Snitch Central

[iris lily]

... Honestly, the folks who hate Obama will find any reason to criticize him. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize. HOW HORRIBLE! Osama Bin Laden is killed...meh, he can't take credit for that, it was the military's accomplishment...

I don't "hate" Obama. I am still incredulous that he won the Nobel Peace Prize. For what? Why? He'd been in office 8 months. Criticism of that award is reasonable, I don't get it. But the President gets credit for catching Bin Laden, absolutely.


So tell me: do you think that AttackWatch as it stands now is a positive campaign tool for the President?

[Alan]

Alan, you know you did not come up with the term "Snitch Central" all by yourself. You know it's right wing spin. I know talking points when I see them, and calling this website snitch central is spin, just like calling the Affordable Health Care Act "Obamacare" is spin. When you google this term ONLY right wing websites or commentators, such as yourself, are calling it that. You are just passing along talking points. You didn't just say, hey guys lookie here, isn't this interesting, what do ya think? No, you called it "snitch central" and got the whole ball rolling about how it's creepy and Nixonian blah blah blah.

You're right, I didn't come up with the term. It was widely used several years ago during the first attempt to have people report things to the white house. If you look back to my original post, you'll see that I referenced that and wondered how long this attempt would last.

Also, I think you may be mis-representing some things just a bit. No one I'm aware of thinks its HORRIBLE that the President won the Nobel Peace Prize. We mostly think it's LUDICROUS that he did.

[peggy]

I will have to give Alan credit for posting a link to the ABC news article. Everyone should just read that and make up their own minds.

Honestly, the folks who hate Obama will find any reason to criticize him. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize. HOW HORRIBLE! Osama Bin Laden is killed...meh, he can't take credit for that, it was the military's accomplishment. Michelle Obama launches an innocuous campaign focusing on childhood obesity...OMG, she's the cookie police! It just all becomes ridiculous and tiresome. You think it's petty to set up a rumor control device? Isn't it just as petty to complain about it? What evidence do you have that it is being abused in any way or used to spy on folks or being used to form an enemies list or that there is going to be any fall out on the likes of YOU? NONE. You have no evidence whatsoever of any abuse of the information that goes to the Obama campaign regarding the origination of UNTRUE stories. ZERO.

Alan, you know you did not come up with the term "Snitch Central" all by yourself. You know it's right wing spin. I know talking points when I see them, and calling this website snitch central is spin, just like calling the Affordable Health Care Act "Obamacare" is spin. When you google this term ONLY right wing websites or commentators, such as yourself, are calling it that. You are just passing along talking points. You didn't just say, hey guys lookie here, isn't this interesting, what do ya think? No, you called it "snitch central" and got the whole ball rolling about how it's creepy and Nixonian blah blah blah.

But the fact is, this is merely a rumor control website set up to combat smears and untruths (in case you have forgotten here are a few: Obama is a Muslim, Obama is not a US citizen, Obama was born in Kenya, Obama is the anti-Christ, Michelle hates white people, Obama's gonna take away all your guns, Obamacare is going to kill grandma etc etc etc).

Yeah, and don't even start with trying to relitigate the whole John Kerry Swiftboating thing. That was a disgrace and you know it. When I saw people at the Republican Convention wearing purple banaids to signify that John Kerry faked his way to a purple heart I knew the Republican Party was heading towards its nadir. I have, unfortunately, seen worse since then, with the unrelenting and unfair criticism of this president over petty crap like this.

++1

[Catwoman]

What viable candidate much less the POTUS needs the public to be involved in a rumor control website? What is this? High School? Its time to send this tiny baby President back to Chicago where he can play in the safety of his own backyard. Uncle Rahmie will watch over him.

[LDAHL]

What viable candidate much less the POTUS needs the public to be involved in a rumor control website? What is this? High School? Its time to send this tiny baby President back to Chicago where he can play in the safety of his own backyard. Uncle Rahmie will watch over him.

I think you have to look at it from the President's point of view. He comes into office as the Annointed One, the darling of a worshipful media. A few years later, he's no longer the great Liberal Lochinvar. Grumbling on the left. Defiance on the right. Rude questions about loans to failed companies. Credit downgrades. Who's to blame? Obviously, it must be the lies and calumnies of the bitter clingers!

If you think that way, it makes perfect sense to set up a fundraising site and call it a truth factory. That will show them! If you're unencumbered by humor or humility, however, you'll have trouble understanding the laughter that ensues.

[LDAHL]

You're right, I didn't come up with the term. It was widely used several years ago during the first attempt to have people report things to the white house. If you look back to my original post, you'll see that I referenced that and wondered how long this attempt would last.

Also, I think you may be mis-representing some things just a bit. No one I'm aware of thinks its HORRIBLE that the President won the Nobel Peace Prize. We mostly think it's LUDICROUS that he did.

I agree. It was horrible when they gave one to Arafat. It was merely silly that Obama got one. To his credit, he seemed a bit embarassed by it; although the best course of action would have been to turn it down.

[rosebud]

What viable candidate much less the POTUS needs the public to be involved in a rumor control website? What is this? High School? Its time to send this tiny baby President back to Chicago where he can play in the safety of his own backyard. Uncle Rahmie will watch over him.

First, the snark about the President being a baby is unnecessary and only throws discredit on YOU for disrespecting the President for no apparent reason other than bitter partisanship.

Second, I will conduct a little history lesson for you and the "independents" here so that they can UNDERSTAND the context, reasoning and value of an anti-smear website.

Here's the background:

1. John Kerry goes to Vietnam and does a lot of war heroish stuff and takes home a pile of war medals.
2. John Kerry runs for President 2004 an a front group for Republican donors called the Swiftboat Vets for Truth put out some television ads accusing Kerry of being a coward and a liar who doesn't deserve his war medals.
3. John Kerry, feeling smug about his roomful of medals and military record and thinking his record is above-reproach and thinking that rational folks will believe the military and him over some transparently partisan obsfucators DOES NOTHING to respond to said ads.
4. In retrospect, Pundits agree that said ads did tremendous damage to Kerry's campaign, due not to the veracity of their claims but due to KERRY'S failure to respond aggressively. That made him look wussy.

Fast forward to 2008:

1. Obama announces campaign for Presidency. Almost instantaneously false rumors start circulating about him. Just in case you forgot, let's visit memory lane and come up with a mere handful:

a. Obama is not a U.S. Citizen. He was not born in the US. He was born in Kenya.
He cannot produce a birth certificate. His birth certificate is fake. Etc.
b. Obama is a Muslim. He is a radical Muslim. He is the Manchurian candidate for radical Islamists. He is not a Christian. He is the anti-christ.
c. Obama pals around with terrorists. He is a terrorist. He is a terrorist sympathizer. He is a communist, a socialist, a radical, a nazi, a fascist, a leninist, a stalinist.
d. Obama is Un-American and his wife hates America and white people.

And on and on it went. Untrue, indeed patently false and libelous stories conceived and pushed into the mainstream day after day, mostly by the folks YOU, as a right winger, know and love or don't know and love.

2. Obama et al decide that they aren't going to allow their campaign to be torpedoed by false smears the way Kerry allowed his campaign to be, so they come up with strategies to combat these memes, these falsehoods, these silly stories, these partisan smear campaigns.

One of the tactics is to start a web-site for Obamabots (yea, that includes me and I accept the label proudly, just as I accept the labels "liberal" and "socialist" proudly) to report these smears so they can track them down to their sources and respond to them quickly in order to dispel them.

The beauty part is that the folks posting stories on the website are Obamabots obviously, so now the campaign gets their names and e-mails on a list! That way they can bombard these folks with campaign donation requests and calls for volunteering!

So, you see, what to you, with your little right wing mind is "whining" is actually a clever device to dispel ridiculous rumors so that they can't gain traction while at the same time developing a registry of potential donors and volunteers.

So, I'd say pretty smart politics.

[Alan]

So, you see, what to you, with your little right wing mind is "whining" is actually a clever device to dispel ridiculous rumors so that they can't gain traction while at the same time developing a registry of potential donors and volunteers.

Channeling Bevis (or was it Butthead?), heh, I've got a little right wing mind, heh heh heh!

[Catwoman]

Au contraire, Rosebud, I call him a tiny little baby President because he is woefully unaccomplished, failing miserably at his job and incredibly thin-skinned. All good reasons. Are you related to Loosie? You write like she does!

This brings to mind the slam-books of Jr. High. Does anyone remember those? A person's name would be at the top of a page in a spiral notebook. It would be passed around and people would write their opinions on them on the pages. Many were vile and hateful. Attackwatch is kinda an Obama slambook of his detractors...very juvenile hence the tiny little baby president moniker.

So that you can UNDERSTAND the excuses in your little history lesson is more of the whining and finger-pointing about how the callous meanies on the right are out to discredit the annointed one.

[loosechickens]

ummmm...I think the analogy to a "slam book", catwoman, would be more a page on some rightwing blog, or site like Free Republic, where President Obama's name could be at the top, and partisan enemies could "slam" him with hateful comments....in that sense, the whole rightwing blogosphere is one big Obama Slam Book.......

Personally, I think it is appropriate for the Obama campaign to ask supporters to let it know exactly what lies and slams are being circulated about the President, especially given the towering level of lies that were circulated about him in the 2008 election.

Unless one knows what lies are being circulated, they can't refute them. And as John Kerry learned to his chagrin, thinking that your record speaks for itself, and no sensible person would believe the lies being told about you, just doesn't work in today's highly charged rightwing lie machine.

Every public relations person knows that if you are being smeared and do not immediately fight back, strongly and openly, the lies will stand. I think that is what happened to the President in the 2008 election. As an intelligent person, I think he really did not BELIEVE that people could possible believe the lies being told about him, so knocking them down was not as swift as it should have been. Perhaps this time, response will be more robust. I hope so.