A Freeper No More

Time to move on...
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For six years, your editor has been a Freeper, an association I was once proud of. No more. The site has been going downhill for a long time, and it has finally lowered itself to a level I just can't abide. Some pretty reprehensible things have been posted on Free Republic -- some of it which got FR labeled a "hate site" -- but I simply chalked it up to the usual extremes of opinion one is likely to see on a forum. But then it began to get troublesome.

A small band of anti-Palin activists on FR just about had me ready to bail, but then one of them went too far with a very crude comment, and the site's owner, Jim Robinson, kicked him off. For a short while there, it seemed like the climate at Free Republic was improving. But then other troubling tends indicated things were just getting worse there. One of these is the dominance of the birthers at FR. The place has gone full birther. We've said it many times. Whether Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, Kenya, or on Planet Giedi Prime, the best way to make sure that he doesn't get four more years to destroy our nation is to hit him on pocketbook issues. "It's still the economy, stupid." Tilting at his birth certificate like so many windmills is simply too... well, quixotic, and the Obamunists just love it. That's time spent not holding the president accountable for the financial disaster he's fostering on everyday Americans, and it hands leftists the paintbrush they need to portray all conservatives as loonies.

A second small band (isn't it always a minority who screws things up for everyone else?) of Freepers have become prominent on the site. These people are the anti-bloggers. The anti-bloggers believe that bloggers should cross-post their op-eds in their entirety on FR if they post them there at all. As writers and publishers, our work is subject to the same copyright laws as articles published in other media, such as newspapers. We believe that if we share our work with FR, we should be allowed to publish excerpts. The anti-bloggers call us "blog pimps," even though many of us don't have much of a revenue stream for our sites. This blog has no paid blog ads, and regulars here can testify that I don't hit the readership up for donations often. We usually don't rattle the tip jar unless we have a crisis of some sort, such as when the old laptop died in December. If we're "blog pimps," then we're not very successful ones, as blogging is far from a lucrative undertaking. It's more of a labor of love.

As a rule, bloggers freely link to one another. Although there are a few who don't want to share either credit or readership, most of us don't mind driving traffic to the sites of other bloggers we feel are worthy of it. With our Quote of the Day and QOTD Honorable Mention posts, regular features of this site, we've provided thousands of links to other websites. That doesn't even take into account many more thousands of links in our other posts and in our sidebar. We've always felt that such link love generates a synergy of sorts which is good for bloggers on both ends of the hyperlink transaction. As JFK said, a rising tide lifts all boats. Although he was talking about an economic tide, the principle is the same.

What finally drove home the reality of the sad state of Free Republic was this post by Marc Schenker on Warner Todd Huston's Publius Forum. By way of disclosure, I used to be a contributor there, but I no longer post my articles at Publius'. Warner was an occasional contributor here, but he's apparently kept so busy by all of the other sites he writes for that he no longer posts here. I don't agree with everything Marc has to say in his post. I believe, for example, that he should not have played the victim card. Marc and other bloggers are not the victims of FR's slide down the pipes, but rather it is the cause of conservatism that suffers. We have other issues with his post, but Marc is right that FR sure ain't what it used to be. It has changed, and none for the better. The voice of reason is heard on FR with much less frequency these days than in the past.

It's a shame. Jim Robinson is pro-Palin himself, although he had allowed the Palin bashers free reign in his playground for a long time. Just as he tolerated the Palin-haters, we believed that he was just tolerating the blogger-haters. But Jim showed, by way of a comment on FR, that he shares their opinions of bloggers. Jim, it seems, considers whatever traffic is driven to FR by bloggers to be such small potatoes that bloggers don't deserve to have their copyrighted material treated as such by FR. The website has had copyright issues in the past, and as a result, there are several publications from which FR is prevented from even publishing excerpts. For a conservative website, FR's "what's yours is ours" attitude about copyrights and intellectual property rights is disturbingly "progressive." FR's hostility to bloggers comes right from the top. That's something we can't abide.

I personally do not want to be associated with FR any longer. I never thought the day would come when I didn't want to be a Freeper, but today is that day. I logged off of Free Republic for the last time. Some of the people who have been driven away from FR include Matt Drudge and Lucianne Goldberg. Talk show host Sean Hannity commented about Free Republic, "Everyone I knew basically left because of so much childish immature personal attacks, the propensity there to eat their own." So I figure I'm at least in good company. When it comes to pushing back against the left and its lies, don't Conservatives have enough on our plates to keep us busy without trying to eat our own?

Our policy here at Texas for Sarah Palin, as well our other sites -- The Book of Sarah, Blogs 4 Palin, and Brazos Valley Pundit -- remains unchanged. We will gladly cooperate with other blogs and bloggers if doing so is in our opinion positive for Gov. Palin and for the larger cause of Reagan conservatism as well. That includes the exchange of links, promotion of related worthy causes and events and special projects as well.

- JP

Can we talk about the economy now? (Updated)

It's (still) the economy, stupid
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Now that Obama has released his long-form COLB, and now that the Trig troofers have been definitively debunked by liberal reporters, can we finally focus on what has most voters concerned right now? We're referring, of course, to the disastrous fiscal and economic policy of Obama and his fellow Democrats.

Former Reagan aide Mary Jo Jacobi Jephson sums it up rather nicely:

Assuming current economic trends continue (and barring discovery of cold fusion in the next six months, there’s no reason to think that they won’t) Republicans could simply bootleg James Carville’s “it’s the economy, stupid” messaging strategy from the 1992 Clinton Campaign. With the Obama Campaign touting their fundraising prowess (expected to top out around $1 billion), the GOP should have no trouble lampooning the Democrat’s backwards thinking on the intersection of money and government.

With values voters currently more concerned about the possibility of $8 gas and double-digit unemployment than gay marriage and guns, the GOP needs to be all business.

We have made rather the same point, although we did so in the context of a Palin victory over the Big-Spender-In-Chief. Ms. Jacobi Jephson would like to see Mitch Daniels as Obama's GOP challenger, and we "strenuously object," to quote a character in "A Few Good Men." But that's the fodder for another post. Though we have a different messenger in mind, we have no argument with the lion's share of her op-ed's title:

It's (still) the economy, stupid: GOP has the message to beat Obama...

The more wild-eyed among the birthers and troofers will not be convinced by any evidence, no matter how compelling. As Stacy McCain observes:

David Frum refers to Birtherism as “the racialist aspect of the anti-Obama movement,” which is rather a large leap. I always compared it to the various strange conspiracy theories about Mena Airport and/or Vince Foster that flourished during Bill Clinton’s first term.

In politics, some people are always more interested in throwing out spooky charges of criminality or fraud than in arguing over policy. You saw this during the Bush administration, with the stuff about Halliburton and Iraq, the claims of rigged voting machines in Ohio, the “Plamegate” controversy and all those wild fantasies about Karl Rove getting indicted.

Here's a novel idea: How about we refuse to allow the more imaginatively deranged among us to define the national debate and get on with the discussion that is most likely to help deny Obama a second term? And pay no attention to the Obama foot-washers who would have you believe that the economy is significantly improving. It isn't, and it will not, as long as Obama pursues his destructive statist agenda. Ignore those who wish to distract and their shiny objects. Let's get back to economic and fiscal issues with a real debate, for a change. It's a win-win for our side.

Update: Victor Davis Hanson specifies the issues we need to focus on:

Okay — the chief one is the present lull before the oncoming storm: Food and gas prices are consistent now with hyperinflation, which seems to be spreading to the general consumer price index — at a time of slow growth, a depression-like housing industry, a pathetic dollar, and high unemployment. It’s hard to see any upside there, inasmuch as in the old days inflation was associated with an overheated economy and, conversely, high unemployment and slow growth at least meant low prices for essentials. Instead, we seem to be entering a 1970s-like stagflationary cycle, whose remedies — higher interest rates, massive energy exploration, entitlement reform, strict budgetary discipline — will seem to this administration the proverbial medicine that is worse than the disease.

Add all this to a new America in which half the population pays no federal income tax and half receives some sort of government check, and we are starting to resemble southern Europe, where the dismal statistics are not so much globally or politically driven but increasingly a reflection of stubborn cultural attitudes about entitlement, work, and consumption in the era of globalization.

- JP

NY Times invents Palin 'enthusiasm' for birtherism

The paper of lies and distortion
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NRO's Matthew Shaffer catches the New York Times grossly distorting Gov. Palin's take on birtherism:

Yesterday, the editors of the New York Times wrote:

Yes, Sarah Palin, who was an enthusiastic “birther,” has decided that the supposed issue of Mr. Obama’s citizenship is, as she put it the other day, “a distraction.”

The editors imply that Sarah Palin was backtracking from prior birther advocacy during her speech on Long Island on Thursday, in which she said, “It’s distracting. It gets annoying. Let’s stick with what really matters.”

But, as Shaffer points out, Gov. Palin's previous comment on the birther issue, in a December 3, 2009 appearance on the Rusty Humphries show, was hardly "enthusiastic" support for the birthers:

Humphries: Sarah Palin here on the Rusty Humphries Show. One of the questions Jason asks is would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?

Palin: I think the public rightly is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bothered to make it an issue because I think there are enough members of the electorate that still want answers.

Humphries: Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?...

Palin: I think it’s a fair question just like I think past associations and past voting records. All of that is fair game.

The day after the Humphries interview, Sarah Palin made it clear that she's no birther in this Facebook note:

"Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask... which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States."

So where, exactly is the "enthusiasm" for the birthers' claims that the Times attributed to Gov. Palin? The New York Times has never let actual facts on the record get in the way of promoting the leftist narrative. The Times is not "the paper of record." It's the paper of lies and distortion.

- JP

Quote of the Day (February 17, 2011)

It’s still the economy, stupid
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Allahpundit at Hot Air:

"Smart politics, both for her own sake and for the party’s sake, from today’s Q&A on Long Island. Even lefties like Jonathan Capehart are praising her for her answer... And she’s quite right, needless to say, about the issue being a distraction. Even if you’re inclined to believe that there’s funny business surrounding The One’s long-form birth certificate, there’s virtually no way to prove it. His file will stay closed as long as he wants it closed, so absent a confession from the Hawaii records department that it’s all a big conspiracy, you’re pumping a dry well. Like Palin says, better to focus on the economy (and, if you’re feeling bold, Obama’s inexcusable gutlessness on entitlements) than to keep barking up this tree."

- JP

Ace: A feature, not a bug

Ace weighs in on the political hay the Palin hit squads are trying to make out of her comments on the Rusty Humpries show Thursday night and subsequent remarks via Facebook:

So what did Palin do? Well, what she did here was toss a rhetorical bone to the 25-30% of the country which is very much interested in this birth certificate question, while not nearly embracing the theory itself. She offered, in other words, a sort of vague stab at consensus -- let's agree that these questions are fair game and punt on the more divisive question of whether the theory has any merit -- which is what what people like David Frum are always urging when it comes to appeasing moderates.

[...]

If you didn't like Sarah Palin's answer -- because it wasn't strong enough in either direction -- get ready for a lot of disappointment, because Sarah Palin's answer is going to be the basic default generic answer for almost all politicians on the right.

Ace has a lot more to say on this, and it's worth the read... here.

- JP

A little payback to the Trig Truthers

- By Thomas Lamb

Ben Smith wasted no time at Politico in trying on Sarah Palin's answer to the birth certificate question she was asked in Thursday's interview on The Rusty Humphries Show. Here's a transcript of that segment of the interview:

Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?

I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue ’cause I think there are enough members of the electorate who still want answers.

Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?

I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past associations and past voting record — all of that is fair game. You know, I’ve got to tell you, too: I think our campaign, the McCain/Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area. We didn’t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were and perhaps what their future plans were. And I don’t think that that was fair to voters to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of the things that now we’re seeing made manifest in the administration.

I mean, truly, if your past is fair game and your kids are fair game, certainly Obama’s past should be. I mean, we want to treat men and women equally, right?

Hey, you know, that’s a great point, in that weird conspiracy-theory freaky thing that people talk about that Trig isn’t my real son. And a lot of people say, “Well you need to produce his birth certificate! You need to prove that he’s your kid!” Which we have done. But yeah, so maybe we could reverse that and use the same [unintelligible]-type thinking on them.

Smith's Palin barrage balloon went right up:

Palin: Obama birth certificate 'a fair question'

Speaking to the conservative talker Rusty Humphries today, Sarah Palin left the door open to speculation about President Obama's birth certificate.

[...]

McCain's campaign counsel has said the campaign did look into the birth certificate question and, like every other serious examination, dismissed it.

Palin suggested that the questions were fair play because of "the weird conspiracy theory freaky thing that people talk about that Trig isn't my real son -- 'You need to produce his birth certificate, you need to prove that he's your kid,' which we have done."

"Maybe we can reverse that," she said, returning to Obama's birth certificate, describing the type of thinking involved with a word that isn't clear in the audio.

Sarah Palin shot back at the lamestream media on her Facebook page:

Stupid Conspiracies

Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask... which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.

But if anyone thought that would put the lamestream media outrage to rest, we know where they can get a good deal on some shares of Opel stock. On its First Read blog, the cable channel where the U.S. Military Academy is considered to be "enemy territory" hit back at former Gov. Palin:

*** Palin watch: According to Politico, Sarah Palin tipped her hat to the so-called “birther” movement. "Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?" she was asked on a conservative talk-radio show. Her answer: "I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers… I think it's a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records -- all of that is fair game.” Yet on her Facebook page, Palin later reversed course: “[A]t no point -- not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews -- have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.” Trying to have it both ways?

Reversed course? Trying to have it both ways?

Not quite. Captain Andrew Sullivan and his ship of fools have demanded that Sarah Palin prove that her son is her son, yet they dismiss anyone who isn't convinced that a genuine Obama birth certificate has been made public. Who is it who's trying to have it both ways again?

Sarah Palin's point was obviously lost on the network of Olbermann and Maddow. And if she wanted to deal out a little payback to the Trig Truthers, we figure she has it coming. And then some.

- Tom