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.
So, I guess you never had the experience of disagreeing with one of the pro-abortion harpies and having the others diverge moments later to criticize their fellow FRiberal?
Why are you calling me a fool? Have you mistaken me for someone you think deserves that, or do you just enjoy it?
And the Federal Government “CANNOT dictate” municipal policy. Thanks for making my point without knowing it,… in all your ridiculous rage.
So, you think that diplomatic immunity is a municipal choice?
I never had that experience, because I saw it happen to enough innocent people, I decided to just lurk, rather than throw myself on their swords. I’m grateful for the bugzapper thread, so I don’t have to worry about a cult of liberals descending on me like vultures.
Exactly! Irish activists had just shamed Giuliani earlier that year at the St. Patrick's day parade for avoiding discussion of Northern Ireland issues and refusing to meet with them. (See Irish-Americans Rip Rudy; Newsday. Mar 15, 1994)
This was all about Rudy looking for headlines and popularity.
Howlin was NOT banned. She left voluntarily. She must have asked Jim to ban her account.
What for? Like they say....it's HIS house.
Political OPINIONS are often outside the realm of fact; most times they are liberal vs. conservative and in those cases, her views (pro-abortion, pro-illegal alien, pro-homosexual agenda, pro-euthasia) were liberal.
A person can be Pro-Life and still respect another woman's wish not to be pregnant. It is intellectually dishonest to call that person 'pro-abortion'.
With your line of reasoning everybody but people like Eric Rudolph must be pro-abortion...if they're not out their picketing abortion centers.
Reagan was a Democrat in a time where almost EVERY Democrat was to the right of most Republicans today and certainly to the right of Rudy.
Regardless...the point is that Ronald Reagan...the greatest president of our time...signed off on amnesty...and if he were alive and president today...he'd do it again. Get over it.
And I for one am sick and tired of hearing about an abortion bill which Reagan reluctantly signed being used as a reason for Republicans to abandon the pro-life platform. And what does Reagan have to do with the Contract with America?
Reluctantly or not...he signed it...knowing it would be abused by the democrats. Yet we all know Ronald Reagan was a man of the highest principles.
And nobody here is suggesting that the GOP abandon that plank. What we're suggesting is that we win by being in a position to appoint a couple more SCOTUS justices...and in order to do that we need to win elections.
And I'm sorry for not starting a new paragraph when I mentioned the Contract with America. I was providing another example of how intelligent republicans choose their battles wisely.
Peach was spewing bile for months before she got zotted.
I rather enjoyed exposing them for the liberals they are.
Wow...you’re good.
I was trying to address all the other usual suspects reading the thread. Sorry.
Yeah??? Well, bile is in the eye of the beholder, IMO.
He’s making enemies left & right over there ~ probably chaps MadIvan’s hide no end. lol
Wonder how long he’ll last.
Peach REPEATEDLY compared Reagan’s morals to Giuliani’s. That is just unutterably foul.
She said that Reagan’s divorce (no adultery on his side, he didn’t want the divorce) was the same as Giuliani’s serial adultery. She couldn’t seem to say “Nancy was pregnant when they got married.”(totally irrelevant) enough times.
She was just disgusting.
If memory serves me, Jim Robinson was none to happy about THIS statement of Howlin's:
it's going to be a more moderate conservative party though; you all have had your foot on our necks for too long.
Of course, the FACT that she is an administrator at an anti-FReeper site probably had something to do with it.
That is absolute hogwash, IMO. Just as you launched a personal attack on my integrity on this thread, many of those banned went for the jugular whenever they disagreed with a posters opinion. Just as I have asked you several times now to back up your post, they disappeared in a cowardly manner, only to strike on another thread another day.
Whether you want to admit it or not, they were much more mainstream in all aspects than the kooky fringe in here.
Please define "kooky fringe" and identify to whom you refer.
It's not going to be DNC Lite; it's going to be a more moderate conservative party though; you all have had your foot on our necks for too long.
This country has to be governed in the middle; the world has moved on from the 50's.
The Contract with America will unite this party again. But we're not going to let you make abortion and guns the big issues this time around.
The boot comment happened months before she left.
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