Posted on 06/28/2008 7:01:21 AM PDT by SE Mom
The Washington Post has published an unintentionally amusing article this morning about one Danielle Allen, a "razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist" at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies. Allen, with doctorates from Cambridge and Harvard, won a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation genius grant a few years ago and now conducts studies at the Institute, where, according to the Post, "she works alongside groundbreaking physicists, mathematicians and social scientists. They don't have to teach, and they face no quotas on what they publish. Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe."
And one of the most vexing problems in the universe, which Allen has decided to pursue in the tradition of Einstein, is the origin of a number of e-mails claiming that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Using the advanced research tools at her disposal, the razor-sharp Allen found a couple of posters on the Free Republic website, plus a former political rival of Obama's who sends out zillions of e-mails to reporters every day.
The former political rival appears to have been completely open about the stuff he sent out, some of which was based on arguments similar to an op-ed that appeared in the pages of the New York Times. As for Free Republic, according to the Post, Allen "counted 23 freepers among those engaging in regular discussions about Obama's religion, and isolated a handful whom she began to suspect as having a role in the e-mail. Sifting through hundreds of postings, she began to piece together their identities."
Allen gave her information to the Post reporter, who used it to track down two allegedly offending freepers, one a 69-year-old retired grandfather in the suburbs of Boston and the other a 60-year-old schoolteacher in rural Washington state. Both said they had nothing to do with the emails. And that's about it.
But the article has a pretty clear subtext, and it is that the exchange of such information on the Internet should be controlled. "I started thinking, 'How does one stop it?'" Allen told the Post. "Citizens and political scientists must face the fact that the Internet has enabled a new form of political organization that is just as influential on local and national elections as unions and political action committees This kind of misinformation campaign short-circuits judgment. It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one's accusers."
Of course, we have laws that regulate the political activities of unions and political action committees. Is it going too far to guess that the scholar from the Institute for Advanced Studies might be searching for some way to do the same for Free Republic?
06/28 08:45 AM
There are great links througout this thread.
I used the links to send an email to IAS, citing the campaign contributions to Obama and the Post story, with another link to the ethics page on conflicts of interest.
I’m sure nothing will happen but it might at least spark an informal inquiry lol. I also cc’d all three of her known email addresses.
bttt
IMO a lot of wheels have been strategically misdirected to spin in the irrelevant mud bog of birth certificates, where he went to school when he was 10, "whitey" videos, gay limo laisons etc. It all serves to obfuscate what's right in front of our faces in the present tense. If people want to dig in the mud a bit, aren't Trinity United Church, Rezko, Ayers, et al a bit more relevant and harder for him to deny? But, the bottom line really is that the man is a barking moonbat Marxist.
Last info on Andy Martin’s website:
http://contrariancommentary.blogspot.com/
“I would be remiss if I did not end with a plug for my new book, ‘Obama: The Man Behind The Mask.’
Guests on Sean Hannity have also started pilfering my book’s imagery. The book has gone to the printer and will be available nationally within days.
I detail my four years of very public researchunlike Allen’s surreptitious claims to have researched Obamato unmask the very secretive and evasive Mr. Obama.
“If I say so myself, my book is a great read and well worth the price. Internet buyers get priority, since we are already oversold for the first edition,” Martin states.
“And if anyone finds factual inaccuracies in my writing, just let me know and I will correct them. I have always aim to be scrupulously accurate and I have succeeded.”
NEWS CONFERENCE DETAILS:
WHO:
Internet Columnist-Author/Editor/Andy Martin
WHAT:
Andy Martin responds to the Washington Post article naming him as the source of Obama’s religious roots.
WHERE:
909 Third Avenue, public sidewalk in front of FDR Station, New York
WHEN:
Saturday, June 28, 4:00 P. M.
MEDIA
CONTACT:
(866) 706-2639
Nice find.
This professor is typical of that mindset.
Because a classic Chicago pol will be anything in any moment, marxist one, admirer of Scalia the next. Obama has shown he can turn on a dime policy-wise as the whimsy of the moment goes. Do you think he supports abortion? I doubt it. But it is politically expedient to do so. So he does, and strongly so by words. Do you think he supports homosexual marriage? I doubt it. But in words he does!
The least thing that matters to him is ideals. Ideals are stumbling blocks. Of all things thrown under the bus, the first was the idea that he could have ideals and moral guideposts and be elected to the offices he needs to be elected to.
The early years, I am coming to ever more strongly suspect, tell the deeper tale. The keys to his heart, so to speak. The seal on his soul.
The releationships of his mother to his grandmother.
I think she has too much time on her hands.
THAILAND?
Gosh that was a funny thread!
Maybe she can get to the bottom of the internet emailers against Bush, Cheney ???
Or maybe she just is another partisan.
Marxism at work. Keep your powder dry.
THAILAND
btw, I posted the second one.
Don’t you love it when 1.) Geniuses prove they’re not, and 2.) the WaPo advertises the propaganda it’s supposedly fighting?
(FTFL)...that list (of contributors to Obama) should be suppressed because it identifies so many credulous well-heeled people who would be easy pickings for scam artists...OTOH it’s their god-given right to be idiots.
Oh, please let me be one of the ‘guilty’ FReepers who dared to call a Muslim a Muslim. LOL She’s just another whinyass liberal bedwetter! I don’t remember her doing a research study about how the liberal media lies about Bush, the war, and other conservative issues every single day. Of course a liberal black woman is just naturally going to support Obamanation and that snarly, racist, woman he’s married to. If she can’t deal with the First Amendment that guarantees all of us free speech, then she should leave America and go live in a Muslim country where there is no free speech. THEN she might appreciate the US!
I call them the Totalitarian Mamas: they tell you how to think and what to do. But it’s for your own good.
This is really moving along .. will this election be the bloodiest in history?
in "all 57 States."
The writer of Allen’s hit piece for the Washington Post was none other than Matthew Mosk, the same “journalist” who tried to smear Free Republic with the MD4Bush scandal 4 years ago.
This is as much an attack on this website as it is the conservative movement.
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