Obama needs to take down his Mybarackobama.com user commentary ...

Obama's organization of his campaign has been almost flawless, but one weakness I've seen is how his website has allowed bored right-wing websites to search the comments of individual supporters on his website for controversial comments. You'll recall that they made some hay out of the "Black Panther Party" posting on that website. Well, they are at it again, by doing nothing more than searching his website for inflammatory keywords:

-deleted link to right-wing site-

I can see no good reason why the official campaign website should allow these kind of freelance comments by supporters or fake supporters that can be used to manufacture controversy. Any supporter wanting to vent or express their views online has no shortage of sites like this one or Daily Kos. It's time to cut off this fertile ground of right-wing smear material and close the user comments on mybarackobama.com.

EDIT: subject typo.

brilliant take.

I don't think it's going anywhere.

Betcha they don't blame BO for these.

if you are comfortable with Obama's own website being an endless fountain of smear material on slow news days, then I question your political wisdom.

And by the way, exactly how long do I have to read, post and contribute money to this site before I can express my opinion without getting these snarky replies implying I'm some mole on the rare occasion I criticise Obama? Grow up.

But I thought Mybarackobama.com actually has no connection to the campaign, and each one is run and moderated by whomever started it.

edit: ah, never mind. Carry on.

TO BE BLUNT---What do you think he should do, to distance himself from any of these scary black power organizations?

How can a half black/half white man transcend *sarcasm* race to the point where he has satisfied all concerns about his possible---real and imagined---associations to black people who want equal rights and equal opportunities? (NOTE: I have made it equal rights and opportunities as opposed to the extermination of the white race because I think that is unrealistic and won't entertain a conversation which believes all/most/some black people want to take over the planet.)

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=59398

I read this article from my google search and just have to say, what other fears does he need to shoot down?

But they can't shut up the grassroots and I doubt they would want to.

and that should ruin it for the other two million people?

I can't agree with that.

Anything to take away the one news "fig leaf" these stories have, namely that it comes from the "official Obama website."

June 09, 2008
Categories: http://dyn.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/index.cfm/category/JohnMcCain">John McCain

Speaking of candidate sites...

http://www.americablog.com/2008/06/mccains-web-site-talks-about-anti.html">Aravosis finds, on McCain's site, some anti-Semitism as well, along with a long discussion of whether Obama is the anti-Christ, put to rest by the reminder that he can't be, because the anti-Christ will be a Jew.

Also, some slurs that don't bear reprinting.

Which, as on the Obama site, probably have more to do with overwhelmed moderators than much else. (The grossest slur is in a post that also attacks McCain.)

The raised level of press and public sophistication on this is striking: I think at this point, most people are willing to accept that both candidates can't control everything that happens on their sites, a source of major confusion in 2004, when MoveOn was accused of using Nazi comparisons because a user of the site did.


By Ben Smith 09:50 AM

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/Speaking_of_candidate_sites.html#comments">Link

http://www.americablog.com/2008/06/mccains-web-site-talks-about-anti.html

UPDATE: Jed finds more on other McCain sites, including a reference to Obama as a n*gger.

Some folks on the right thought they'd pull an "I gotcha" on Obama by trying to find kooky things visitors have written on Obama's blog. So, I thought I'd take a look at John McCain's campaign Web site and do a search for words like "fag," "bitch," and "Jew," for starters. What I found wasn't pretty. It's interesting to note that each comment has a "flag as offensive" button next to it, so that readers can inform the moderator that the comments are offensive. Either McCain's readers don't find any of this offensive, or McCain's staff was informed and didn't care.


MUCH MORE RIGHT WING UGLINESS SCREENSHOTS AT LINK

about removing any negative posts (that is, negative toward Clinton or reflecting badly on her. Obama-trashing is allowed with no limits).