NY Times' standards for Catholic League's Donohue: Three articles for criticism of Edwards, two paragraphs for criticism of McCain

Certainly it's important to point out that BOTH McCain and Huckabee sought out the endorsement of Hagee. They both tried to have this twisted bigoted man give them the OK.

To paraphrase Donahue, imagine if Hillary and Obama courted the endorsement of Farrakhan, and embraced him onstage: would there be a conservative outcry?

Pour yourself a drink… Reading this whole article has me off on a tangent that is only touched on in the article itself, but I think needs to be addressed.

The real issue that has me up in arms is that what seem to be emerging are ever increasing right rants about “liberal bloggers”. There seems to be a concerted effort lately to discredit liberal blogs and squelch the dissent toward the Republican agenda. This in itself seems to have taken over as their top concern with liberals.  To begin with, viewer participation (bloggers) at websites does not produce near the exposure and credibility that The Catholic League and Bill Donohue have, so making such comparisons is like comparing apples to oranges. Of course the same argument could be used every time the issue of “bloggers” is raised.

First off, the word “blogger” itself is so new, that there is no consensus on just who or what a blogger is. For most people, a blogger is the author of an article (M.G. in the case of this article) that is posted on a website that expresses an editorial opinion on a subject. However, since so many of these blog sites allow interaction in the form of responses from the viewers, many people call the readers (like us) who enter responses “bloggers” also. Are we “bloggers”? Not in my view. (I might be, but not on this site.) Here at MMFA,  I am just another “anonymous” reader adding my 2 cents. BUT, for the sake of the rest of this article, and since most of these wingnuts refer to us as “bloggers” – I’ll play their game and assume the use of their definition. I am a blogger and this is my blog.

Rants this past week from Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly have directed their angst toward bloggers on sites that support Democratic candidates – as has even the “liberal” New York Times in the past. There have been plenty of articles rebutting the idea that this is a one-sided “liberal” phenomenon, yet the right wing seems to insist on highlighting this “problem” as uniquely liberal.

There is no doubt in my mind that “freedom of speech” does not mean the same thing for Republicans as Democrats. What Republicans want out of freedom of speech is a “freedom” to lie, exaggerate, and slander a candidate without reprise.

There is one aspect of this whole argument that I hadn’t thought about much until reading a comment made by a poster at C&L the other day. This is, the fact that no one knows for certain if the “vile obscene” comments that appear on any of these so called “left-wing smear sights” are actually being posted by “left-wing” authors. They could just as well be posted by someone posing as a “loony liberal”, when in fact they are a loony wingnut adding fuel to the fire and trying to make the website look bad – or, they are just plain loony.

What better way to create an argument for further government intervention and censorship on the internet than to plant “phony” vile and malicious posts at liberal websites? Is this the solution to their  “problem”? As “Karl Rove” as this idea might sound, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least that there might be an underground movement amongst the right-wing hate-mongers to destroy internet sites that allow users to express their views. Republicans don’t want the obvious growing public distain for “anything Republican” to surface more than it already has. They already have corporate control of the mainstream media – now they want control of the internet. To them, the only good websites are 527 organizations such as C.U.N.T.  which are allowed their kind of “free speech” yet won’t so much as even allow reader comments on the vile obscene hate-speech “stories” that they spew on such sites.

I can’t say for certain, but from what I have read it seems that because of BillO’s rant this past week, The Huffington Post has had to increase their monitoring efforts, producing a longer delay in posting comments and thereby adding a dam to the flow of conversations discussing articles.

The whole attraction to (near) real-time discussions on the internet is the flow and spontaneity of the conversations. I don’t know the answer to the possibility of an influx of inappropriate comments or banter, but censorship is both unfair and unconstitutional. The model that MMFA has been using seems to suffice – that is, a requirement of a history of posts before allowing users free-reign in the real-time discussions. As any regular here knows, this system is not perfect, but the odds of “hearing” something inappropriate here is about on par with your chances at any large gathering of adults. Comments that “slip though” are allowed to be flagged and deleted by monitors. Knowledge of such a model is all that should be required to calm the fears of anyone who argues for the dangers of freedom of speech on the internet. My point is that you can even yell “fire” here and no one should REALLY panic or worry about getting burned. When the rest of the world understands how complex yet refined the monitoring of most web sites really is, perhaps more of them will realize that the fits of rage that the likes of Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh embark on regarding this subject are really nothing more than a couple of fear-mongering blowhards yelling “fire”.

actually, i dare say not 2 out 10 people (if that) have a clue who either donahue or hagee are. they bloviate to an audience best counted with an electron microscope.

if mccain didn't know about hagee's anti-catholic screeds, he has no business being in politics, much less president. he knew, he just hoped no one else would notice.

  Bill Donohue heads an organization of right wing Republican operatives, and veils the whole business as a pius group whose only purpose would be

to defend the faith.  A sinister bunch using a noble cause to advance an agenda.