Replies

Jim, I of course never expected that you would support a) a candidate; or b) a principle, that went against your consistently expressed philosophy.

You have also, in the past, discouraged rhetoric and accusations (a/k/a flame wars) that thrive on other parts of the internet.

It seems that THAT means of operating FR has gone by the boards, at least for now.

I have no dispute that you can run your site however you see fit, and I'd like to stay.

But as for the Presidential stuff - I can't clearly see the line that one can't cross, and it's probably better for me to stay away from those threads.

But as for the Presidential stuff - I can't clearly see the line that one can't cross, and it's probably better for me to stay away from those threads.

I haven't seen you engaging in what was most problematic among many of those banned - they would get after issues in Fred or other conservatives that they had no problem accepting in their candidate.

"Fred is pro-choice!" they would gleefully proclaim because of some ambiguous statement Fred made in 1994. Never mind that he has the worst ratings possible from NARAL and Planned Parenthood (which is a good thing to us), whereas Rudy is a champion of choice from NARAL.

"Rudy has the same views on a PBA ban as Duncan Hunter!" This one was particularly loathesome - just because Rudy now says he supports a PBA ban, we are to forget he supported Clinton's veto of such a ban, and otherwise fought ANY legal restrictions on abortion - and also considers public funding of abortion to be a right.

Those are just two examples of many. If they had just stuck to their endless repetition of discredited Rudy talking points, they probably would still be here. But when Rudy started losing grounds, they made the mistake of using the premier conservative website as a platform to attack conservatives. And that finally did them in, as it should have. It wasn't like they were not warned, repeatedly.

Well, sometimes, especially on highly charged issues like this, I’d rather just keep as light a hand on the tiller as possible to let the debate rage on. I always hope that most of our members share our common core values and it will eventually shakeout to a conservative consensus. In this case it did not. We’re now involved in a war of ideology and y’all know where I stand in that battle. We’ve received many shots over the bow during the last few months and you should know that we’re not going to turn tail and run. We’ve cleared the decks for battle.