The Man Who Guards Clinton's Wikipedia Entry

Timothy found a profile in The New Republic of Jonathan Schilling, a 53-year-old software developer from New Jersey who works to keep Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry clean and fair throughout the election season. "After he started editing her page in June 2005, Schilling became consumed with trying to capture her uncomfortable place in American culture, researching and writing a whole section on how she polarizes the public... [T]he attacks on Hillary's page mainly take the form of crude vandalism... It's different on Obama's page, where the fans — no surprise — are more enthusiastic, the haters are more intelligent, and the arguments reflect the fact that Obama himself is still a work under construction... The bitterness of the fights on Obama's page could be taken as a bad sign for the candidate. But it may actually be Hillary's page that contains the more troubling omens. Few, if any, Hillary defenders are standing watch besides Schilling. In recent days, the vaguely deserted air of a de-gentrifying neighborhood has settled over her page..."

WP:OWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure to keep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles [wikipedia.org] in mind, Jonathan.

Re:I find it interesting...

[El_Muerte_TDS]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellwether [wikipedia.org]

A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Targon]

The problem with the mudslinging is that if you do not follow the process on a daily basis, you may hear about falsehoods spread, but do not hear when those falsehoods are proven to be wrong. The same goes for these small clips that are all over the place that can easily be taken out of context.

There really isn't a lot of press coverage for when baseless accusations are proven to be nothing, but there is a ton of coverage when those initial accusations are made.

I'm Loving It

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the best political theater I've seen in my 45 years: watching up-tight white Democrats tear themselves apart trying to choose between Clinton and Obama.

Man, this is better than when that asshole Paul Watson [wikipedia.org] got his ass kicked by those Makah boys back in 1988. . .

It's just so - so satisfying watching smug, self-appointed know-it-alls tear down their own temples of self-righteousness.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Just my two pence worth ...

[daveime]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

And for those of you who can't be bothered to google for the Wiki entry ...

"Who guards the guardians".

I thought the whole point of Wikipedia was that is was essentially a public resource, where anyone could add to it. If the whole whing is moderated, who draws the line between "vandalism", and just something that might put the subject "in a bad light" (regardless of the factual accuracy of it).

So anyone looking for "real" opinion may as well stay away from Wikipedia, as it's being managed by some of the same spin-doctors who manage the actual campaigns (and we all know how unbiased they are) :-(

Re:I find it interesting...

[howdoesth]

The definition of a word is not the same thing as its etymology.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[morgan_greywolf]

That's not the fault of the First Amendment or of the U.S. political process. That's the partially the fault of the media's sensationalism and everybody's short attention spans. But there is press coverage when baseless allegations are proved false and, IMHO, the ultimate responsibility lies on the voters -- if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug*

Re:As Steven Wright says...

[baldass_newbie]

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

Everywhere?

Self-appointed dictator?

[GauteL]

Having browsed through the Hillary Clinton page today I can't help feeling that the article has been vacuumed clean of any real criticism against her. One thing is removing obvious vandalism, but has Schilling (or someone else) gone too far in removing any reasonable criticism of Hillary?

1. Where is the mention of her being criticised for taking lobbyist money?
2. Where is the mention of critisism for her "exaggerating" her own stories for dramatic effect?

These are just two issues I can list at the top of my head which are completely missing from the article. Instead there is ample reference to awards she has been given.

As far as I know, Schilling has no official authority at Wikipedia and at the moment just acts as a self-appointed dictator that spends so much time on it that he manages to keep it "clean". When this happens, it is only fair to question whether he actually has an overly censoring position with regards to this article.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Given that just about no one uses Middle English anymore, and that almost no one uses the term that way, the more current definition applies. This is just another example of the many words we use that effectively don't mean what they originally meant, just like the surname "Smith" doesn't mean you're a blacksmith.

Typical /. troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you think it's fiction, that does not make it so.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[AlfieJ]

The problem with the mudslinging is that if you do not follow the process on a daily basis, you may hear about falsehoods spread, but do not hear when those falsehoods are proven to be wrong.

Which is one of the reasons the founding fathers instituted the electoral college, instead of letting the popular vote elect the president. The presumption is that the members of the electoral college will be paying more attention to the process and won't get as caught up in the baseless mudslinging as someone in the general populace might.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

He's said he's comfortable with the occupation of Iraq lasting "100 more years"

With respect, it annoys me when I see sound bites taken out of context and used against someone, even if that person is someone whom I'm opposing (and I am opposed to McCain winning, FYI). He was attempting to put Iraq into perspective -- consider the fact that we've been in Japan and Germany for over 60 years -- Korea for almost as long.

We can oppose him for his views on the war but trying to beat him to death using that single quote is no better then beating Al Gore to death for "inventing" the internet or swift-boating John Kerry. Can't we have an intellectual debate that doesn't resolve around sound bites and feigned outrage?

Obama supporters: Clinton isn't ideal, but she's not the enemy

I believed that before the voting started. I continued to believe that through Super Tuesday and in spite of the various comments (mostly from Bill) that aimed to diminish Obama's campaign. After watching how Hillary has run this campaign though I can no longer support her. She's gotten the short end of the stick at times (especially from the media) but that doesn't excuse her tactics. Saying that Obama isn't a Muslim "as far as I know", claiming that he isn't ready to be Commander in Chief (and then backing away from that assertion during the debates) and flat out lying about her past (sniper-gate) have all served to convince me that Hillary is not fit to be President. If she manages to somehow win the nomination then I'll be voting for Nader.

y'know Bill wasn't ideologically that great either but somehow the government didn't turn to crap under his Presidency.

No, it turned into crap immediately after his Presidency. Remember the recession of 2001? You can't blame that on GWB, he was only in office for a few months and hadn't enacted any of his platform yet. And the Clintons? Forget all the scandals of the 90s and think about the legislation that he signed -- remember the Telecommunications Act of 96 that gutted regulation and set the stage for the telcos and cablecos to crave up this country into a duopoly? Remember the Communications Decency Act and the blatant attempts to censor the internet? Remember the relaxation of media ownership rules that encouraged the consolidation of the newspaper and radio industries? Remember who signed the DMCA into law? Remember whose failed health care plan and Federal tax increase set the stage for the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994?

The Clinton years weren't all they were cracked up to be. They moved the Democratic Party so far to the center that it might as well have been 'Republican-lite'. Their pro-business DLC platform and obsessive focus on big-donor fundraising (something Hillary continues to rely on today) gave the impression (right or wrong) that the Democratic Party was just as subservient to big business as the Republican Party.

I'm sorry, but you'll never convince me that I should vote for Hillary because of John McCain. I've come to realize in recent weeks just how much I disagree with him (gods, remember the John McCain from 2000? This wouldn't even be a contest if he was still around), but that doesn't mean that Hillary deserves to be our President as the 'lesser of two evils'. I don't think she's morally fit to be President and I have serious issues with some of the positions (*cough* censorship *cough*) that she has advocated in the past. I won't even be voting for her for her Senate seat again, assuming she remains in the Senate.

Re:Typical /. troll

[JoshJ]

The burden of proof is on those who claim it to be fact. If you claim a book is nonfiction, prove it.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[twistedsymphony]

Maybe the disappointment isn't so much about the political process having "degraded into mudslinging" but the fact that, after centuries, we've failed to progress beyond that.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

Hey, it's nice to see somebody stand up and defend the guy. I'm a lil tired of seeing us use that quote too -- how is beating McCain to death over that quote any different from going after Gore for "inventing" the internet or swift-boating John Kerry? I do take issue with one thing you said though:

Typical of the left

Why was that even necessary and what positive thing do you contribute to the conservation by taking that sort of swipe at "the left" (as if "the left" is one monolithic entity with a single agenda and battle-plan)? I think we'd all be a lot better off if the people on both sides of the political divide could at least respect each other and avoid taking those kinds of pot-shots at each other.

I didn't even finish the rest of your McCain rant

I can't speak for the GP, but my rant about John McCain doesn't have much to do with Iraq. I disagree with him completely on Iraq but I can at least respect him for his viewpoint and acknowledge the fact that he was one of the few Republican voices that questioned the Administration on Iraq (he called for more troops long before the surge became fashionable). My rant with John McCain is how he effectively sold out his own positions to kiss the ass of the base in order to secure the nomination. He went from having the courage to stand up to the likes of Jerry Falwell to kissing his ass four years later. That cost him a lot of respect in my eyes -- he got some of it back by speaking out against torture, but still.....

I miss the John McCain from 2000. If that guy was running he'd have a decent shot at getting my vote. Hell, if that guy had won in 2000 I think we'd be a lot better off -- he wouldn't have made Afghanistan into a side-show while outsourcing the job of catching Osama to local warloads of questionable loyalty. He wouldn't have run his administration from the extreme far-right while further dividing this country. He wouldn't have cost us our creditability on human rights by torturing prisoners. He wouldn't have stopped talking about Osama until he was "dead or alive".

Karl Rove has done his country a lot of disservices in the last eight years -- but as far as I'm concerned his biggest disservice was using his gutter politics against John McCain in South Carolina's 2000 Republican Primary.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Moofie]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. - Churchill

Pot, meet kettle

[LanMan04]

That's just hateful, partisan rhetoric.

followed by

Typical of the left. Lying about their opponent

Hello pot, meet kettle!

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Fozzyuw]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Go commit a felony and you'll see.

Re:OT comment on her body language

[gatkinso]

The only body language you need to watch to know if a politician is lying is any movement of their lips.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

Typical of the left

Why was that even necessary and what positive thing do you contribute to the conservation by taking that sort of swipe at "the left" (as if "the left" is one monolithic entity with a single agenda and battle-plan)? I think we'd all be a lot better off if the people on both sides of the political divide could at least respect each other and avoid taking those kinds of pot-shots at each other.

You're right. Maybe I should have said "far left". You can not deny the raw hatred that comes from the far left of this country. Granted, I'm sure there is just as much from the far right (the KKK for example), but Republicans tend to distance themselves from that level of politics. I don't see a whole lot of Democrats calling Code Pink, ANSWER, MoveOn.org, Air America, Huffington Post, Daily Kos and so one what they truly are. Instead, I see people like Hillary Clinton taking credit for starting the smear organization Media Matters while speaking at a Daily Kos convention. I see Obama signs at Code Pink rallies and even Cuban flags with Che Guevara's face in an Obama campaign office. I see Obama's preacher of 20 years saying that the US brought on 9-11 itself and that the white led US gov't started AIDS to kill black people. Jerry Fallwell is a schmuck, but he's no racist, at least not publicly. Democrats, on the other hand, have a real life Klansman [wikipedia.org] in their party as a respected senior senator from West Virginia. Obama [blogspot.com] even helped raise [commondreams.org] money for him!

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Necrobruiser]

Not all felons lose their constitutional right to vote.
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/usvot98o.htm [hrw.org]
It appears to vary from state to state.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[1729]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Go commit a felony and you'll see.

Felons lose a lot of rights. Or do you think that freedom (i.e. not being incarcerated) is merely a "privilege"?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

and the sooner the "I'll vote for McCain rather than vote for my party's nominee because my party's nominee called my prefer candidate a poopy-head" Democrats GROW UP and face reality

And where did I say that I'll vote for John McCain?

and face the fact that your little tantrum is going to help destroy this country

"My little tantrum"? That's the way to convince me that your point of view is the correct one. Did it occur to you that there's a bit more of a difference between Hillary and Obama then one calling the other one a 'poopy-head'? I see little difference between the tactics of HRC and those of George W. Bush. Hillary's entire campaign since Super Tuesday has consisted of FUD. Fear (who do you want answering the phone at 3AM?), uncertainty (he won't survive the Republican attack machine) and doubt (he hasn't been vetted). Her stated goal is to throw the "kitchen sink" at him and hopefully create enough doubt in the minds of the superdelegates that she can overturn the will of the voters.

The best part of it all is that she has no one to blame for it besides herself. If she hadn't started drinking the "inevitability" kool-aid then she might have realized that she'd actually have to compete beyond Super Tuesday. Instead, Obama somehow managed to squeeze out a near-draw on Super Tuesday and proceeded to run away with the next 11 contests because Hillary had no plan to win them and no orginization on the ground. She didn't take any of her follow Democrats seriously enough to make the effort to win the nomination until after Super Tuesday and by then the damage had been done. Her own arrogance is directly responsible for the position she's in.

you'd have thought after losing two Presidential elections because you thought your guy wasn't any different to their guy, you'd have learned this by now. "Gore and Bush are exactly the same, I'm going to stay home", "Kerry voted for the war, so even though he has a history of liberalism, and now opposes the war, I'm going to pretend he's exactly the same and stay home."

Your painting with a pretty broad brush here. Personally, I voted for Gore and Kerry. I've spoken out against people who claim that the Democrats and Republicans are the same. That doesn't change how I feel about HRC though. Gore and Kerry didn't run their campaigns the way she has -- I could find things to like and respect about both of them. Try as I might I can't say the same about HRC.

Clinton is not McCain

Your right. She's not. John McCain is capable of taking a principled stand for something even if his own party disagrees with him (torture) or even the majority of the electorate (Iraq -- his quote was "I'd rather lose an election than lose a war"). Hillary doesn't seem to be capable of moving much past the latest focus group or opinion poll. And since the Iraq War seems to be a major issue for you, you do know that she voted to authorize it, right? That was her chance to take a principled stand (23 other US Senators had the backbone to oppose the war) and she made the wrong decision.

She's not the enemy here. Don't fuck up for a third time.

As far as I'm concerned the only way people can "fuck up" is if they allow themselves to be scared into voting for someone they wouldn't otherwise vote for. I won't vote for HRC. I won't vote for John McCain. If Obama doesn't get the nomination then I honestly don't know what I'll do -- probably give Nader a good long look. But I won't be scared into voting for Hillary.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

I didn't lie about him. McCain has made it clear he's not going to pull out of Iraq. The "100 years" quote is great because it nearly and succinctly describes McCain's actual position on Iraq. Not only does he not want to pull out, he wants to expand the war. He's talking seriously about us invading Iran.

No, you actually said that McCain WANTS to be in Iraq for the next 100 years. That's a lie, plain and simple.
Fact is, no one sane really WANTS war. However, many, like McCain realize that it is necessary when talking and sanctions don't work. Did Roosevelt WANT war? How about Churchill? If anyone in this election understands the horrors or war, it is John McCain. He knows first hand what is involved. I trust him to make the correct decisions and not take them lightly.

Yeah, damn straight he's the enemy at this election

Adversary, maybe. Enemy? No. And that is the problem with so many like you. You consider everyone on the other side the "enemy". You'll make yourself believe whatever it takes to justify your raw hatred for them. I don't hate Obama nor Clinton. I do not see them as the enemy. I'll back whichever of the three make it the office because I love America more than a political party and partisanship. I can't say the same for people like you.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

You're right. Maybe I should have said "far left". You can not deny the raw hatred that comes from the far left of this country. Granted, I'm sure there is just as much from the far right (the KKK for example), but Republicans tend to distance themselves from that level of politics. I don't see a whole lot of Democrats calling Code Pink, ANSWER, MoveOn.org, Air America, Huffington Post, Daily Kos and so one what they truly are.

You may want to look at yourself. This attack is laughable and shrieks of parody.

Yeah, I understand you disagree with comments posted on DailyKos or Huffington Post, but given I read them both almost daily, I know that these aren't sites filled with America Hatred. Hatred of Republicans such as yourself, sure. But who can blame them, given how much you guys have fucked things up.

Again, you need to look at yourself. You've become that which you claim to hate.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[slackoon]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Amen to that. Voting is a right, a right that should be thought of as a privilege, but a right none the less. The media should feel responsible for having just as much coverage and enthusiasm for proving falsehoods to be incorrect as they do for printing the slander in the first place. Not all of us have the 20-30 hours that it would take to be truly informed. Lets face it, the media IS what informs us

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Ironsides]

The dot.com stock bubble.

Started in 2000, not 2001.
Yahoo. The NASDAQ was down over 2000 points from the high in 2000. [yahoo.com]

One could easily argue that Bill Clinton was the best Republican President we've had in 50 years. :-)

Only if we can say George Bush is the worst Democratic President since Carter.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

I don't see a whole lot of Democrats calling Code Pink, ANSWER, MoveOn.org, Air America, Huffington Post, Daily Kos and so one what they truly are

I honestly don't have a clue what Code Pink or ANSWER are, but I'd really love to hear why MoveOn/Daily Kos are anything besides left-leaning blogs that have their fair share of counterparts on the right? And Air America? Is Air America even still relevant? And why mention all of those things but not Fox News, Drudge, Limbaugh, etc, etc? Is the left-leaning elements of the media/blogosphere somehow doing more damage to meaningful dialog then the right-leaning media/blogosphere? Both share the blame for inflaming passions and reducing politics to a shouting match of soundbites.

I see Obama's preacher of 20 years saying that the US brought on 9-11 itself

And I see Jerry Falwell blame 9-11 on lesbians, abortionists, the ACLU and secularists.

and that the white led US gov't started AIDS to kill black people

And that comment was disgusting and was rightfully condemned by just about everybody I can think of, including Senator Obama.

Democrats, on the other hand, have a real life Klansman [wikipedia.org] in their party as a respected senior senator from West Virginia.

Yeah, good thing the Republicans never had some barely still alive formerly racist old white guy [wikipedia.org] as a US Senator. I don't know that I would vote for Byrd if I lived in West Virgina (I get leery of politicians that have been in office long enough to become institutions in-of themselves and he certainly qualifies), but bringing up viewpoints from his past that he has denounced serves what purpose exactly? Do you think he's still a Klansman? Do you think he still holds those views?

I see what you're saying

[hassanchop]

That's it is a right and can only be removed by due process of law.

I agree.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[MillionthMonkey]

"But he did claim to have invented in the Internet. It's just that later he clarified his misstatement and spoke about his real accomplishment, which was to provide the funding for the transition from the old Internet infrastructure, centered around NSFNet and Milnet to the new consumer- and ebusiness-centric Internet infrastructure centered around commercial networks. Which is very laudable, but the oringal misstatement is so obviously humorous that it gets repeated."

Can you actually quote his original misstatement, then? Because from what I remember he never said he "invented the Internet".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[operagost]

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

-Ecclesiates 1:9-11

I for one...

[KoshClassic]

I am really sick of the Obama bandwagoners who are going around the internet insinuating that we're all supposed to give up our right to vote for whom we want to vote for, even if they aren't necessarily popular or have the best chance of winning. And its sad to see that creeping its way on to /. now too. What is the point of this article? Since there is supposedly only one guy watchng over Hillary's page, we can conclude that she's in political trouble and we shouldn't vote for her? WTF?

Hell, I am going to head over there right now and volunteer to help this guy out if it will shut up the author of this article and people like him.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Intron]

"But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. [sethf.com] I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

The link claims that Wired magazine added "invented".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[rkanodia]

Try reading what Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf had to say about Al Gore and the Internet [interesting-people.org]. Their conclusion:

"There are many factors that have contributed to the Internet's rapid growth
since the later 1980s, not the least of which has been political support
for its privatization and continued support for research in advanced
networking technology. No one in public life has been more intellectually
engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the
Vice President. Gore has been a clear champion of this effort, both in the
councils of government and with the public at large.

The Vice President deserves credit for his early recognition of the value
of high speed computing and communication and for his long-term and
consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to American
citizens and industry and, indeed, to the rest of the world."

If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Fozzyuw]

Once released, an ex-con is once again able to move about and to vote.

Actually, Necrobruiser (611198) [slashdot.org] has a good link that shows that this is not always the true.

Your analogy is fallacious

It cannot be [merriam-webster.com] because "right" = "privilege". A little reflection or pondering on this topic will probably confirm this for yourself. (in fact, all the comments from this thread prove this as they're all arguing the same thing but changing the term).

Voting is a right, and it's also a privilege. The confusion is when the GP implied that they cannot be the same thing, when in fact, they are. It actually through me for a loop for awhile as well until I went and double checked the facts. (Magna Carta, France's Human Rights Declaration, and the definitions of right and privilege). So the point is, there is no point to try and argue the difference, because there actually isn't any except those self defined by oneself. And one cannot argue points if one is using a different, personnel, definition of a term than the other.

In the end, we're all just arguing semantics.

the moderators who modded you up are clueless.

The moderators are, in fact, cluefull given that they probably understood the same before I ever did.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Lemmy Caution]

Securing our future hydrocarbon supply, by giving Iran a new best friend and setting off a civil war?

If this really was about oil, then the US has botched it more badly than I feared. Just what are the Iraq oil industry's production figures since the war began?

I was a critic of the sanctions against Iraq (which were put in place by the UN largely at the behest of Bush 1, not by Clinton - though I'm no fan of Clinton's foreign policy in Kosovo or Iraq, either.)

The war was unjustified, both in principle and in its results.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[niktemadur]

You can not deny the raw hatred that comes from the far left of this country.

For a taste of the far right, have a look at the forums of The Free Republic. The freepers are quite a piece of work. It bears mentioning that right after 9-11, many people wearing turbans were randomly attacked within the US, even though many of them were Sikhs. I can't see anybody from the far left acting with that particular brand of blind hatred, can you?

Sadly, there is a deep polarization currently prevalent in United States society in general, which also comes from vicious attacks and infuriating, meaningless yet effective catch-phrases (aka talking points) from the right wing, and a pretty good argument can be stated that they began the contemporary cycle of bile. The list is long and thoroughly undistinguished - Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, et al.

- The incessant bombardment of John Kerry's status as a flip-flopper, whatever the hell that means.
- The purple band aids worn as fashion accessories by the GOP faithful during the 2004 convention.
- "Cut and run", repeated incessantly whenever Iraq policy was questioned.
- Limbaugh, among many other things, mocking a man with Parkinson's Disease, in his crony opposition to stem-cell research.
- Coulter's insane comments, among many other things, about John Edwards - "Total fag".
- And of course, "You want the terrorists to win, don't you?", or "Why do you hate America?"

In the last seven years, progressives have been dismissed or loudly ridiculed to the breaking point and beyond, all the while witnessing how their government attacked the wrong country with fabricated reasons, tortures people in their name, severely eroded their rights as citizens even as the vice-president literally got away with shooting another man in the face.

In 2004, after the dirtiest of dirty campaigns, a textbook Karl Rove campaign, serious allegations of electoral fraud surface again, four years after Florida was yanked from Al Gore. And with a margin of less than one percentage point, with bizarre pro-Bush discrepancies in Diebold paperless machines in key states, Bush pronounced a "mandate" and that "the people have spoken", showing not the slightest hint of acknowledgement at the massive level of dissent on his hands. This attitude will inevitably generate a simmering outrage.

Progressives also witnessed in disbelief how an extensive intelligence operation in Africa and the Middle East was treasonously blown sky-high, to target the wife of a "political enemy", as revenge and an example for all detractors, nobody in government held accountable, Scooter Libby awarded a Get Out Of Jail pass. And then, the consequences of the current administration's policies became apparent in the tragic wake of Katrina and beyond. Also, crucially, every year we hear about the polar ice caps shrinking, and the current administration does exactly nothing. Corporate shenanigans like Halliburton and Enron are just the icing on the cake.

If progressives are furious, with a deep sense of urgency, they have every reason to be. And make no mistake about it, they are also mad as hell at their own party (Pelosi and Reid, in particular), for what they regard as either lack of backbone or complicity. To interpret that as hatred is to not acknowledge the astonishing series of debacles of the last seven years.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[QRDeNameland]

Bush snorted coke and dodged the draft.

Which, ironically, may be the two most admirable things in his biography.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

While I haven't read the constitution lately and admittedly can't cite where that is. IANAL and suppose are a rocket scientist. I would equally challenge you to show me where it is specifically cited as a right. And whether or not it is a *right*, the point is ... voting is of significant consequence and should not be performed by masses of uninformed. Any party could complain equally on uninformed voting toward the other I'm sure. Thing is, it hurts us all. Is that a ridiculous assertion?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

McCain and Falwell were far from buddies

Where did I imply that they were buddies? In fact, where did I even mention John McCain in the post that you replied to?

Apparently you think every Republican is some belligerent religious radical

I'd be real interested to know why you've drawn that conclusion, seeing as how I never made any such comment.

I feel sorry for anyone who thinks anything you post could possibly be based in fact with this kind of malicious, misleading rant.

What "malicious, misleading rant"? Are you sure you didn't mean to reply to the GP? I wasn't ranting -- I was providing contrast to his rants. He ranted about Dailykos/Moveon but somehow neglected to mention Fox, Drudge and Limbaugh. He ranted about Rev. Wright's intolerant comments but somehow forgot to mention Jerry Falwells. He pointed out an old white Democratic Senator from West Virgina who used to be a racist but didn't think of the old white former racist Republican Senator from South Carolina.

My post had no other purpose then to encourage a dialog and provide the left-wing point of view. You are the one who made a connection to John McCain that wasn't there. You are the one who drew a conclusion that I was somehow attacking "every Republican". You are the one who called my comment 'malicious'. I think my words speak for themselves and you are clearly more interested in encouraging an argument then any constructive dialog.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, sorry. I never called Clinton Hitler. I never called...

So you are comparing what *you* say (or don't) to cherry-picked rantings from the Internet? You don't think if someone spends 10 minutes scanning the rantings of freepers or right-wing radio they can't come up with just as hateful stuff?

I don't see the mainstream right denouncing Ann Coulter or Michael Savage any more than the mainstream left denouncing the voices of the "far-left". And, honestly, I think the far-right extremists are far more influential in the Republican Party than the far-left has with the Democrats. (Though I do think that may be soon to change.)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Squirmy McPhee]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Have you ever read the Constitution? For starters, the 14th Amendment [usconstitution.net] specifies that people denied the vote for "participation in rebellion or other crime" still be counted for purposes of apportioning Representatives, implying that voting is not a right. More importantly, nowhere does it guarantee voting rights to anybody for any reason -- eligibility to vote is left completely up to the states, and prior to the 17th Amendment [usconstitution.net] the only office for which it even mandated a popular vote was Representative [usconstitution.net]. The 17th Amendment mandates a popular vote for Senator, but even now it doesn't require a popular vote for President -- your state legislature can forego the popular vote [usconstitution.net] for the Presidential election and choose your state's Electors itself, or empower the Governor to do so, or choose them with a coin flip if it wishes.

Now it's true that the 15th, 18th, and 26th Amendments prohibit states from denying or abridging voting "rights" on the basis of race, gender, and age, but beyond that it still leaves voting eligibility up to the states. They're free to put whatever other restrictions they wish on voting. Many states deny the vote to felons, for example, and a growing number deny it to people without government-issued photo ID.