FreeRepublic.com EXPOSED in major WaPo article as conduit for disinformation

[CactusCarlos]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3534936

FreeRepublic.com EXPOSED in major WaPo article as conduit for disinformation
Posted by johnfunk on Sat Jun-28-08 10:52 AM

Fasten your seatbelts for this one. WaPo has published a detailed and hard-hitting article about the origin of those Obama rumors, and it merits a complete read; the quites below may constitute more Fair Use than usual, so do forgive me, Mods...

An Attack That Came Out of the Ether
Scholar Looks for First Link in E-Mail Chain About Obama
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 28, 2008; Page C01
The e-mail landed in Danielle Allen's queue one winter morning as she was studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation's most brilliant minds. The missive began: "THIS DEFINITELY WARRANTS LOOKING INTO."

...

The use of "their equivalency" and the spelling of "Kuran" instead of "Koran" made the sentence her point of departure.

That search showed that the first mention of the e-mail on the Internet had come more than a year earlier. A participant on the conservative Web site FreeRepublic.com posted a copy of the e-mail on Jan. 8, 2007, and added this line at the end: "Don't know who the original author is, but this email should be sent out to family and friends."

Allen discovered that theories about Obama's religious background had circulated for many years on the Internet. And that the man who takes credit for posting the first article to assert that the Illinois senator was a Muslim is Andy Martin.

...

Poring over these early articles on the topic, Allen noticed what she thought was an important pattern. In each instance, someone had posted the articles on the Free Republic Web site, prompting a discussion involving the same handful of people, with several expressing a desire to spread the word about Obama's supposed faith.

So what are you waiting for? Go read it!

If FreeRepublic.com is a conduit of disinformation, democraticunderground.com is a sewer line. 

[Gwitness]

  useful idiots ....oh and lurking DUmmies.......

[Georgia Bulldog]

That is appropriate yet somehow insulting to sewer lines everywhere.

[Chris_]

Every DUmmy secretly wants to be the next Buckhead.

[Georgia Bulldog]

Every DUmmy secretly wants to be the next Buckhead.

The Dummies are already legends in their own minds.

[Chris_]

Every DUmmy secretly wants to be the next Buckhead.

The Dummies are already legends in their own minds.

and basements.

[Chris_]

Uh, yeah DUmmies.

Traffic Graph failed -- I think you can snapshot it..?

[Duke Nukum]

if FR is a conduit for misinformation because an email rumor was posted there, what does that make the WaPo who is now disseminating the same rumor?

Also, the Lamestream Media's track record on spreading disinformation is phenomenal, I don't think any one Internet message board can even start to, as yet, challenge it.  But as the Lamestreamers keep bludgeoning themselves into total irrelevancy, that day is probably not too far off.

[Airwolf]

The Washington Post days are over. They have done enough damage to themselves to the point they will someday fold due to lack of sales.

[dandi]

I thought the WaPo was on the DUmmy list of BFEE mouthpieces. Now it's suddenly the gospel again?

[MrsSmith]

Irony alert...

onehandle  (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 02:25 PM
Response to Original message
36. I read that Free Republic is just a front for a Pedophile group.
 "Free Republic has hidden forums where 'Freepers' exchange kiddie porn and contacts for sex with children as young as 3. In the public forums 'freeping' means skewing online polls for or against certain issues. In these hidden forums, to 'freep' is to brag about a freepers latest underage conquest, most often involving anal sex with a single digit age boy."

Don't know who the original author is, but this email should be sent out to family and friends.

=====================================

Redstone  (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #36
40. Google is your friend: 126 results for a search on
 Free Republic has hidden forums where 'Freepers' exchange kiddie porn

can be found here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Free+Republic+has+...

Redstone

=====================================================

Posteritatis (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 03:13 PM
Response to Reply #36
44. I would, but I read that the freepers cooked and ate my family and friends. Tell yours! (nt)

==================================

yardwork  (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 06:40 PM
Response to Reply #36
73. Some people say that freepers are pedophiles.
 I'm not saying that, but some people say that freepers rape children, and don't you think that this should be investigated? I mean, don't you want to know if freepers are pedophiles?

G_j (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
2. notice that at DU, people are called out for posting false information n/t

[Airwolf]

Irony alert...

onehandle  (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 02:25 PM
Response to Original message
36. I read that Free Republic is just a front for a Pedophile group.
 "Free Republic has hidden forums where 'Freepers' exchange kiddie porn and contacts for sex with children as young as 3. In the public forums 'freeping' means skewing online polls for or against certain issues. In these hidden forums, to 'freep' is to brag about a freepers latest underage conquest, most often involving anal sex with a single digit age boy."

Don't know who the original author is, but this email should be sent out to family and friends.

=====================================

Redstone  (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #36
40. Google is your friend: 126 results for a search on
 Free Republic has hidden forums where 'Freepers' exchange kiddie porn

can be found here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Free+Republic+has+...

Redstone

=====================================================

Posteritatis (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 03:13 PM
Response to Reply #36
44. I would, but I read that the freepers cooked and ate my family and friends. Tell yours! (nt)

==================================

yardwork  (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 06:40 PM
Response to Reply #36
73. Some people say that freepers are pedophiles.
 I'm not saying that, but some people say that freepers rape children, and don't you think that this should be investigated? I mean, don't you want to know if freepers are pedophiles?

G_j (1000+ posts)      Sat Jun-28-08 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
2. notice that at DU, people are called out for posting false information n/t

Unless they have something solid to back up their claims they may want to see someone about making libelous claims and how they can be sued over them

[Chris_]

That post is still up? I guess Skinner doesn't care if DU gets hit with a libel suit.

[Lord Undies]

If FreeRepublic has some bad information, it's a BIG news story because it such a rare thing.  DemocratUnderground, which is Uranus to FR's Jupiter, has so much crap on a daily basis it isn't newsworthy.

[Chris_]

The article was written by Matthew Mosk. A curious choice for The Post considering Mosk's involvement in the nefarious MD4Bush scandal in which Mosk claimed to have been given access to a Free Republic poster's account to expose a Maryland GOP government appointee who was alleged to have commented on rumors that a Maryland Democratic mayor was an adulterer.

Mosk displayed the same talent for exposing Freepers' identities in today's article that he did in the MD4Bush scandal. However, the only person he exposed then was the Republican. The person (or persons) behind the MD4Bush screen name was not reported by Mosk.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2037834/posts

[Chris_]

It looks like the old media is trying to resurrect their '00 and '04 tricks again.

How much "investigating" could Allen have done if she never even actually talked to and interviewed the people she claims are at fault for this whisper campaign against Obama? It looks increasingly like all she did was Google stuff, use a printer and let it go at that. Voila… “proof” of her “investigation.”

The story also seems to have some misconceptions that result from Mosk merely taking Allen’s word as gold or not doing enough fact checking. One falsehood that Mosk hands us shows that Mosk didn't seem to do much by way of fact checking. "Beckwith said he built a Web site that features hundreds of pages of material intended to undermine Obama," Mosk wrote. Turns out that Beckwith only has 18 pages of web material at his Obama Files website.

<snip>

So, what we can take away from this is that the Post and Allen are all up in arms about this darn rumor mongering, I guess? Of course, it all makes one wonder how upset they were at their own paper, the Washington Post, when the rumor mill was buzzing and the Post was printing stories about the rumored cocaine use of George W. Bush back in 1999? Or how about the fake-but-true story of Bush's supposed AWOL status from the Texas Air National Guard? Bet neither Mosk nor Allen were much worried about THOSE rumors being bandied about, eh?

Naturally, as is his penchant for dirt slinging, the redoubtable Andy Martin is positing that if Danielle Allen is using her tax exempt facilities to do Barack Obama's dirty work she might be breaking the law. Martin is also alarmed by the possibility that writer Mosk was "steered" to Allen by the Obama campaign in a back door effort to defame Martin and to further promulgate lies about Barack’s Muslim past.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/06/28/wapo-after-free-republic-again-now-over-barack-muslim-email

[Chris_]

Beckwith responds to The Washington Post.

The first thing I have to say about "An Attack That Came Out of the Ether," published by The Washington Post on June 28th, is that at NO time was I ever contacted by this woman, Danielle Allen.  I spoke to two male Post reporters, who spoke to me over the phone for a period of months.  The first contact was in the fall of 2007.  They told me they were trying to track down the source of emails they considered negative to the Obamamessiah.

Allen obsesses about the "Muslim" Obama stories, but steers clear of Obama's relationships with communists, Marxists, socialists, terrorists and convicted swindlers.  The trick she attempts to use is to knock down one or two or three items and the other four thousand don't count.

When Allen quotes me: "If 20 percent of what's on my Web site is true, this guy is a clear and present danger," she left out the whole quote.  I told her reporters that I believed that The Obama File content was better than 95% accurate, but that If 20 percent of what's on my Web site is true, this guy is a clear and present danger.  I still believe that.

(more)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2037813/posts

[TheSarge]

Looks like Barakstar!s anti-smear team has chosen its first victim

[NHSparky]

Ah, minions of the Barackstar!...step out into the light, and if you don't immediately burst into flames, let the healing power cleanse your souls.

If you still have them, that is.

[formerlurker]

A quick google search yielded this excerpt (written in February of 2008).   Funny how the woman with two doctorates presents this piece as an analytical essay on Clinton and Obama when it is crystal clear that she is so enamored with this chump change politician that is embarrassing to read her teen-age girl level scribblings to him.   One wonders if she wrote this in long hand that the "i"s would be dotted with hearts.   

Thought you might all be interested in this excerpt from an analytic essay comparing Obama and Clinton by Professor Danielle Allen of UChicago and the Institute for Advanced Study.
 
You will have noticed that Senator Obama is beginning the delicate adjustment into general election mode. He has turned his attention to John McCain and he has begun to bring his long list of policy specifics (which he has had from the beginning) into his campaign speeches themselves, instead of leaving the work of conveying these to his website and town-hall meetings. At this point of transition, then, it is worth noting the difference between the conversation that we have had for the primary and the conversation that we can expect to have for the general election. This shift is beginning a little earlier than I for one had anticipated because the Republican nominating process reached clarity sooner than people expected. As a consequence, the primary conversation and general election conversation will blur for a few weeks. It is nonetheless useful, I think, to spell out what the stakes have been for the primary conversation and what they are likely to be for the general election conversation.
In my view, a candidate for President needs a vision in at least three areas:

    (1) A candidate needs a vision of what kind of person he or she wishes to be; call it the character vision. This is the one that tells people what kind of judgment a person has when they have to decide on particular actions fast.

    (2) A candidate needs a vision of how political processes do and can work. This is the vision for how change can be brought about. Call this the citizenship vision.

    (3) A candidate needs a vision of the core principles that will guide his or her policy choices.  Call this one the policy vision…
 
With respect to the character vision, Obama has argued for leadership that recognizes that words matter; this means both that we should attend to the principles we articulate and that we should be able to stick by what we say. As he uses them, words are not strategic markers to be placed largely with a view to political expedience. Senator Clinton, for instance, has explicitly argued that one needs to decide what to say up front based on an assessment of where one wants to conclude the conversation in the expectation that one will have to give ground in the political battles over policy outcomes. One should, in her account, start with a position different, stronger, or more extreme than where one actually hopes to end up. She has, for instance, said, with respect to health care, that the reason for beginning by talking about “universal health care,” is because if you don’t start there, you won’t end up with anything. But this approach to language has led to an odd reconfiguration of the meaning of “universal health care” from the colloquially understood meaning of “universal provision” to the new and jarring meaning of “universally required.” Because she is using language to set up a political game, her words lose their grip on reality. This, I believe, is her fundamental problem vis `a vis the perception that she is not trustworthy.
 
Obama, in contrast, believes that words should be used to present a genuine goal and then to organize the conversations and processes that can move people toward that goal. Obama’s strong commitments to open, conversational political processes and to personal trustworthiness are deeply related to each other. They depend on each other. His commitment to a politics of respectfulness toward opponents is equally important here. His policy of respectfulness requires that one start by taking people at their word. In contrast, people who stake out positions strategically have difficult taking others at their word and thereby inject habits and patterns of distrustfulness into their interactions. These habits and patterns of distrustfulness then have their own ramifying, negative effects…
 
With respect to the “citizenship vision,” Senator Obama has been truly brilliant. He has made a clear case for individual agency, personal responsibility, organization, and collective action and then his campaign has made the lofty ideals of hope and change real by teaching tens of thousands of Americans how to participate in grass-roots politics. His methods for effecting change are doing just that. He who was originally the underdog has upset the politics of the Democratic Party by virtue of developing and operationalizing a vigorously democratic idea of how change can be brought about through political processes. In other words, on this point above all, he has not only spoken but also executed.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProgressiveDemocratsofCambridge/message/576


WaPo even entertaining the idea of publishing this follow-the-email nonsense really screams desperation journalism.   Jim should be laughing it up as I am sure he will sign about 10,000 new members this week alone from the press.     I for one am pretty pissed off as there are virtually millions of "send this to 10 people or you will meet with a horribly painful demise" emails that are circulating on the internet.   I want the names of the bastards who started those emails as I would love to bitch slap them into next week.   

Total.Silly.Nonsense.   

Danielle Allen, get a man girlfriend.   Your puppy dog crush on this wannabe is really pathetic for a person with your education. 


Next.

[DixieBelle]

As Allen scrolled through the e-mail about Obama, she saw that the list of people who had received the missive consumed several full screens. Her first thought was to try to learn about the people behind the addresses. She traced a number to North Carolina Web sites about golf, but quickly hit a dead end. Then she had another thought: What if she took some of the unusual phrases from the text of the e-mail and Googled them?

Whoa, that right there is a downright Newtonian epiphany. No mere amateur blogger would ever think to use this advanced research methodology called “google” to track down the origin of a particular phrase.

No wonder the Washington Post devoted so much space to covering the shocking, if inconclusive, findings of this far-reaching Google investigation.

Dr. Danielle Allen isn’t the only one deploying advanced internet research technology. Super-genius braniac prodigy savant Brian McMurphy, of the prestigious 6MB Institute, has advanced the frontiers of science by using a radical new technique called “sitemeter”.

Lo and behold, he seems to have met with some success in outing another political hack operating on the web behind a cloak of presumed anonymity. Someone probably named “Dr. Danielle Allen”.

Me, I can’t even get the clock on the VCR to stop blinking twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock.

Is that funny anymore?

Oh, it was never funny? OK:

I can’t get the clock on the Blu-Ray to stop blinking twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock….

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/28/your-genius-grant-dollars-at-work/