Chaos? That wouldn't happen to be "Professor Chaos," would it?
Mark
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.
I see nothing in hes resume that indicates he is capable of conducting war. Like Hillary, the thought of prosecuting a war is frightening to them.
Dial up. pfft. Some day they’ll pump it where I live like they do the sun light.
I think it is the personalities, combined with the issues.
Take contentious issues, combine them with toxic personalities, you’re bound to get fire, LOL.
Chaos? That wouldn't happen to be "Professor Chaos," would it?
Mark
I don't think this was an issue of being a "brownshirt". One of the basic values of conservatism is "respect".
Those who were banned most likely exceeded the boundaries of good taste. I've had plenty of discussion with reasonable Guiliani supporters. I think situation is "does the debate promote the conservative values promoted by FR?" If one goes about bashing conservatives stances while trying to make a point I doubt they'd last long.
I think that someone promoting Guiliani on his ability to appeal to liberals as well as conservatives needs to rethink that argument. It'd be like having a FReeper harangue us about the virtues of Al Gore and Fidel-style beards.
Bad behavior is absolute grounds for being banned. Again, JimRob's house, they need to watch the language and play nice.
I believe there is enough room in this forum to voice differing opinions without letting it develop into a full blown flame war. I think JimRob, in his experience knew where some of those posts and posters were leading us. We don't need a repeat of the "Shaivo Flame Wars". We lost enough good people then.
As long as that turns into, "they won't vote for her", that is good news.
Any fishwrap that Joe Conason can work at is a piece of work....I think the only reason they even posted this missive is to raise their own rankings via clicks from FR.
Nah. They are a gossipy rag. They love this stuff. Even their real estate section. Has photos of celebrities and the apartments they have bought.
So if he is not going to stay the course in Iraq, we need to know about it, so we can officially lump him in with the other Democrats running for POTUS.
sw
Oh, for crying out loud. Missing an “s” while typing is hardly “writing like a child”.
I suppose you are perfect.
Every single article linked to Drudge was also posted on FR. FR became Drudge with interactive commentary.
So, why would somebody that knew about FR bother to ever go to Drudge, especially since going to Drudge gets you three times your recommended daily allowance for Internet advertising?
I believe that MiaT said that anyone who was against Giuliani would have the blood of dead babies on their hands when Hillary won. She may have said that directly to Jim, and Jim was already a bit..exercised at the time.
Like there would be ANY difference between the two.
You hit it, toxic.
Most of the Rudybot and some of the Mitt folks were bashing Hunter, making 5th grade comments re his name and spamming.
They would tag team in their bashing.
Threads were overtaken by these mindless baiting & bashing.
Then they wonder, why people were fed up.
I have had some discussions with a few of the Rudy folks
who are still here and they have always been civil.
The bulk, not so much who they support but their
bashing was childish and they did not want a dialog.
They all but asked to be banned and some actually did.
I suspect you’ll find that some of his statements that are supposed to show his support for the war in Iraq, are actually about Afghanistan. You’ll probably find a lot of his statements have been misinterpreted to create the illusion that he supports the entire WOT.
sw
I support Romney, who many at FR consider a RINO.
Am I going to be banned?
From my experience, they acted as thugh, usually in a pack like wolves and often pasting innuendo that they refused to back up. Remember the “FBI Investigation” fiasco?
I’m all for disagreeing. Let’s get the platforms of all of the candidates out on the table, honestly. Let’s look at all of their records. But when some felt it necessary to post lies or to defame Ronald Reagan to build up their candidate, they went too far.
There are plenty of Rudy supporters still here. I rarely agree with them as they seem to carry some pretty liberal views, but they have been civil and are open to discussion. Others are still yelling the “He’s the only one that can beat Hillary” argument which 1) I don’t believe and 2) I won’t consider as the sole basis to vote for a candidate. As such, I usually just agree to disagree.
This is interesting. I thought that a lot of those “regulars” who disappeared did so basically because they were intellectually dishonest and crass in their defense of Rudy, or because they flat out dared Jim to ban them.
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