About the Washington Post Hit Piece on Free Republic Today

Saturday, June 28, 2008 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

The Washington Post published an article today in the Style section about researcher Danielle Allen's efforts to track down who is behind allegations that presumed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (Illinois) is a Muslim. Allen is an Obama supporter who works for the Institute for Advanced Study.

The article was written by Matthew Mosk. A curious choice for The Post considering Mosk's involvement in the nefarious MD4Bush scandal in which Mosk claimed to have been given access to a Free Republic poster's account to expose a Maryland GOP government appointee who was alleged to have commented on rumors that a Maryland Democratic mayor was an adulterer.

Mosk displayed the same talent for exposing Freepers' identities in today's article that he did in the MD4Bush scandal. However, the only person he exposed then was the Republican. The person (or persons) behind the MD4Bush screen name was not reported by Mosk.

The article Mosk wrote today purports to be about efforts to track down where the 'Obama is a Muslim' allegations began. However, it is actually a warning shot across the bow to opponents of Obama that they will be tracked down and exposed for speaking ill of the Obamessiah.

Mosk even makes sure to let Obamaniacs know who is behind Free Republic and where he can be found:

Of the file folders that are spread in neat rows across Allen's desk, only one is bulging. It holds printouts of the reams of conversations about Obama's religion appearing on Free Republic. Since its start in 1996 by Jim Robinson of Fresno, Calif....

The effort by The Post to protect Obama from rumors is in stark contrast to how they promoted potentially candidacy-damaging rumors eight-years ago.

When George W. Bush ran for president in 1999, The Washington Post led the way in rumor-mongering about whether he used cocaine in his youth. Bush refused to deny cocaine use saying that denying rumors just leads to having to deny more and more rumors. No one ever came forward with allegatons that they had first-hand knowledge of Bush using cocaine, but that didn't stop The Post and the mainstream media as painting Bush as a cokehead. No reporter ever asked Bill Clinton about cocaine use, even though several people known to Clinton claimed to have first-hand knowledge of Clinton using the drug while in public office.

While Mosk ignores The Post's own rumor-mongering, he leaves the impression of Free Republic as the rumor mill of the right. A fair reporter would have noted that Freepers exposed the fraudulent Texas Air National Guard documents that CBS News used in its attempt to derail President Bush's reelection bid in 2004. Buckhead, the Freeper who called foul on the documents, was tracked down by the Los Angeles Times even though he did not post his name on Free Republic.

Mosk's article closes with Allen complaining that the Internet has become as influential as unions and political action committees (PACs) in elections. Unstated is that the political activities of unions and PACs are heavily regulated by the federal government.

Allen seriously misunderstands the right to anonymous political speech--equating political speech with the right of a citizen to face his accuser when charged with a crime by the government:

..."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."

While Mosk and The Post are furiously protecting Obama from the Obama is a Muslim allegation, they steadfstly refuse to report on Obama's well-documented connection to the terrorist supporter and Osama bin Laden sympathizer, Jodie Evans, co-founder of the anti-American group Code Pink.

The Post article claims that the Internet's danger to politics is the ability to spread rumors anonymously. The real danger is the left's willingness to use the Internet to track down and destroy its perceived enemies. Allen and Mosk's teamwork exposing Freepers is one more example of that.

[L.N. Smithee]

While Mosk and The Post are furiously protecting Obama from the Obama is a Muslim allegation, they steadfstly refuse to report on Obama's well-documented connection to the terrorist supporter and Osama bin Laden sympathizer, Jodie Evans, co-founder of the anti-American group Code Pink.

With all due respect, Kristinn, you say -- wisely -- that Freepers should "be careful," but in your reference to Jodie Evans as an "Osama bin Laden sympathizer," you ignore your own advice.

The FR thread that you linked indeed shows that Evans considers American troops to be "fighting for lies," and while asserting that she is "against all forms of violence," she then states "I cannot judge what someone has to do when pushed to the wall to protect all they love. The Iraqi people are fighting for their country..." This was undoubtedly support for the insurgency that targets American troops, in the spirit of Michael Moore's stunning assertion that "They [the insurgents] are the revolution, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win."

Whatever such statements are, they are not in and of themselves "sympathy" for Osama bin Laden. That is the domain of Noam Chomsky, Ward "Little Eichmanns" Churchill, Jeremiah "America's Chickens..." Wright, and others (I contend include Ron Paul fits the description). But without more precise proof than what you posted in the linked thread, calling Evans a "bin Laden sympathizer" can't be supported.

[weegee]

Freepers take note: For this reason, it is particularly important to stick to relevant, proven points about Obama.

PROVE that Obama was a Christian as a child.

I will need to see hand signed documents. No faxed photocopies. After the Bush National Guard memos it has become apparent that the Left WILL cut and past in MS-WORD to gin up a fake letter.

The signature may match published signatures and the typewriter face MAY match some rare version of kerning typewriter but in the absence of a hand signed hand typed ancient document, a fax doesn't mean crap.

Obama's staff has claimed he was ERRONEOUSLY listed as a muslim on his school paperwork. So show some paperwork to the contrary. Hand signed. And dated. PLEASE.

Until then it is UNACCEPTABLE to call Obama a Christian before he reached adulthood and attended his wife's church.

[weegee]

They ARE cyberstalking.

NO MORE CYBER BULLIES!

Take a bite out of crime!!!

Oh wait, that IS what the DNC brownshirts do. take down the opposition by any means necessary. painting swastikas on their homes and the like. Happened in 2004 even though the national media NEVER covered it like a noose hanging in some obscure place as a veiled threat POSTED by the supposed victim herself.

[weegee]

The so called “antifascists” in Toledo who rioted a few years back (total anti-cop anarchist-socialists) had photos and names under FReeper IDs (separate page from their Toledo Ohio Riot coverage). They said that FR was “fascist” and they said the whole Bush administration was “fascist”.

The media never once called them communists. The media never once called them socialists. The media never once called them anarchists. The media never once mentioned they were anti-police. The media did report there were antifascists present (antifa, don’t you know).

The entire riot was blamed on 12-24 white supremacists and 100-200 black people. The anarchists who came in from out of state and even Canada who flamed the riot never once got press.

Such is our biased Left media.

[weegee]

Between a possible future of having to pull down ALL of the old AP threads to other copyright and libel and political witchhunt concerns. FR may completely disappear as a historical record. Too time consuming to edit and too dangerous for those who have posted here and could be put on trial as supposed ENEMIES OF THE STATE meanwhile 20million illegal invaders are in AmeriKKKa.

[weegee]

I’m no neocon. I took “the test” (or an online test) and if I recall it called me a paleocon.

But to the SOCIALISTS on the left, there is only ONE kind of conservative these days. Neocon. So if they are NEO was is the OLD conservative?

And why do they only call Evangelical Christians “Evangelicals”? What happened to criticizing them as CHRISTIANS?

Damned liberal bigots. A pox on them and their religious intolerance.

[weegee]

I’m a housewife with 2 kids. How many knew that?

Maybe next week I’ll be a Portugese immigrant with a backround in offset litho printing.

Be seeing you.

[L.N. Smithee]

But then again, Tim robbins' wife helped get Dr. Laura's tv show kicked off the air for not being politically correct about homosexuality.

Not true. Dr. Laura's TV show went on the air on time (September 11, 2000) despite the best efforts of Gay-stapo figure John Aravosis, leftist pundits, producers and writers of Cheers, and, yes, Susan Sarandon to kill it.

It seems Paramount Television wanted to her to be like Judge Judy, but Schlessinger pulled her punches with her guests. For many years previous, she had denounced the tactics of TV talkfests like Maury and Jenny Jones, in which therapist panelists confronted and humiliated guests on camera (as opposed to anonymous callers on the radio). IMHO, what killed the Dr. Laura TV show was that it was a watered-down version of the Dr. Laura radio program. It was, frankly, boring.

I believe that the Dr. Phil show is shot on the in-the-round soundstage that Paramount built for Laura.

[E.G.C.]

Well, I have seen Washington Post articles posted in their entireties on other message borads. The reality whether anybody wants to accept it or not is that these news organzations are very arbitrary and caprecious when it comes to who they allow to print full articles and who doesn't.

It should be obvious to everybody that this newspaper has issues not just with FR but with every christian and conservative Internet outlet. These people have made it very clear by hteir actions that they want to see America become a christian and conservative free zone and they are willing to do anything to see to it that it happens, even if it's criminal.

And if we don't put a stop to this and stop enocuraging these unsavory elements from pursuing this what they know full well is an enormously harmful political and social agenda, Amercai is going to end up becoming a sharia law nation. That and the notion of Barack Obama's America is NOT something I'm looking forward to.

There's a reason why the Washington Post doesn't want FR publishing their articles in their entirety. It's because they know full well what they are doing to try and make America a conservative and christian free zone is wrong and immoral and they know it. They don't want christians and conservatives to expose their evil activities.

Either we stand toghether against the Washington Post and the mainstream media and put them all out of business or one day we will all hang in Barack Obama's America. I don't think any of us wants that to happen.

[Quix]

Certainly I’m hopeful that Americans stand up and are counted on the side of God, The Constitution and righteousness.

I’m convinced that God has more up His sleeve than satan has a clue of.

Believers shall do great exploits.

Nevertheless, The successful REVOLUTION will be Christ winning Armageddon at the end of 3.5-7 years of great trauma.

[Quix]

God have mercy on us all.

[Quix]

don,

vis a vis the topic of this thread . . .

wouldn’t it be wise to include either a special fund, percentage, something . . .

to insure beefed up security in all reasonable respects for JimRob and JohnRob and their families

in the upcoming FREEPATHON?

[DB]

So the Washington Post thinks it is a smear to say someone is a Muslim? Muslim's may find that interesting.

I myself think it is a smear on Christianity for Obama to claim to be a Christian. Killing babies on demand isn't exactly what Jesus taught...

[Beckwith]

Looks familiar.

Obama officially becomes an apostate Muslim by his conversion and the question needs to be asked, was Obama's conversion faith-based or political expediency.

In either case, Muslims view Obama as first a Muslim and then as an apostate Muslim. He faces the death penalty in nearly the entire Islamic world.

There is no dispute among either ancient or modern Muslim scholars that under Islamic law, a murtadd, "one who turns his back on Islam," an apostate, must be put to death. Irtidad, apostasy, is committing treason against God, and traitors deserve to be killed. At a minimum, other Muslims would shun him if not kill him and his mother. The fact they are eagerly welcomed by the Muslim community begs the question, is he their 'Manchurian' candidate?

At a minimum, Obama should be asked if he will support the efforts of Christian missionaries in Islamic countries to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity.

But the big question remains -- did Obama actually convert?

Has he publicly rejected his Muslim religion and accepted Christ?

This has been on my website since late last year.

Everything you need to know about Obama and religion

[ETL]

This is the technique of invalidation-by-proxy. They want to make out ALL criticism of Obama to be racist and vile. How they do this is to play up false allegations, and then swat them down. What they will do is this...

Yet it seems to work every time. They must be laughing their a**s off.

[ETL]

Freepers take note: For this reason, it is particularly important to stick to relevant, proven points about Obama.

Check out my home page for some 'relevant, proven points' about Obama and other prominent demoncraps.

[prairiebreeze]

Because they know that electing a muslim for POTUS would be beyond difficult if not impossible.

[Mamzelle]

re: We can’t even get the GOP to pay attention to our desires - yet, an obscure Obama supporter thinks we are worthy of effort at a think tank and getting a Washington reporter to print a piece on. Maybe we are finally gaining respect.)))

LOL--bump

[rlmorel]

I posted this on another thread on an unrelated subject, but I feel cuts directly to the heart of this matter as well.

Liberals like Ms. Allen want to have people fed a diet of processed information. They don't believe that people should be allowed to engage in the analysis of information, they want information presented to everyone as a fait accompli, its "truth" or validity already established.

I believe there are two main reasons for this, and both emanate directly from the basic tenets of liberalism:

1.) The first reason is that Liberals do not believe that people possess the capability to critically think about issues on their own. They believe that since everything is relative and that there are no absolutes, that normal people cannot distinguish this on their own, and it must be decided for them. The citizen cannot distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong. This cuts to the heart of liberalism. It is why the adherents and followers of liberalism would be appalled if they really understood the contempt that they are generally held in by the people they look to for leadership.

This is a key and basic cleavage point in the difference between liberalism and conservatism.

Conservatives believe in individualism and self-sufficiency. Presented as an axiom, conservatives believe that if you set high standards for people, they will rise to the occasion and deliver to that level.

Liberals do not believe in individualism, they believe that people cannot survive and prosper without the intervention and aid of the community/government/etc., and they believe that setting standards for people to live up to is unfair to people, since everyone is different and standards are most often uniform.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but nearly EVERY liberal, even those who would deny it if asked directly, holds in their heart the following axiom: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Most run of the mill liberals would innocently agree that this is a great idea, because they do not have the intellectual rigor to "think beyond Stage One" as Thomas Sowell puts it. However, the liberals who DO think beyond stage one to at least stage two would deny this most vociferously, knowing full well the origin of this statement and what the open agreement to this statement would imply. You would have to administer truth serum to get them to tell you the truth on this one, but make no mistake, IT IS WHAT MOST LIBERALS BELIEVE, including the major politicians on the Democrat side, particularly Obama. It is why some of them scream "SLANDER" when they see this graphic I devised:

However, there are large numbers of them not clever enough to try to cover their trails that think comparing Obama to Che is great. Those are the ones too stupid to realize that by openly praising this connection, they are then ideologically undressed so that most thinking Americans can see them for what they are. In this category, I place the campaign workers who openly display the Che Guevara poster in their local Obama for President campaign headquarters.

2.) Secondly, The Liberals need to decide what is valid or invalid, right or wrong, because they do not trust others to reach the "correct" conclusions.

Like most of the people in the media, they do not trust individuals to "think correctly". It is why the vast majority of them see the processing of information before presenting it to the populace as a "sacred duty", a "trust". However, like the person who cannot see their faults because they are taped to their back, the fact that the media have generally held views on what is right and wrong and how to present that to people to get them to reach the same conclusions is not seen as a fault, but a virtue.

If it were not so serious, it would be quite funny in the way they view conservatives. They think that most of us here on FR think they have a giant conglomeration of media interests that all get together, have meetings to figure out the way to present the news, and issue talking points to everyone.

I admit to wondering about that on occasion, especially after seeing the way the word "gravitas" was used in the 2000 election cycle. Now, that is not a word that you hear every day, then...boom! Every single newscast, newspaper and political commentary seemed to mention it, referring to the lack of it in candidate George W. Bush. I had to force myself to remember that this comes from an industry where people (Brian Williams and Dan Rather are great examples of them) who speak words read from teleprompters are viewed as demigods.

The truth of the matter is, they don't have an organized information cartel in that sense. They all simply have the same intellectual underpinnings that allow them to reach the same conclusions, and they also share a lack of imagination that allows words like "gravitas" to catch fire and ricochet around the media world like a tank of compressed gas with the end lopped off.

The bottom line is: Liberals do NOT believe in the First Amendment. They believe the practice of free speech is dangerous.

And it is, as the British found out in 1776 when Thomas Paine authored "Common Sense". The Freedom of Speech IS dangerous when it IS the truth, and YOU disagree with it. One of the most Orwellian facets to liberalism is their disturbing insistence on the malleability of words and their meanings. They believe that changing the meaning of a word can change the nature of what it defines. A good example of this is the substitution of the term "gay" for "homosexual". (If you don't believe me, at the next party you go to, try using the word "homosexual" instead "gay" when discussing an issue. People of "good taste" will look at you as if you just spit in the punch bowl.)

However, contrary to what most liberals think, no amount of hate speech legislation or passage of things like the "Fairness Doctrine" will change the nature of reality. That is, if we don't let them. As John Adams famously said, "Facts are stubborn things..."

Let us do all we can to help the facts stay stubborn.

[rlmorel]

Good Lord! That one got stuck in my brain like a pig swallowed by a python!

(I know it was a mistake on your part, but I attempted to read it anyway...:)

However, this is NOTHING new. Like the usage of the phrase “comrade” to address “Fellow Travelers”, this rhetoric has been around since Lenin’s bald pated and spiky nosed visage appeared on the scene. Like leopards and their spots, communists, marxists and socialists do not often change their spots unless they have been forced to confront the truth and been able to get over their ideology.

Famous examples of these leopards with changed spots would be Whittaker Chambers and David Horowitz. Less famous examples would be untold millions who were raised and indoctrinated in communist countries, only to realize they had been fed lies.