Why is Andrew Sullivan picking on Democratic Underground?

What a f*ck*n a$$hole. Andrew Sullivan put on his blog a link from one of our idiot posters that says something stupid once in a while.

The Wall Street Journal used us as a reference for their right winger editorial page one when someone at Democratic Underground claimed that "The people at Democratic Underground are some of the smartest people in this nation!!!!"

You guys, we have to watch out what we write about. Moderators, if someone puts up a stupid shit post, just lock it. We do not need this kind of scrutiny from anyone from the outside.

Now, what did Andrew Sullivan link from our site? Apparently, he linked this post ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=648187 ) to his blog here ( http://www.andrewsullivan.com/ )

What did this post say? Apparently, the person wrote "I Hope the Bloodshed in Iraq Continues"

This is not only dumb but immoral and shallow. I appreciate the fact that many people scolded the poster afterwards, but it is now too late. The last thing we need is for some freeper to send our site to the New York Times or to the Wall Street Journal again.

What is even more discouraging is the fact that this person is a veteran here. She has 7178 posts.

I only have 1700 posts and I know better than that.

NOw, what is the effect of this on our website? Well...people start to stereotype us as people who looking forward to blood and flesh.

This is disgusting and all posters should be accountable for their actions.

Let's be smarter next time OK.

Man, to have to censor ourselves for the likes of Andrew Sullivan...that's rough, IMO.

I hadn't realized the impact DU had on public discourse.

I agree with Andrew Sullivan on only one issue...gay marriage. Otherwise, I think he's nothing more than a shill for this White House.

But I'll watch what I say on here.

Terry

We should do the same though. We should have Left leaning blogs link to the FR when they say things like "The troops need to stop whining" and all the other shit that they spew. Throw it back in their face.

THEY own the information pipeline.. Stuff we say, gets picked up and put on radio shows that millions of people hear.. We have no competing venue.. The most "liberal" papers are very conservative in the op-ed sections.. The magazines that are "mainstream" lean waaay to the right..

We should just ignore them, and let them get all lathered up.. They will do it with or without any provocation..

The only option is to "watch what we say"..and then they DO win..

The thing that will ultimately "save" us, is the inherent sense of fairplay and decency that rears it's head every so often.. I really do think that chimpy will have his ass handed to him in 04, and that is why the "darkside" is so ravenous.. They are desperate and they are clutching at anything they can to try and discredit us.. The people who are like us, do not care what they think, and the ones who ARE like them would not believe anything we said..

We have a "failure to communicate"... nothing will change it.

Sullivan just gave us free advertisement. Let them come and read the posts and make their own judgments. I'm sure, eventually, they'll come across a thread that posts remarks from Free Republic, so they'll have something to compare.

Surly Sully isn't big enough to pick on DU.

He's merely a self-discredited right-wing poseur.

???

You would have won 100000 dollars.

How did you know?

stupid. When there are, Andrew mentions them.

.... he's a lazy f*ck like most of the 'media' who would rather cherry-pick crap from an internet forum than do any real research?

If AS links to Starpass's stuff, it's only because the morning emails and blast faxes out of the Republican Manhattan think tanks have already have picked it out as a soft target via their web-surfing interns.

We should simply start a thread "'Barebacking' Homosexuals Attack DU, Signal Schism in the Democratic Party", fill it up with humorous anti-Democratic pro-Sullivanesque sarcasm, and send the link to Drudge.

He's a right-wing propagandist with total contempt for the truth, or any sense of fairness for his ideological opponents.

What we write should be dictated by our own views, courtesy towards each other, and should be animated by some belief in progressive politics.

In other words, to hell with him. We'll get no favors--keep on doing what we're doing.

Yes, the comments are jacked up, but it is one person's opinion. If you go to any conservative websites or just look at the hatemail bag here you will find statements that are just pure evil. I wonder if Sullivan publishes jacked up comments from conservative sites. I seriously doubt it.

and since when do we let RWers determine what gets discussed on DU?

fuck him and all the other RW liars.

will ALWAYS find whatever ammunition he is looking for, whether or not he takes it out of context.

The likes of Sullivan/WSJ will use 1) ad hominem attacks, 2) strawman argument, 3) guilt by association (e.g., using one person's atypical statement to represent the group), 4) group labeling/insults ("these guys are Marxists," or Idiotarians, or whatever), 5) out-of-context quotes, 6) exaggerations and non-sequitirs, 7) ad-absurdum extensions ("they are against the Iraq war, therefore they would have cheered as the Nazi jackboot trampled down Main Street, USA").

Dishonest pundits are only looking for ammo in a discourse they define as war; and they will always find it. They will constantly attack and disprove things you never said. They will never see evidence to the contrary of whatever they decided in advance of examination.

There is zero defense against these tactics, and there is nothing we should do to adapt to them in particular (except to adhere to the general principles of discussion valid for everyone, i.e. the rules of civility and logic).

What we should do is WELCOME the attention and draw people into the site, where they can read and decide for themselves.

I mean, come on, how despertae is this guy?

Hell, I could probably go over to Freak Republic and find a similar post.

But if I were a so-called journalist, I sure as hell wouldn't quote it or use it as an example as to how crazy a whole group of people are.

Rush Lowbrow pulled the same stunt a few months ago.

To me, this just smacks of desperation.

Ofcourse this guy will find some really extreme post and use it as a reference etc.. thats his JOB as a rightwinger.

Do you honestly think he'd report something like "we support the troops and wish they would come home safely"

Hell no, he'll dig up the nastiest stuff he can find. And I'm sure if he can't find it its not hard writing one himself.


Chill out.. and just accept this is how it works.. if our newspapers had any brains they would quote some shit from freeperville aswell but we have this stupid moralcode so we wont.

Anyway just remember no publicity is bad publicity

what Andrew Sullivan or the WSJ thinks about us. Screw 'em.

If people want to stereotype all of us based on one idiot's post, screw them, too. If they're that dumb, they're too dumb to think for themselves and will just believe what Hannity and Rushbo tell them no matter what we say or do.

"I'm aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say, and it unfortunate. And that's why -- there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party -- they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."

I deride the Wall Street Journal and Andrew Sullivan and The New Republic as whore press, and in a free country they are more than welcome to take a few swipes at me. Just spell my name right.

Thousands of posts to pick from and use to broadbrush DU and the left.

SOP for avoiding discussion of anything relevant to the incredible mess we're in, but at least it's a living for him.

this is the guy who put out advertisements for other men to perform with him unprotected homosexual sex acts, even thought the man has aids.

nice fella'. a man who is willing to give another persona deadly diease just to get his rocks off.

now there is a paragon of personal responsibility.

a reference to Jesus dying for our sins so that we can be saved? I found some parallel, especially in the last paragraph.

Feel sorry for him. I think he realizes the mess he has created for himself, and he feels that there is no way out of the box he created, other than to become a shrill, pathetic partisan hack.

Right after 9-11, he started accusing anybody who was critical of Shrub of being a fifth columnist, and he went off the deep end. He painted himself into such a corner, that he is trapped in there. Now, he feels the need to blissfully ignore most of the defects of those he went to political bed with, because it will make him look like a horse's ass in his own mind to confess his rhetorical sins.

I do genuinely believe that he knows better. He is trapped. So, he is busy carrying water for Rick Santorum, and other gay bashers, while trying to deny that he is doing so. Cheney and Chimpy lied, people died, but Sully can't admit it. He was probably the most virulent defender of jingoistic bullshit there was after 9-11. If he was a real adult, he would admit his rhetorical overkill, and be an honest broker of information now. It is to his everlasting shame, that he has proven himself morally incapable of doing so even when it becomes painfully obvious that his masters have been dishonest to him.

Sullivan should be read by all. He should be a case example for everybody, a warning sign of what can happen when you go to far out to an extreme and fear climbing back off the steadily snapping branch.

You, Andrew Sullivan, are an "evil-doer". You are witness to power, and you tremble, quiver, and shirk your responsibility to honestly confront it. Instead, you remain not silent, but worse, you scream at the top of your lungs hoping to drown out the sonic discordinance between intellectual honesty, and the positions of those for whom you carry water.

Andy Sullivan having to live with himself, is the best punishment that he can possibly suffer. Here's to you Andy. Enjoy your axis of evil. Hope it keeps you warm at night.

Please see rule #2 here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=463744

2. The subject line of a discussion thread and the entire text of the message which starts the thread may not include profanity, excessive capitalization, or excessive punctuation. Inflammatory rhetoric should also be avoided.

Asterisks and other punctuation also qualify.

I just am not. Sorry.

This is a huge forum with something like 30,000 registered users. There's always going to be SOMEONE posting something that can be used to make us 'look bad.' And as the right wing knows perfectly well, all you have to do to make something look bad is take it out of context.

It wouldn't matter how big a love-fest the REST of DU had for the troops in the field as long as there was *one* thread attacking them; people like Sullivan would just pull out that one thread and make it look like it was representative. And if there were no threads attacking the troops, he would pull out something else and make THAT look bad. And so on down the line.

The person who designs the frame gets to determine what the picture looks like. Sullivan will never post anything in his blog that makes DU look good, no matter what we do. So it makes no sense whatsoever to censor ourselves for his benefit.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

of how badly it might reflect on the Republicans? Of course not. Because THEIR extremism is acceptable discourse in the new fascists America. Hell, it's the new middle.

But nooooo - WE have to watch what WE say.

Goddammit, liberals can be such pussies.