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.
Sounds as though it might not have been unwarranted based on this nice little *screed* you have posted. “Cretin”? How nice of you to label him as such.
I’m sorry, but he was consistantly attacked for his views, as were many of the Evos who dared to share their view here. I thought we were big enough we could deal with different views being expressed without the flaming and trashing.
Jim Robinson is a Conservative and man enough not to want to be a RHINO like Rudy. Robinson should be praised not attacked for all he has done and sticking to what he believes in. Those that got banned, I could care less, it was no fun coming to a conservative site and seeing it run over by Rudy worshippers and Rudy bullies. It shocked me when I saw it happening. They were rude to Jim Robinson and that shocked me too.
Hyuck, hyuck, whah thank eue fer callin’ me a wize and rational type. I sher hope that’s a good thang.
couldn’t get it to come up.
***Their computers have Viagra.
they spent years convincing themselves that they belonged here because they agreed with each other.
***Looks like b9 beat me to it, in a benign sort of way.
You go, girl! You must be one of those dozen of FRiends of Spiff that he was talking about. What motivates a person to “leave a thread” when they’ve basically been called a coward twice, and called on their other behavior? I simply don’t have an answer to it unless it means a self-immolation FReepercide is about to take place.
Brandie
as someone who fought those now purged for many years here and was ultimtely done in by them (Howlin and Sinkspur), I can tell you that they always ran like that over anything that suited them...way before Rudy came up.
They are mostly social liberals and very PC about anything sensitive who can’t stomach the excess of the Dems so they are GOP by default.
Thet behave exactly like some teenaged movie where the popular girls run herd on everyone till their comeuppance.
Well..they just got their comeuppance and rare have their been such delicious comeuppances that I have ever witnessed in real life in my 50 years.
if any bunch ever had it coming.....
it feels very good to be back here....especially with grown-ups being reasonable with one another
the friction and wolf pack mentality used to be thick...
anyhow...I’ve probably said enough already but i will tell you that even anti-freepers who normally tongue lash FR and folks like me enjoyed that purge-exodus very much
It was not his "different views" that got him banned. It was, in fact, his own intolerance of others' views, expressed in personal attacks and foul language.
You are criticizing the wrong person. Freepmail attacks are cowardly. The person who makes them is contemptible, not the person he attacks.
>> RA contributed more to the collective intelligence...
Intelligence is no blessing unless in the service of good.
Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character. -- Albert Einstein
No worries. It just seemed like a nice thing to do and I was in a good mood.
Ooo ~ that's wonderful.
We have a gorgeous framed print of a famous Einstein portrait, signed by the brilliant illustrator, Mark English.
Your quote would be a perfect companion.
#390 begin
RA was also awarded “Freeper of the Month” a while back. He sould never have been banned. Fr is worse for it.
RA was suspended, for cause, then kicked out permanently, for a more severe infraction. The offending posts were erased and the offending Freepmails were not made public, so your opinion to the contrary is baseless.
no, evidently not..FR is like Alice in Wonderland and many of those left have taken the small pill
Hell, according to this article, you’d think the membership of the site was reduced to about 20% of what it originally was...
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