I first discovered FreeRepublic (then Whitewater) and several other useful sources of information when the NY Times ran an article in their magazine trying to debunk the Vincent Foster conspiracy theories. There used to be jumps in the number of hits and members every time some media source mentioned this site.
I'd suggest maybe they called it Freerepublic.org to misdirect potential newbies, but I doubt they're that smart.
I also found it interesting that Bunch didn't provide a link to the 'Enemies list' thread on FR, but provided links to other sites' threads/articles.