the RudyBots for posting articles from or sourcing information to the NY Observer. They said that the NY Observer was a liberal rag.
Well, I seriously doubt that it has any interest in leaning to the right.
New York Times. Jul 31, 2006
Jared Kushner, the 25-year-old son of a wealthy New Jersey developer who was sentenced to prison last year, has bought The New York Observer, paying what one person familiar with details of the sale said was nearly $10 million for a majority stake in the weekly newspaper.Mr. Kushner said that he bought the newspaper because it was a marquee property in the media capital of the world, and that the opportunity to buy a newspaper did not come around very often. The paper's relatively small circulation -- 50,000 -- belies its influence, particularly in New York's media, political and real estate circles.
He also said The Observer was a good brand that could one day make a lot of money, though it now loses about $2 million a year.
Because every side of the transaction is private, it is difficult to precisely determine the financing behind the deal. It is not clear how much of a stake Mr. Kushner bought, but Arthur Carter, the current publisher of The Observer, is retaining some interest and will be offering the new owner strategic advice.
The Kushner name is well known to readers of The Observer and other media outlets, which have given thorough coverage to federal charges against his father, Charles B. Kushner, who was a major Democratic fund-raiser and contributor to James E. McGreevey, the former governor of New Jersey.
Charles Kushner was sentenced last year to two years in prison after pleading guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign donations. ...
Duncan Hunter.
There is no complete right or wrong to that exchange....it depends on one’s perspective on the issue and the celebrity in question.
The issue it was over is now solidly at the forefront and it was off all but the most sensitive radar until after the last POTUS election.
Right now though there is a chance to take back the GOP from the RINOs and “What Culture War?” idiots and I hope folks will grab it.
many of those that were a major irritant here have slinked off to their own new site where they can whine about being under the heel of social conservatives all day long....wonderful...though I notice a few have already come back after a few weeks in the echo chamber with OCD hens governing the joint.
I’m glad to be here. I hope some more of the old timers can come back too....there are more decent reasonable folks on FR than on any politcal forum I know of.
And I am glad the social conservatism tone has been upheld here.
if the GOP does not get it’s act together...and it may not, then it will go the way of the Whigs and we will be fractured while the left will not be.
And if these idiots give amnesty, the conservative landscape will be stymied for at least my lifetime.
Forum attitudes come and go. It is difficult with a managed forum as opposed to an open one.
that boils down to what the administrator desires.....which given the infancy of this sort of thing, I’d say we’re still in learning mode
During the days of dialup connections, I made it a point never to click on any of MiaT’s threads. By the time I started with a faster connection, the clintoons were already out of office and I couldn’t see the relevance of reading about them.
I don’t think they had anything to do with the death of Vince Foster other than the possibility they may have moved the body.
Are YOU confident it will turn around without a change in the White House?
If so, what's wrong with you?
Ditto.
“MiaT was the only freeper I’ve ever seen banned who, after she was gone, some folks said they couldn’t decipher her posts or didn’t have nightmares any more.
Another FReeper described her graphics as “They make my eyes bleed.”
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