Worse Than Mud (by Danielle Allen, Stalker of Freepers)

The Washington Post ^ | Thursday, July 10, 2008 | Danielle Allen

[kristinn]

...How important is calumny today? In 2000, calumny effectively led to John McCain's defeat in South Carolina. That smear campaign against him used robo-calls and fliers, and e-mail also played an important role, as the New York Times reported in February 2000. Arguably, calumny defeated John Kerry in 2004, and the infamous Swift boat television ads of that summer were, importantly, preceded by an aggressive Internet campaign begun that January that included perhaps the first viral campaign e-mail: a computer-generated image of Kerry and Jane Fonda beside each other on a podium at an antiwar rally. The image originally emerged at the Web site FreeRepublic.com, and Fonda had not in fact been at the event. But the damage was done. Today we are seeing viral anti-Obama e-mails, some of which I have traced to some of the same origin points for the 2000 and 2004 smear campaigns.

SNIP

A right to free speech is no excuse for lying. While strongly protected rights of free speech are critical to a healthy democracy, rights bring responsibilities. Citizens should, as a standard practice, take responsibility for their views -- the matters of fact and principle that they wish to put before the public for consideration -- by appending their full, legal names to their expressions, even in blog posts. While there are times and places for anonymity, it should be the exception. Unfortunately, the Internet has brought us to a point where anonymity is the rule, not the exception. Rather than facilitating free speech, this is corrosive to democratic discourse. It's time to rebuild a responsible culture in which people speak in their full, legal names and honor the truth.

SNIP

Link to original Washington Post article detailing Allen's stalking of Freepers, aided by The Post's designated stalker of Freepers Matthew Mosk.

[sergeantdave]

The WP howling for truth is about as sincere as Mugabe professing love for white farmers.

[beachn4fun]

Translation: The MSM has the right to lie all it wants. Conservatives on the other hand should go home and sit down and shut up!

Oh, you forgot DemocRATS can lie and not get challenged by MSM.

[EBH]

Which set of photos were posted on FR?

http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/kerry2.asp

[meyer]

A right to free speech is no excuse for lying.

The NY Times didn't get the memo. Neither did the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the LA Times, nor any of the rest of the left-wing print media. You can add Reuters' and the AP to that list as well.

[saganite]

That snopes pic shows Kerry actually and verifiably sitting behind Fonda at a rally but they link to another fabricated pic of Fonda and Kerry at the same podium. Which pic appeared on FR?

[eleni121]

The Compost and little miss investigator...what a pile.

[beachn4fun]

Thanks for the link. I checked that sight and found so many similarities between then and now

Article:

The New York Times covered the Valley Forge in 1970:

VALLEY FORGE, Pa., Sept. 7 — Chanting "What do you want?" and answering "Peace now," more than 100 veterans of the war in Vietnam arrived here today after a four-day march and led 1,500 other people in demanding an immediate American military withdrawal from South Vietnam.

The marchers, with weary muscles and blistered feet, formed a battle skirmish line in front of the Washington Memorial Chapel at the state park here and walked slowly on the wide expanse of the park's rolling grand parade ground. Their chants were answered by a growing chorus from the crowd below shouting "Stop the war, stop the war."

The marchers carried with them several black body bags that counted in white lettering outside the 43,419 men killed in the war.

Then, as the veterans converged on the rally site, they and the audience joined in the chant "All we are saying is give peace a chance."

The rally, which was organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a Manhattan-based group, ended an 84-mile march that began early Friday morning outside Morristown, N.J. Along the route, the marchers staged simulated battle incidents that portrayed alleged American brutality and war atrocities in Vietnam.

Although other veterans were in the crowd this afternoon, most of the audience that sprawled on the freshly mowed grass were young persons.

Earlier, as the column moved into the park after marching under a bright sun from its campsite north of here, a small group of veterans supporting American military policy in Vietnam established a counter-demonstration across the street from the chapel. As the line of marchers moved past, the opposing veterans exchanged insults.

David MacQueen, a 48-year-old member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars who said he won eight battle stars in the South Pacific in World War II, held a sign that said "Only the mentally depraved want peace at any price."

Another supporter of the war, carrying a Confederate flag, shouted "traitor" and "coward" as the marchers went by.

Among the speakers at the rally were Representative Allard K. Lowenstein, Democrat of Nassau County; Donald Sutherland, the actor; Jane Fonda, the actress; Mark Lane, the civil rights and antiwar lawyer and Charles Bevel, a leader of a black group from Baltimore, which is marching to the United Nations to protest alleged American genocide in South Vietnam.

The rally ended when the marchers smashed the toy sub-machine guns they had carried for the last four days.

Snip

Now they have Veterans Against the Iraq War. And, one paragraph jumped at me:

Until and unless the current U.S. Administration provides evidence which clearly demonstrates that Iraq or any other nation poses a clear, direct and immediate danger to our country, we oppose all of this Administration's pre-emptive and unilateral military activities in Iraq. Furthermore, we cannot support any war that is initiated without a formal Declaration of War by Congress, as our Constitution requires.

Excuse me - but didn't Congress do just that?

Oh, here's a photo of a march by VAIW I found.

Can someone please tell me what kind of flag they are flying in the foreground? So many people trying to bastardize Old Glory, it makes me sick.

[sam_paine]

As I posted on the original thread over here.

Ironically, historians have spent a lot of effort to uncover the identities of the writers over time, but the anonymity was instrumental to the free and fair debate of ideas---apart from the personalities.

Pseudonym	Author	Notes
A.B.	Francis Hopkinson	Federalist.[1]
Agrippa	James Winthrop[2]	Eighteen essays appeared under this name in the Massachusetts Gazette between November 23, 1787 and February 5, 1788.[3]
Alfredus	Samuel Tenney	Federalist.[4]
Americanus	John Stevens, Jr.[5]
Aristedes	Alexander Contee Hanson	Federalist.[6]
Aristocrotis	William Petrikin	Anti-Federalist.[7]
An Assemblyman	William Findley
Brutus	Robert Yates[8]	Anti-Federalist. After Marcus Junius Brutus.
Caesar	Alexander Hamilton?
Candidus	Benjamin Austin[9]
Cato	George Clinton[10]	Anti-Federalist.
Centinel	Samuel Bryan	Alternately, the author possibly was George Bryan.[11]
Cincinnatus	Arthur Lee	After Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. Six essays addressed to James Wilson appeared under this name in the New York Journal beginning November 1, 1787.[12]
A Citizen of America	Noah Webster
A Citizen of New Haven	Roger Sherman
A Columbian Patriot	Mercy Warren[13]
A Countryman	Roger Sherman
A Country Federalist	James Kent
Crito	Stephen Hopkins
Examiner	Charles McKnight
Federal Farmer		Anti-Federalist. The Federal Farmer letters are frequently attributed to Richard Henry Lee, but modern scholarship has challenged Lee's authorship.[14]
Foreign Spectator	Nicholas Collin[15]
Genuine Information	Luther Martin
Harrington	Benjamin Rush
Helvidius Priscus	James Warren[16]
An Independent Freeholder	Alexander White
John DeWitt
A Landholder	Oliver Ellsworth	Thirteen essays, some of the most widely circulated commentary on the proposed Constitution, appeared under this name, with the first publication coming in the Hartford papers. The essays were certainly written by one of the Connecticut delegates to the Convention, and Ellsworth is the only likely possibility.[17]
Marcus	James Iredell
Margery	George Bryan
An Officer of the Late Continental Army	William Findley[18]
A Pennsylvania Farmer	John Dickinson
Philadelphiensis	Benjamin Workman
Philo-Publius	William Duer
Phocion	Alexander Hamilton
A Plain Dealer	Spencer Roane[19]
A Plebian	Melancton Smith
Publius	Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay	After Publius Valerius Publicola. Under this name the three men wrote the 85 Federalist Papers. Hamilton had already used the name in 1778.,
A Republican Federalist	James Warren[20]
Rough Hewer	Abraham Yates
Senex	Patrick Henry?	Published an article in the Virginia Independent Chronicle, August 15, 1787, which was reprinted in four states. James McClurg wrote that the author was "supposed by some to be Mr. H---y."[21]
The State Soldier	St. George Tucker
Sydney	Robert Yates[22]
Timoleon		After Timoleon of Corinth.
Tullius	George Turner?

[avacado]

Dr. Allen, For the love of God! Is Obama a Muslim or Not! Answer the dang question! Sheeze...

[SE Mom]

Dr. Allen seems to have a particular dislike for Free Republic, doesn’t she?

Byron York has some thoughts up here at The Corner on this article and topic:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGViNmY5MTIxYjA5ZWI0NGZiZjVkYjU0OWNiOTg3Zjg=

[RedEyeJack]

Exactly right!

Where was she when calumny was being exercise with great glee against Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas?

As ye sow... so ye shall reap

What's good for a goose is sauce for a gander

Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones

etc.

[sam_paine]

Exactly. #108.

[popdonnelly]

I refuse to read this. Under the law and constitution, I have the right of free speech. I intend to keep it that way.

In point of fact, the Left constantly and consistently and intentionally lies about America, conservatives, and Republicans - in fact, anyone who disagrees with them.

We need more and freer political discourse in this country, not less. People who appoint themselves the arbiters of free speech are a curse on this nation.

[sam_paine]

Citizens should,... take responsibility for their views — by appending their full, legal names to their expressions, even in blog posts.

Including POTUS candidates like Barack Hussein Obama?

[tubebender]

The article was full of calumnious facts...

[AmericanMade1776]

Danielle Allen , isn’t a match for Free Republic, we will be here long, long afer Obama is history...which should be in November.

[weegee]

How about going after phony soldiers who claim to have served in Vietnam or Iraq but did not yet they slur our troops’ morale with lies about witnessing and participating in “war crimes”?

Nope, the Left is only to happy to smear those who out such frauds.

And then there are the phony journalists. Code Pink is now manufacturing their own “press passes” to try to infiltrate McCain’s political speeches and cause disruption.

How about investigating phony “Reverends”?

[prairiebreeze]

Interesting study in futile narcissism and ideas of grandeur.

I think you've summed it up best.

Allen probably has bad dreams about being chased by those dreaded right-wing Freepers. Obviously she (and her publishers) seethe about us during daylight hours.

LOLOL!

[weegee]

WARNING!!! FAKE:

[weegee]

You own it by the act of creation. When Andy Warhol copied photos of flowers out of a science textbook, he was sued for copyright violation and paid.

The silkscreened paintings and reproductions of them (e.g.postcards) did not magically transfer to the company that owned the stock photo of the original unmanipulated photo.

Snopes may have a “newsworthy” fair use claim to show the photos (that was the claim a judge asserted when he permitted a pornographer to sell copies of a stolen videotape from Pamela Lee’s house). The judge’s excuse was that the trial had MADE them newsworthy.

If Snopes HAS a fair use, then so would FR. Only FR was hounded by Corbis and the photographer. Jane Fonda condemned those who’d try to “smear” Kerry with that original Corbis color photo as well.

All animals are equal. Some are more equal than others. FR never HOSTED any of the discussed photos. The images all resided on other servers whether they be Corbis’, AP’s, photobucket’s, etc. etc. Snopes HOSTS those illicit photos on their own servers. They made copies of the files and have them available for download display in their HTML from their servers and even as it has been shown disallow hotlinking to their hosting of the images.

So why is it “newsworthy” to have them on Snopes but not newsworthy for FR to also show them in a discussion of the content?