Posted on 07/18/2009 10:02:22 PM PDT by STARWISE
When Ledger-Enquirer reporter Lily Gordon wrote a short story Monday afternoon about a U.S. Army major filing a suit in federal court to stop his deployment to Afghanistan, she was not prepared for the reaction.
The article sparked the highest volume of traffic ever by a single story in the history of ledger-enquirer.com. The more than 1,000 comments from readers included written threats against the newspaper.
“All I did was a write a story on an open public document and it set off a powder keg,” Gordon said Friday.
Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook and his lawyer, Orly Taitz, filed the suit July 8 in U.S. District Court asking for conscientious objector status and a preliminary injunction based on Cook’s belief that President Barack Obama is not a “natural born” citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as president of the United States and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.
U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land dismissed the suit Thursday in a one-hour hearing.
Ledger-Enquirer Executive Editor Ben Holden summed up the readers’ reaction this way: “Basically, we were the forum for somebody else’s food fight.”
It became obvious Tuesday morning that the story, published on page A3 of that day’s newspaper, had taken on a life of its own.
Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Tuesday, there were 62,140 unique yearly visitors — or users who had not clicked on the site in the previous 12 months — to the newspaper’s Web site, said Jeff Hendrickson, the Ledger-Enquirer’s senior editor for new media. During the same hour a week earlier, ledger-enquirer.com had 864 unique yearly visitors.
By the end of the day, nearly a half million new readers had visited the newspaper’s Web site. Also, there were 712,251 page views — more than seven times a normal daily volume.
Earlier that morning, Hendrickson began the customary practice of offering the story to various news sites that link stories to broader audiences. The Drudge Report picked it up, placing it in a prominent spot on its home page. That accounted for nearly 84 percent of the traffic to the Ledger-Enquirer’s site.
It wasn’t just the volume that was different about the story; it was also the intense reaction. When Gordon got to work at 11 a.m. Tuesday, her e-mail box was filling up rapidly. On a normal morning she has about 15 new e-mails.
“When I checked my e-mail I had 170,” Gordon said.
Most of the writers took exception with one line in the story. “Actually, Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state,” Gordon’s story said.
Here’s just one of the more than 300 e-mails Gordon received, from someone at the e-mail address jayson_aldrich@yahoo.com, after she reported in Wednesday’s newspaper that the Army revoked Cook’s deployment orders:
“Great! There’s hope for you!!! Even though you didn’t remove the statement from yesterday’s article — ‘Actually, Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state’ … you only moved it to the bottom, instead of up at the top where it was originally. The statement has NOT been proven. If it were proven, there wouldn’t be such a controversy, and the military most certainly would NOT have revoked Cook’s deployment orders!”
Several of the e-mails to the newspaper were threatening and editors reported them to authorities.
“This is complete speculation,” Holden said, “but I believe in these situations the chances are 1 in a 1,000 of something actually happening, but do you really want to take a 1-in-a-1,000-chance that one of your employees could be harmed?”
The tone of the bulk of the e-mails and calls, which reached well into the hundreds, caused Holden to take notice.
“The chatter had the feel of a righteous cause — almost a religious cause — because some people hate this president,” Holden said.
Local law enforcement took the threat seriously, said Brad Hicks, the city’s director of Homeland Security. For Cook’s hearing Thursday morning, security around the courthouse — which is located two blocks from the newspaper’s offices — was tight.
At least five public safety agencies, including the Columbus Police Department, Phenix City Police Department, Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office, Columbus Fire and Emergency Medical Services and the U.S. Marshal’s Office, were involved in the operation.
“Any time you get a call that a threat is made, you go into a preventive posture to make sure nothing takes place,” Hicks said.
In the end, the security plan allowed law enforcement the opportunity to evaluate their threat readiness in light of a range of possibilities.
“It is a lot better for us to learn from an incident like this than to stage an exercise,” Hicks said.
We know nothing about him, other than he lived in Indonesia, went to Occidental College, traveled to Pakistan when Americans couldn’t, then went to Columbia, with someone paying his tab. No grades, no BC, no thesis, no state senate info, no medical records. He is a cipher. His father (?) was Kenyan / British, his mother (?) too young to bestow citizenship if born outside the country. YOU may think it unimportant. That is your right. I, and millions of others, think it is important because the Constitution says it’s important, and that is my right.
Did you know that Tim Geitner’s (sp) father worked with Obama’s mother in Asia? There is a great deal behind the scenes with this man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyw90ykQAEk&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fgopbriefingroom.com%2Findex.php%3Ftopic%3D5682.0&feature=player_embedded
Was the disclosure of the certificate the actual legal matter at hand?
There is kooks on both sides and that is what scares me. I want him to prove he is legitimate to hold office or to step down, but I am not excited to have Crazy Joe or Crazy Nancy running the country either.. right now we are the Titanic headed for a iceberg and the owner of the line is telling the captain to go faster and faster......
***Maybe newspapers will wake up to the fact that this is their freeping job, and it helps sell newspapers.
‘Journalists’ doing their jobs to sell papers??? Maybe if they had vetted him BEFORE the election we wouldn’t be facing socialism now.
In the past the presidential candidates ran open campaigns in which they didn't attempt to conceal the vital details of their lives. The press could delve into and verify and publish for public consumption and discussion information about their birthplaces, families, family history, and early associations. (All with the exception of Chester Arthur--and Leo Donofrio discussed this--and the current BO, who is under investigation.)
So now, because the press can't be trusted to do the job it did in the past, the natural-born citizen status has to be verified.
Holy moly ... you’ve been hacked into?
That’s outrageous .. no authorities have
come to your aid to track it down and
deal with the offender ?
I wouldn’t even know if I had been.
How do you know?
Thanks for the link. Did not read the entire article before.
WOW!!!
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12999
From: http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/041008c.html
John McCain was born to American citizens stationed on an American Naval base in the Panama Canal Zone.
The Senate took the time and trouble on April 10, 2008 to Introduce Resolution To Make Clear Senate’s Position On Candidate’s Status
Also, IIRC McCain, unlike Obama, provided complete documentation regarding his birth.
I was one of those who attached no importance to the birth certificate flap initially. But as I have watched this man lie through his teeth to the American public day after day, I now see what a crucial issue this is.
Producing a birth certificate is not rocket science. I obtained one back in December from my state in exchange for a completed form, a check for $10 and a self-addressed, stamped return envelope. I would imagine that Hawaii has the same or similar procedure. If he was born in Hawaii, it should not be difficult to obtain the birth certificate. That he can’t or won’t produce the birth certificate tells me that this is one of his many lies. He cannot be trusted.
How do I know if I’ve been hacked?
My teenage boy is a very accomplished ethical hacker. He is our family’s computer administrator (and has been since age twelve). He analyses our system twice weekly and ‘fumigates’ the system as needed.
The thing is, this invasion of privacy shouldn’t be happening in our country, especially by an elected official towards a private citizen just collecting information and sharing it over the WWW.
Frightened people do stupid things, and I fear Obama is becoming alarmed about issues he wants to keep hidden.
The thing is, this invasion of privacy shouldn’t be happening in our country
~~~
Most definitely NOT! It’s outrageous
... criminal.
I’m boggled that your reporting of it
has been ignored. Can your local FBI
help?
Thank you. I see the Obots are out in full force as this BC issue heats up. One of them was on that thread for over 12 hours non stop doing damage control.
Really ?
Already talked to them. Nothing.
I don’t expect help from that quarter anyway, and am just glad martial law hasn’t been declared. We’ve been considering places we could go and actions we could take.
I’ll tell ya .. if I could afford it,
I’d be in the islands for the next 4
years. No joke.
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