Free Republic Purge: Conservative Web Site Bans Giuliani Supporters

NY Observer ^ | Published: May 24, 2007 | by Rebecca Sinderbrand

[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.

[gondramB]

>>I miss Travis Mcgee.... FR has not been the same since he was shown the door... A true American, a true Patriot, and a true defender of Western Civ.

---

You’re not the only one. With all this talk of amnesty, I’d like to see many come back from that time.<<

I like Travis personally. And I’m slow to criticize someone much more senior who has contributed to the site.

But Travis earned his ban. When the Admin Mod and then Jim come into the thread to personally warn a person to stop the attacks and THEN the person says we are are all quislings and should be hung, its really more of a self ban than something that was done to him.

[miss marmelstein]

Wrong. The Observer is a NY weekly newspaper which leans distinctively to the right.

[gondramB]

>>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.<<

I wasn’t here in 2000 but I don’t have the problem understanding this that some do...

1. You’re a conservative site. George W. Bush isn’t your choice so you don’t support him during the primaries.

2. Then he is elected as our commander and chief. We are attacked by terrorists and go to war in East Asia. Unprecedented terrorist attacks begin globally from Indonesia to Spain and the U.K. What the hell else are you gonna do besides support the President and the troops fighting for us?

3. Now, pressure is being brought to bear for Freep to jump on the Guiliani bandwagon and give up on getting a conservative candidate. But the first vote hasn’t even been cast and Rudy has policies that are simply not acceptable. Is it that big a surprise that we don’t want to wave the white flag before the first shot is fired?

[gondramB]

>>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.”<<

Gosh. It almost feels like there might be more to the story... but I can’t quite put my finger on it. :)

Euro, I’m glad you dug this article up. Fascinating read.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Quotes from nameless people as a rule are quotes from the author himself.

[Guenevere]

bttt

[AppyPappy]

If Mugabe ran as a Republican, Mojo would support him. The RINO’s are really upset over the abortion debate because they always lose it. So they wish it would go away.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Thanks. ;-)

[Thumper1960]

The real question is this: Is Rudy a big-city Liberal or not?

IMHO, yes, he is. Do FR, and FReepers, generally support big-city Liberals, or Liberals of any sort? No.

While I can understand the rag liking the hometown boy, they fail to realize that Conservatives aren't going to love their Lefty favorite son. No matter his stance on any single issue so near and dear to New Yorkers. Sure, he's better on the Iraq/terror question than most Demoncrats. The rest of Rudy is not worth considering.

[spectre]

Thanks for the link.

Rudy makes it clear he supports funding our troops.

"Giuliani took equal aim at Edwards and said that the Democrats running for president are "highly unrealistic and in denial about the threat that America faces from the Islamic extremists."

"A war on terror is going on all around this world, terrorists are here or coming here planning to kill us. And if you can't recognize that, I don't think you can lead," Giuliani said in response. "If you can't face reality, it's very, very hard to safely lead people."

So what did he just say? Did he make a committment to stay the course in Iraq? That's what I am looking for.

sw

[tiredoflaundry]

Phew........ thank goodness not to many posts over night

[P.O.E.]

It’s a well-known and timeworn adage, but unfortunately, elections usually come down to picking the lesser of two evils.

[rickylc]

the reporter may npy have gotten his facts “wrong” but this steve gilvert mentioned in the article was a DU troll that defended jimma carter on his first day, which couldn’t have been more than two weeks ago. I know because i complained about him to a mod.

So, my take is a bunch of du trolls signed up and purposefully got themselves banned so they could write an article about a “purge” at FR

[TommyDale]

"Driven away...sob."

I think we agree. Many of those that were "driven away" were SOBs.

[gondramB]

>>the reporter may npy have gotten his facts “wrong” but this steve gilvert mentioned in the article was a DU troll that defended jimma carter on his first day, which couldn’t have been more than two weeks ago. I know because i complained about him to a mod.

So, my take is a bunch of du trolls signed up and purposefully got themselves banned so they could write an article about a “purge” at FR<<

It was before my time but my understanding is that Gilbert came to Freep in 1998.

Did you mean his first day on his last account - Sam Hill?

Or did you mean he defended Jimmy Carter on Carter’s first day - the latter is understandable - Jimmy ran as the first Evangelical promising to cut taxes, cut government, cut welfare etc. He promised to take able bodied people out of the welfare system entirely and put them under the labor department.

Pat Robertson supported Carter. Jerry Falwell supported him. Reverend Falwell cited his feelings of betrayal at Jimmy doing the opposite of what he promised as the key factor in bringing Evangelicals into conservative politics.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3328746099083744386&q=jimmy+carter+campaign+ad

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7751164185423861069&q=jimmy+carter+campaign+ad

But if Mojo was praising Carter in 2005 something is wrong - I didn’t always have smooth relations with Mojo/Sam Hill/Steve Gilbert but the policies he supports are utterly different than the way Carter governed - it doesn’t match up for him to support Carter recently.

[tiredoflaundry]

So, my take is a bunch of du trolls signed up and purposefully got themselves banned so they could write an article about a “purge” at FR

You give DU too much credit my FRiend! This article & the comments at the "observer" are those of Anti-FReepers , who for many years now have tried "every which way but loose", to bring down Mr. Jim, and FR . They will continue to be unsuccessful!

[mad_as_he$$]

In hindsight it seems JimRob was right on the W opposition and is right about Rudy.

[gondramB]

>>In hindsight it seems JimRob was right on the W opposition and is right about Rudy.<<

What I don’t get is how so many people cannot see a timing difference. The time leading up to the primaries, the primaries themselves and the general election phase are when a good citizen critiques those who be be President.

Once he’s elected, he’s our President and particularly when we are under attack, he needs and deserves a certain level of unqualified support on being a war leader.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

So, my take is a bunch of du trolls signed up and purposefully got themselves banned so they could write an article about a “purge” at FR

I don't know about that, but I do know since a few Julie-Annie lovers are no longer here, there isn't much pro-homosexual agenda drivel being pushed.

[mad_as_he$$]

I agree about timing - pre-primary is the time to oppose candidates that don't pass muster on issues.

I still support the office of the President but W has turned it into a disaster. If the immigration bill passes in anything close to it's current form, he will be the worst modern president - leaving Carter a distant second.