More Evidence of Hypocrisy from TalkLeft
You may recall the recent controversy in which TalkLeft falsely claimed that a leftist blogger had been visited by the Secret Service simply for “criticizing” George Bush. When several commenters, including me, pointed out that the blogger visited by the Secret Service had actually called for the assassination of George Bush, TalkLeft edited our comments to remove any references to that fact. TalkLeft claimed that she was not suppressing the truth — she just couldn’t tolerate any discussion of presidential assassination on her site. (For more details, read this post and the links therein.)
So, TalkLeft refuses to allow comments on her site that reference attempts to kill George Bush, eh?
Take a look at this TalkLeft post about Fallujah. Scroll down to the first comment from a leftist named “jondee,” which reads:
Somebody needs to take the fratboy and his parasitic entourage down there and rub thier noses in the gore. Reap what you sow. I hope the next McVeigh gets the address right.
Unless I am misreading this badly, this sounds a lot like a suggestion that someone should blow up President George W. Bush. Yet the comment is unedited.
Okay, you say, maybe TalkLeft just hasn’t read this comment yet.
Wrong.
Scroll down five more comments, to a comment made by someone called “The Truth.” The Truth’s comment was made after jondee’s comment advocating Bush’s assassination. And guess what? The Truth’s comment has been edited:
London Times article, text deleted. This space is for comments not reprinting artticles.
commenter is limited to four posts a day, all in excess will be deleted.
The deletion of The Truth’s post is in accordance with TalkLeft’s controversial policy of limiting certain right-wing commenters to four posts a day.
If you scroll down, you will see that TalkLeft has edited several other comments in the same post. All the edits were made after jondee’s comment calling for someone to blow up Bush. All the edits were made to comments by right-wingers, with the exception of a suggestion to a leftist that the leftist not debate with right-wingers.
To summarize: it is more important to TalkLeft to stifle viewpoints from right-wingers, than it is to edit comments from leftists who advocate assassinating President Bush.
Thanks to a reader (who wishes to remain anonymous) for the tip.
P.S. Maybe TalkLeft just missed the fact that the comment encouraged the bombing of President Bush? If so, I hope she removes the comment soon, and pays closer attention to her wacky leftist commenters in the future — and less to her right-wing commenters who might comment more than four times in one day.
P.P.S. I have added my own comment, which I have preserved here in case it is edited or deleted from TalkLeft:
Interesting that the comment from jondee, which appeared to advocate the bombing of President Bush, was not edited — but several subsequent posts from right-wingers were deleted simply for expressing right-wing viewpoints.
We’ll see if this ends up being “edited for language.”
She’s a hack. Atrios without the fuckin’ swear words. What more is there to say?
Comment by Xrlq — 11/17/2004 @ 8:39 pm
If you’re gonna bitch about her, then bitch about her liberal views. Don’t bitch about her comment policy. On my weblog I have an extremely liberal policy - I even allow people to threaten to kill me, but that’s not for everybody. A lot of people have comment policies I may not agree with, including the good Reverend. And I don’t believe you should bitch about her just because she might censor what you say on her website. I mean, after all, it is her website.
Comment by John Hays — 11/17/2004 @ 11:34 pm
I’m bitching about apparent hypocrisy. She claimed to be intolerant of language on her site referencing Bush’s assassination, and deleted it, when that language was used by right-wingers like me to show that one of her posts was deceptive. Here, there is language on her site calling for Bush’s assassination, but it’s from a leftist — so it remains while other subsequent comments from right-wingers are edited.
Can’t you see that this looks very hypocritical?
Again, maybe she missed this language, although the evidence is to the contrary. If so, I hope she deletes it, and starts looking as carefully at her wacky leftist commenters as she does at those on the right.
Comment by Patterico — 11/18/2004 @ 6:33 am
Actually, I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with bitching about a comment policy when it’s a stupid and hypocritical one. Unless she states that all viewpoints she doesn’t like will be edited into incomprehensibility, she’s wildly exercising censorship of the opinions of others. To me, that just seems to be in direct opposition of what having a blog that allows commentary is about. If you’re not going to allow dissenting opinions, then all you’re basically doing is having a public circle jerk with all your like minded buddies.
Sad, sad, sad.
Comment by Katsu — 11/18/2004 @ 9:42 am
I have to agree with Katsu on this one…the website is turning into an echo chamber of inbred
ideas…no disagreement, no discourse…typical of many MANY leftist states, as a matter of fact..claim to be open minded…then stifle or remove the competing voices..and facts…who needs your STEENKING facts?…your PARTY affiliation is of greater impotance than anything like truth…right?
Comment by eric — 11/18/2004 @ 8:54 pm
Patterico,
Jondee’s comment is still up as of Nov. 27, 2004, unmolested.
We need ONE post on the Presidential assassination posts issue that brings everything together, with links to each incident, transciptions, and even screenshots for key posts. If you can find TalkLeft mission statements, posts, etc. talking about the importance of rights, etc. then that’s even better as a juxtaposition.
When we have that, it’s time to shine a much brighter light on TalkLeft via WSJ and other media. If you give us the post to send people to, and let us know, we’ll take it from there.
Comment by Joe Katzman — 11/26/2004 @ 10:59 pm
I don’t know, Joe. My initial reaction is to leave it where it lies. But I’ll e-mail you about it.
Comment by Patterico — 11/27/2004 @ 6:48 am
Jondee’s comment wasn’t just “unmolested,” it was followed up with a second comment repeating his/her/its calls for “karma” against GWB. Then Jeralyn shut down the comments because - you guessed it - some right wingers posted more than four comments in a single day. OTOH, Jondee limit his/her/its death threats to two.
Comment by Xrlq — 11/28/2004 @ 10:31 am
[...] ier noses in the gore. Reap what you sow. I hope the next McVeigh gets the address right. TalkLeft was aware of that comment – she edited other commen [...]
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