Posted on 05/26/2007 1:49:34 PM PDT by Eurotwit
A few weeks ago – in between Hillary Clinton’s official entry into the presidential race and the first Republican primary debate of the cycle – the fiery online conservative forum Free Republic marked a decade in operation as one of the premier online forums for right-wing political discussion.
It also experienced one of the biggest internal battles to rock the site since the 2000 election of George W. Bush -- a tumultuous campaign year that nearly tore the site apart, as its founder and chief administrator first cleansed commenting ranks of Bush supporters, then, later, rallied to his support.
At the heart of the latest controversy: the fight over the conservative bona fides of Rudy Giuliani.
Over the past few weeks, chaos has reigned in the “Freeper” community as members sympathetic to the former mayor's candidacy claim to have suffered banishment from the site. They were victimized, they say, by a wave of purges designed to weed out any remaining support for the Giuliani campaign on the popular conservative web forum. Another significant chunk of commenters have migrated away from the controversial site over the action, according to a number of former site members and conservative bloggers who have been tracking the situation.
In a plaintive post on the blog “Sweetness & Light,” exiled commenter Steve Gilbert, who says he does not support the former mayor’s campaign, blasted the site’s new “anti-Giuliani, anti-abortion jihad.” Since George W. Bush was elected president, he wrote, “there haven’t been any large scale [Free Republic] purges to speak of – until now.”
The fight began one month ago, when site founder Jim Robinson posted an anti-Giuliani manifesto titled: “Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee would be a dagger in the heart of the conservative movement.” Then the virtual ax started to swing. Longtime posters to the freewheeling discussion threads, used to serious no-holds-barred web etiquette, were still stunned by the intensity of the anti-Rudy activity; conservative blogs buzzed with the development.
“Jim Robinson has been going on a tear demonizing Rudy Giuliani, because Rudy (agreeing with the vast majority of Americans), is personally opposed to abortions on a moral level…” complained a user on the GOPUSA Web site. “Anyone who posts any support for Giuliani at the site, if it's at all forceful, will be banned.”
(“Normally, we don't allow complaints about other conservative forums,” chided the moderator, but “…because it is being discussed all over the Internet, I'll make an exception.”)
Just a few months ago, Rudy Giuliani placed second in an early Free Republic straw poll; now, his support on the site has been virtually eliminated. “After the ‘April Purge,’ I don't think there are any Rudybots left around here,” noted Free Republic commenter “upchuck” in one recent post. “And if there are, they're not posting pro-Rudy stuff :).”
The forums weren’t the only venue for the Free Republic’s new antagonism toward Mr. Giuliani, which coincided with a wave of comments expressing similar sentiments from other corners of the conservative movement. A few days after Mr. Giuliani’s equivocal Roe v. Wade comments at the Republican presidential debate on May 3, a new “STOP RUDY NOW News & Information Thread” was featured on the site, and a newly-created stand-alone category debuted via a link from the homepage: “The Giuliani Truth File.” (So far this campaign season, Mr. Giuliani is the only candidate – Republican or Democratic – to be singled out for that level of scrutiny from the Free Republic.)
Why Rudy? Why now? Some conservative bloggers and former commenters contacted for their view of the continuing controversy say they believe that site founder Jim Robinson holds ideologically middling Republicans like Mr. Giuliani responsible for the GOP’s congressional loss and current woes. (They asked that their names be kept out of this story for fear of antagonizing the famously frisky site regulars.)
Others claim that the former mayor’s top-tier status is spurring frantic site administrators into action. Finally, one popular theory holds that the Free Republic is secretly hoping for another Clinton presidency that would send its Alexa ratings soaring back to levels it hasn’t experienced since its halcyon days of the Clinton impeachment, when a since-soured relationship with blog pioneer Matt Drudge and overwhelming anti-Clinton sentiment in Republican ranks helped make Free Republic one of the hottest Web sites in the nation. It hasn't recovered that luster since the Bush administration took over.
“It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s an observation,” said one blogger, who describes himself as a half-hearted Mitt Romney supporter. “They’ve still got a brand name that means something, but they’re not what they were in terms of real-world impact. A Hillary presidency would get them there.”
Robinson himself could not be reached for comment, but his original post laid out his case against Mr. Giuliani – a graphics-heavy presentation of some of the former mayor’s most damning moderate quotes in mainstream media venues, along with a color-coded report card tracking his less-than-doctrinaire positions on abortion, immigration, gays and guns.
Robinson, it should be noted, famously blasted George W. Bush’s presidential candidacy back in 2000, before a dramatic late-campaign about-face that saw him emerge as one of the GOP ticket’s biggest supporters. But whether or not Free Republic experiences a similar election-year shift this cycle, the site’s current campaign is spreading a dangerous primary-season meme of Rudy Giuliani as big-city liberal – and turning one of the most influential web forums in conservatism into an exclusive gathering place for those who share that view.
“Inspector Harry Callahan” stopped commenting before I joined in ‘03. Is it possible that he passed away?
Kind regards to you- from the swamps of Georgia.
She was my friend.
See ya!
I saw real SS type thugs at Pinellas Park and some wore real jackboots and they guarded Terri so she could be killed without interruption. None of us wore jackboots or jumped in glee like the on-site detractors. Bo Gritz on our side was pretty formidable, though.
I'm responding to your words!
...the tone of your words
..the way you word your words!
Combative words
..Argumentative words
Thank-you!
I simply quoted you. Why do you call that "tag-team bullying"?
He is the kind of A$$hole that all the kids wipe boogars on in school. I don’t see how anyone could be near him in person without busting him in the mouth.
You seem to be saying that Irish terrorism is not really terrorism because of the actions of the British. If so, that is an evil and foolish thing to say. Evil because it is never legitimate to deliberately target civilians. Foolish because, of course, the British do not consider their political relationship with Northern Ireland to be one of occupation, and neither does the U.S. (or the U.N. for that matter). You should take your idiotic and evil sectarianism elsewhere. This is not an Irish terrorist supporting site.
Don't misrepresent what I said. It's not EEEVILLLL to point out and obvious difference between situations. The Irish had a reasonable beef with the Brits. The "palestinians" are an Arab strawman.
Your comment might apply to most GOP candidates, but not to Rudy Giuliani. His well-documented track record is one of hard-core, radical leftism (it’s important to note that I specifically did not say just “liberalism”) on way too many issues for him to be given any credence on a conservative website.
place mark
Actually, a lot of the Behavior over at DarwinCentral looks like the Behavior of some of the losers that were on Clown Posse.
Sorry a draft dodger is limited in his abillity to take down other anti-war traitors .
Semper Fidelis
Draft dodger Rooty isn't one of them.
Semper Fidelis
You have been anything BUT civil in this thread, so don't even try the civility crap on me. You said what you said about Reagan and it is there for everyone to see. When you claim that Reagan KNEW that the Therapeutic Abortion Act would be abused as badly as it was yet signed it anyway you cast some pretty terrible aspersions upon the greatest President ever to serve. Yet, when called on it, instead of retracting your statement you claim Reagan is your hero and say that the person who caught you is telling an outrageous lie. The tactic you were using, making Reagan look bad by telling lies about him to make a liberal candidate look better, is the same thing that got a number of other FReepers banned. You really need to use your head once in a while and stay clear of that area of debate.
You're the one simultaneously logged in at WA while you're over here calling FReepers "brownshirts" and the "kooky fringe" while disparaging Reagan's record. You're likely over at WA giving high fives while they tell you what else to say over here. That is, if you're even permitted into Salt River. But maybe that's what you're doing over here right now. Trying to earn your admittance to their secret little bitch forum? In the meantime, WE are not interested in your tag-team troll behavior and ask that you start contributing something more than harassment and all the bitching and moaning you've been doing about your liberal buddies getting banned.
You saw fit to post at WA about your planned trip into D.C. to see Rolling Thunder and take some photos. That's the kind of thing we discuss over here, usually. But on FR all we've had from you is more complaints and insults. If you don't plan to contribute to this site and you're only going to pick fights and call us names, maybe its time to part company. As I said before: get with the program, get out of the way, or just get lost. Your choice.
Escorting some visiting foreigner to the door when your municipality gets restless over him, especially when that visitor was the one of worlds most wanted terrorists for decades is not in any way foreign policy. Arafat's political position did not make it so.
If the feds wanted him to attend certain events as part of foreign policy they would have made arrangements in advance.
This was an aids infested Arab thug getting showed the door by duly constituted municipal authorities. Good job Rooty, now go join the socialist democrats and quit pretending to be a Republican
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