Last week I chastised The Democratic Daily for their promotion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, noting that, contrary to claims from a conservative site, their views are not representative of other liberals. The result, as described by The Jawa Report:
The post I put up a few days back had little to do with the actual content of this minor loony-lib-on-regular-lib blogfight, but the former official Kerry blogger/Democratic Daily editor known as Pamela who’d been pushing a debunked and loony 9-11 Twoofer documentary was apparently frothing at a fellow lib’s blog (who was doing nothing more than pointing out what was happening in his post, and linking us in the process).
Ron at Liberal Values (a former blogger at Democratic Daily) was attacked by Pamela, who seems to have as much a problem resiting juvenile agitprop videos as she does remembering facts in her recent history. A few other moonbats trickle in and begin flinging stuff about astrology, the lack of leftist purity that Ron posseses and (of course) Twooferism, at which Ron rightfully balks.
I can’t say I sympathize with some of Ron’s politics, but I can certainly sympathize with the need to push back against the Twoofers and their ancillary legions of astrologers, Holocaust deniers, liars, huxters, frauds, film school dropouts and pizza delivery boys. Good luck – I’ve been barking up that tree for a while now.
During similar such disagreements with Pamela Leavey and others at The Democratic Daily I argued that her tolerance of anti-Semitism matters, as does her dismissal of the danger of Holocaust denial. Similarly, it matters to the credibility of those who oppose the Iraq war and the Republican’s mishandleing of the 9/11 attack when such conspiracy theories are made to appear representative of liberal thought. An astute reader sent in the following commentary from Fred Thompson which demonstrates why liberals need to dissociate themselves from such conspiracy theories (as well as anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, astrology, and belief in ghosts):
Harry Reid, though, has taken a different route. He made his statement about General Pace on a conference call with fringe elements of the blogosphere who think we’re the bad guys. This is a place where even those who think the 9/11 attacks were an inside job find a home.
And why shouldn’t they think that? Reid has led the attack on the administration, with Nancy Pelosi, charging it lied and tricked America into supporting the war. Ignoring multiple hearings and investigations into pre-war intelligence findings that have debunked this paranoid myth, they accuse an entire administration of conspiracy to trick us into a war.
Liberal bloggers who promote unfounded 9/11 conspiracy theories help people like Fred Thompson undermine the well established case against the Bush administration for the manner in which they deceived the country to start the Iraq war. When some blogs support such theories (or astrology, or the belief that Mel Gibson really isn’t anti-Semitic) they undermine the legitimate work done in the liberal blogosphere.
Update: Think Progress also repudiates 9/11 conspiracy theories, writing “Thompson’s attempt to link Reid to conspiracy theorists is completely baseless.” They also provide a few examples of how intelligence was manipulated prior to the war. Bob Geiger doesn’t comment specifically on the 9/11 conspiracy theory aspect of this, but does argue with Thompson’s claim that those on the conference call were a “fringe element.”
Update II: Steve Benen makes an excellent point: “By the way, how is it, exactly, that ABC Radio has decided to pay Thompson to deliver nationally-broadcast monologues condemning Democrats with bogus smears? ABC does know this guy is running for president, right? Doesn’t this seem a wee bit inappropriate?” I think I’ll drop Disney investor relations a note and ask about this.
Update III: Michael Moore has now been drawn into this, with Reason posting a video. It probably won’t affect the review of Sicko I’m preparing as it is limited to the health care problems in the United States and avoids getting into the controversy over Moore’s other views. (The review of Sicko is now up.)
Update IV: New evidence came out debunking 9/11 denialism, frustrating the conspiracy theorists at The Democratic Daily leading to a new round of lies and personal attacks. The shock of reality was too much for them. My replies are here and here.
Update V: The Democratic Daily continues to fall behind faux-feminism, declaring that any criticism of their views is an attack on women. As I note in my other responses (such as those linked in the update above) people who claim that Mel Gibson is just a poor misunderstood actor, post anti-evolution arguments, or claim that the 9/11 attack was done by anyone other than al Qaeda risk being debunked. This is regardless of their sex.
Apparently they think they can prevent rebuttal of their views by subjecting those who respond to them with such slander. It is a sick form of intellectual cowardice to hide behind claims that they are above criticism because they are women. For them to fabricate such charges of sexism based upon this is contrary to both the legitimate views of feminism and the spirit of free debate in the blogosphere.
This also has nothing to do with being banned from The Democratic Daily by a woman as Pamela now claims. I left due to the anti-Semitic atmosphere both at the blog and in Pamela’s emails. Since leaving I never tried to post or comment there again, so I wasn’t even aware (nor do I care) that I was “banned.” (There was actually a brief period of attempted reconciliation in which some of my posts were cross-posted at The Democratic Daily but that ended when I got tired of pulling knives out of my back.) But I shouldn’t expect anything different as Pamela has been fabricating stories throughout her attacks on me with the her description of events (and that of a few of her friends) having little relation to reality. It is also worth noting that, while I have allowed Pamela and her co-bloggers to respond to the posts here, apparently I am banned over there and couldn’t respond to her smears at The Democratic Daily even if I had attempted to.
Update VI: The smear tactics of The Democratic Daily appear to be failing again, and possibly backfiring. After I left The Democratic Daily due to their objections to criticizing both Mel Gibson and Holocaust denial, readership there fell in half. Their repeated attempts to form a boycott against Liberal Values, based upon fabricated charges such as sexism while lying about the circumstances of my leaving, have been comical–sort of as if I tried to boycott Daily Kos when I’ve disagreed with posts there. While they use empty rhetoric such as that Liberal Values, is neither liberal or of value, the contrast in support and readership shows many think otherwise.
On Wednesday, when they launched their latest round of attacks, Liberal Values led The Democratic Daily in RSS subscribers as calculated by Feedburner by an overwhelming 3360 to 108. In the subsequent three days, Liberal Values has added 42 new subscribers while The Democratic Daily lost 6. (After today’s numbers for Friday it might not be so clear as the weekend numbers generally do fall due to people having work computers off and therefore not being seen as subscribed to the feed.)
Liberal Values’ lead in Technorati ranking has also increased despite The Democratic Daily’s built in advantages both in having been around longer and being a group blog. On Wednesday Liberal Values had an authority ranking of 473 from Technorati, with The Democratic Daily trailing at 348. As of now, the authority ranking of Liberal Values has increased to 477 while The Democratic Daily has fallen to 343.
In the end, launching these blog wars do not help build readership for themselves or hurt readership here. While there may be an audience for believers in conspiracy theories and support for the likes of Mel Gibson, these views are not characteristic of the liberal blogosphere regardless of what people like Fred Thompson may claim. Ultimately writing based upon facts and sound reasoning will beat out writing based upon bias and personal attacks.
