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.
Hillary Clinton embraces and kisses Mrs. Yassir Arafat.
Rudy Giuliani bans Yassir Arafat from attending some hoi-polloi function.
That's a BIG difference in my opinion.
I don't support Giuliani or any of the current candidates now. I await Senator Thompson's decision, I believe he would make a promising candidate.
Ron Paul? You've got to be joking.
Way to go Jim! Keep up the good work! Down with RINO'S!
The link you provided goes no where.
Hillary Clinton embraces and kisses Mrs. Yassir Arafat.
Rudy Giuliani bans Yassir Arafat from attending some hoi-polloi function.
If that's the only difference between Hillary and Rudy, it's pretty pathetic.
Many conservatives were rightly critical of Nancy Pelosi going to Syria to try to make foreign policy. THIS IS THE SAME THING. Whatever any of us think of the Clintons or Arafat, the FACT remains that Arafat was an OFFICIAL GUEST OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and as such he deserved the respect that is accorded to other guests.
NONE of us wanted Arafat to be invited, but that does not allow us to make our own foreign policy. I am a strong believer that we need to respect the Office of the Presidency even if we don't respect the person occupying the Office. Rudy demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the presidency.
I don't believe being hospitable to thugs and terrorists is acceptable. SoH Pelosi left American soil to engage in her "diplomacy". Mayor Giuliani could have had Mr. Arafat arrested.
I don't either and I never would have invited them. However, the decision was not ours to make.
Mayor Giuliani could have had Mr. Arafat arrested.
I don't think he could have legally. That would have gone against centuries of accepted diplomatic protocol.
MiaT’s posts were nothing more than a continual acid-induced rant against the Clintons. Don’t get me wrong, I hate them too, but I can’t see where she ever actually added anything to any discussion.
I'm still undecided between Tancredo and Paul. I'm not committed.
"You want one thought go to DU."
Tell it to the owner. He made the decision not to allow leftist Rudy shills. Hillary Clinton shills aren't allowed, and they are only one very small step below the Rudy shills. The Rudy supports, the people who support a pro-illegal alien, anti-second amendment pro-gay leftist are the ones who belong at DU. Last I checked, Ron Paul isn't anti-second amendment.
"Losing Pukin Dog, Peach, Mia T has lowered the level of discussion, not hightened it."
Losing the rotten Peach and her endless pro-Rudy posts did heighten this forum. Losing any leftist Rudy pimp is a good thing, in my meaningless opinion. Losing the vomiting poodle and his/her "DON'T POST TO ME!" posts and the countless insults did heighten the level of discussion here. Mia T, I don't know who she is/was.
You are right, Lucianne did not know how to run a forum and neither did the ones she started with for technical help and eventually fired. That was Poetic Justice if you ask me.
“I though it was a purge of liberals not just Rudy fan - oh, wait - never mind.”
tee hee!
If the NY Observer is bothering to write about this, FreeRepublic remains influential.
There were several posters who routinely ganged up on and pinged the boss...like good little capos.
Also, having been privileged to post in here for nine years, I've seen all the historic purges up close.
This one DID have several posters appear like brownshirts. If you can't admit that, we have nothing more to say to each other.
Cheers!
If anyone questions FR's influence, they should give DanRatherbiased a call.
You know what you can do with that napkin, don't you?
Brownshirts were in mass with many of the Rudy and Mitt folks.
They worked tag team and pinged those to join in.
Bashing and spamming those who didn’t agree with them.
I don’t know why some of you Wide Awake folks still post here and bash. Isn’t there enough bashing at salt river, the hiden thread in Wide Awakes.
If you folks are honest, why do you have to have a hiden thread.
Also many of the FR folks banned were already signed up at Wide Awakes as far back as March..
What they did was Kabuki slapstick. So pre planned.
"Tough on terror," my @ss.
Don’t you have an illegal alien butt to kiss?
Great Point!
Some liberal venues had him talk at their gatherings IIRC.
He after all was one of the terrorists involved with the detainment of the hostages during Carter’s administration.
President Bush did NOT invite him to the White House or engage him at all.
To his credit
I disagree, and do so very respectfully, a word many of the departed don’t understand.
This isn’t an echo chamber...we still have supporters of ALL candidates.
However, discourse here is much more civil, now.
Some of the departed were trying to make this a “one thought” forum, though.
They were using words as clubs to beat those who disagreed into submission.
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