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.
Along with the intelligence test, apparently.
Nah, you had mean parents who named you T’wit so you would face a lifetime of ridicule!
Thanks.
I am pinging Jim out of politeness, so maybe he can clarify his position.
But let me ask you, are you, JS, of the opinion that only Rudy would be strong on defense? Because I’m not aware of anyone here who wants the ‘Rats to win the White House.
Gotta link?
I don’t get upset. Bye Bye Rooty, goodbye. Bye, bye Rooty don’t cry. Every time that he gets bolder one more RINO weenie is cryin’ on my shoulder!
So Bye, bye Rooty, Goodbye..........!
To what? The post where someone said the military was not a conservative issue? That would be:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1840286/posts?page=1098#1098
Or 1100, where this is said:
The fact that most liberals have chosen to oppose the war on terror and the military does not make it a conservative issue. You and many others have fallen into the trap of believing that anything that is opposed by the left is automatically a conservative position.
As someone said, I failed the intelligence test. I don't understand this.
Are you devoid of common courtesy or did you simply forget to ping me?
As I explained later, most of America’s greatest military successes (think WW2) were when the GOP and the Democrats agreed to unite for America’s good. It would be BEST in the WOT if that happened again, but unfortunately it isn’t. With the exception of Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller, the ‘Rats have chosen to place petty politics and hatreds above America’s interests.
NONE OF THIS changes the fact that until Vietnam, politics was left out of foreign policy because national defense is above politics. The GOP did this with Clinton and it is despicable that the ‘Rats won’t do it now. Conservatives are for a strong defense, but principled liberals should be able to rise above it (like Lieberman and Miller).
Lieberman is right on the WOT, but I’m not sure how ‘principled’ he is; he did run with Gore in 2000.
Joe Lieberman is a die-hard leftist, but he has been rock-solid in his support of the war on terror and he risked his political future to support it. That actually makes him more principled that Roody, because Roody has never thought of anyone but himself and his future.
yeah...Lieberman is just liberal, he’s not out there on the moonbat fringe, which is why they hate him.
Of course, he didn't do that. But you know that.
I simply do not have the time to review just what happened that caused his/her departure, but I am quite sure that if I were to find myself banned from FR.com, I’d likely follow that person around the Internet if I could.
Even though I really do know almost everything already, that person clearly has boatloads of new stuff to teach me.
I’ll add to the collection. This is from a freepmail that *I sent* trying to inform one of those asking questions. I guess it didn’t help as this conversation continues.
FYI, I don’t know RadioAstronomer at all — I also don’t remember ever seeing any of his posts. But, relative to his zot.... There was a long thread going at darwincentral at the same time as the FR thread. Posters were coming from Darwin, getting zotted, and then going back and celebrating.
http://www.forum.darwincentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=4083&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=700
RadioAstronomer: Whoohoo! Add me to the list. I am finally out of that place.
CFC_VRWC: They finally got you, huh?
RadioAstronomer: Thank God! That place is a cesspool
- - -
http://www.forum.darwincentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=4083&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=725
RadioAstronomer: FYI to all - I pretty much asked to be zotted.
You've made several allegations of this on this thread. I suggest you either address it on that thread or file an abuse complaint. If you choose to continue it on this thread, can you provide direct quotes and links to your allegations, please? As you describe it, I find it hard to believe.
I haven't seen a single poster support such nonsense.
When I think of presidential incompetence, I think of peanuts and killer rabbits.
I don't understand "asking to be zotted" or for writing an "opus" either. If I ever get so offended or disgusted with this place or feel that my input is not welcome, I would simply change my home page from F.R. to Cartoon Central and never look back.
There are two things in my back ground that a majority of members probably do not like. I am a 30 plus year retired union member and I am against the death penalty. I don't argue either issue. Nothing can change either of those facts about me. Why debate them? What is,is.
It depends on what your definition....oh, never mind.
The main problem is that the loudest (specifically the Young Earth) creationists are expressing their views in the name of past generations, when, in reality, even past generations of anti-evolutionists weren’t as fanatical as some of the modern Young Earth creationists. When Darwin first announced his theory in the 1800s, it was not the basic idea of evolution that got his opponents outraged. They had no specific problem with the idea that reptiles evolved into birds. What they had a problem with was the idea that human beings (who they believed were the only creatures given souls by God and are therefore special and different from every other form of life) evolved from a lower order of animals. The modern-day fanatics have taken things further than even the old-fashioned people of generations past.
This is also true for other issues besides creationism/evolution. One that comes to mind is gender roles - certain ultra-traditionalists believe that the stereotype of the 1950s housewife or the Victorian-era lady was the norm for thousands of years of human history, for all cultures, many of which didn’t even have contact with one another. This is simply not true. For example, in medieval Europe it was considered “woman’s work” to go out to the barn, kill a pig, and proceed with turning it into dinner. In 1800s America, pioneer women knew how to hunt and would stand and fight alongside the men if the settlement was attacked by bandits or Indians. The ultra-traditionalists, however, continue to stubbornly believe that killing an animal for food (or, for that matter, killing a person in self-defense), is “un-feminine” because their stereotypical ‘50s lady (which is an inaccurate stereotype even for the ‘50s) would squeal at the thought of doing it. They inspired my tagline.
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