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
Exactly- her assumptions are left out there..floating. That’s the problem. At no time does she confront what is good, bad or neither about being muslim...simply using the word is enough. Like other words in contemporary society, the word muslim has become a buzz word- yet it means different things to different minds.
Tell us Danielle, what does it mean to you? Or do you want US to make assumptions...just as you have?
Thanks for finding that info.
dsallen, huh? Pinging someone who might actually be that person...
Hey, she donated $2350 in ‘07- the limit is $2300.
Did Obama send the $50 overage back?
Tecnically, you can contribute up to $4600- $2300 for primary campaign, $2300 for general election.
Political Science as an advanced study? In other words, Danielle is an appointed communist filling the minority seat who insures the high cost of tuition for the masses. She is paid to ensure the furthering of Marxist ideology.
[evidence of donations to Obama]
No genius either!
They don't want debate. They want to shut down debate, destroy the opposition, and assume total and evelasting control.
These people are much meaner to Obama than we are - check out all their research:
http://obamawtf.blogspot.com/2008/04/debunking-seven-unproven-smears-against.html
Good catch!
Some researcher is being lauded for "discovering" basic peopleware rules that every hardcore network admin on the planet recognizes in the first few months of their professional career?
Holy Crap!. If this meddling Jane-On-The-Spot keeps throwing the gaunlet down via Google, she's gonna find the pr0n!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your point is well made- and here’s part of the reason:
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=18365
You tracked them down but they thought they tracked you? .....why am I not surprised. Get you some urnalist...please. LOL.
She is an Obama shill.
Danielle Allen:
“On each policy issue, Obama has identified specific policy goals as well as explaining how citizens will be expected to take responsibility; we might, for instance, note his insistence on involving the American people in the practical negotiations over health care.”
“He has proved his capacity to convert potentialities into actualities. The proof lies in his campaign. He diagnosed the dominance of incumbents as a problem in our political life. He designed a strategy to resolve it: a grass-roots campaign that would deploy the new social-networking technologies to unsettle the complacency of incumbency.”
“Finally, he has done all this with grace, good judgment, and integrity.”
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080406_It_s_Obama_s_maturity_for_his_age_that_matters.html
Wouldn’t things be different if the MSM actually researched
Obama as thoroughly as Ms. Allen has researched Free Republic?
They hunt for Freepers in the trees yet miss the forest of deceit that
defines Obama.
BARACK AWAY FROM OBAMA... MCCAIN IS BETTER!
http://www.pr-inside.com/washington-post-names-author-andy-martin-r671789.htm
timing interesting, shortly after Obama campaign announced initiative on squelching internet criticism . Maybe this was packaged for her and they recruited her as a front-person. Maybe Holder had down-loaded that Carnivore thing when he was Ass’t. AG for just such a contingency, to try to intimidate blogosphere , where Obama’s money advantage shouldn’t do him much good.
And to that very question:
~snip~
There are, however, other documents in the past of the Democratic nominee that would be worth a close examination. For example, they may not even exist anymore – a convenient destruction – but Obama’s office records from his service in the state legislature, particularly the correspondence, would be an interesting resource in learning more about his efforts in state government.
The Illinois State Archives told Judicial Watch that they never received any request from Senator Obama to archive any records in his possession. Similarly, in 2007, Obama said to Tim Russert that his records were “not kept.”
MR. RUSSERT: You talked about Senator Clinton having records released from the Clinton Library regarding her experience as first lady, and yet when you were asked about, “What about eight years in the state senate of Illinois,” you said, “I don’t know.” Where, where are the—where are your records?
SEN. OBAMA: Tim, we did not keep those records. I...
MR. RUSSERT: Are they gone?
SEN. OBAMA: Well, let’s be clear. In the state senate, every single piece of information, every document related to state government was kept by the state of Illinois and has been disclosed and is available and has been gone through with a fine-toothed comb by news outlets in Illinois.* The, the stuff that I did not keep has to do with, for example, my schedule. I didn’t have a schedule. I was a state senator. I wasn’t intending to have the Barack Obama State Senate Library. I didn’t have 50 or 500 people to, to help me archive these issues. So...
MR. RUSSERT: But your meetings with lobbyists and so forth, there’s no record of that?
SEN. OBAMA: I did not have a scheduler, but, as I said, every document related to my interactions with government is available right now. And, as I said, news outlets have already looked at them.
MR. RUSSERT: Is your schedule available anywhere? Are—the records exist?
SEN. OBAMA: I—Tim, I kept my own schedule. I didn’t have a scheduler.
I have no idea how Obama’s statement that “every document related to state government was kept by the state of Illinois and has been disclosed and available” can be in line with the statement from the Illinois State Archives. Is there some separate archive for state legislators?
06/26 08:45 AM
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/
And the next day there’s more from the Campaign Spot:
Did Obama Keep Any Records From His Years in the State Legislature?
Very few Americans had heard of Barack Obama before his 2004 Democratic Convention speech. On his life and career before then, we have only a few sources to go on. Two autobiographical books written by Obama, one of which features composite and fictional characters; David Mendell’s biography Obama: From Promise to Power; and the coverage of the Chicago and other Illinois media from when Obama entered elected office in 1996 or so. The local press would probably admit that for many of the eight years Obama was in the state legislature, he was not a terribly high-profile figure.
Ordinarily in cases like this, those who wanted to know more about a candidate’s rise to the pinnacle of American politics would look at his record, or specifically, his records of what he did, what his actions were, as a legislator. Who did he contact within the state government, and what did he urge them to do? What were his priorities when he was not under such a glaring national spotlight? And in the past, Obama and his staff have encouraged just that:
Earlier this year, campaign spokesman [Ben] LaBolt asked The Associated Press to narrow a request for records on whether Obama had ever urged clemency for a convicted criminal.
“You’re asking us to do an extremely exhaustive search into every record we have from the U.S. Senate and state Senate offices,” LaBolt said at the time. At the news conference in Iowa last week, Obama said he didn’t “have a whole bunch of records from those years,” but told reporters to “let us know” if there are “particular documents that you are interested in.”
Except later in 2007, the campaign stated those records no longer existed. “LaBolt said Obama did not keep any correspondence with the general public. Ditto for letters to or from state associations and lobbyists, memos on legislation and correspondence with Illinois state agencies. The campaign said Illinois agencies have copies of his requests for information or help, but accessing those records would involve contacting the agencies and asking them to comb though eight years of records to find correspondence from Obama.”
06/27 08:10 AM
This is a radio interview on November 2, 2004 with Tavis Smiley in which she gratuitously drops Obama's name at around 2:30 in the interview. She might as well have used Elvis' name for all the relevance it had to the interview. That was November 2, 2004. The Meccan candidate is a little more of a production than even I thought. I wonder if Danielle's an Obama War Room employee. I want to read one of her books to see if she is one of those idiots who promulgates the western civilization has roots in black Africa thesis.
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