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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

A Website Makes The Right Wing Go Higgledy-Piggledy

Sept 14th, 2011

As hard as it is to believe, a simple interactive website launched by the Obama re-election campaign has indeed caused an apoplectic conniption fit within the American Right.

Simply titled AttackWatch.com, the site is designed to allow supporters of the president to chime in about misinformation in the blogosphere, forward wacky e-mails from fringe types and generally complain about Fox. I guess.

In light of the fact that this president has been called a "secret Muslim" who is paving the way for the new "Caliphate" while dragging us towards Fascism or Nazism or Communism or Socialism or a gay-marriage paradise where Christians are put in chains while he melts down America's guns in a one-world plot with the U.N, it seems like a fairly rational tool to have put together. It also echoes an online device that then Senator Obama used in his first campaign when the "birther" movement began to coalesce.

Doug Mataconis, with whom I rarely altogether agree, put it very well earlier:

"This is politics. In fact, it’s smart politics. It isn’t the Gestapo and it’s not Big Brother. People ought to calm down, take a deep breath, and return to the task of that they are primarily concerned with, winning the election in 2012, rather than going into panic mode over something that is, in the end, much ado about nothing. It worked very well for Obama during the campaign, so it’s not at all surprising they would do it again.

It was smart politics then, and it’s smart politics now. Rather than complaining about it, Republicans ought to think about copying it, and welcoming themselves to the new world of Online Campaigning."


This view, it seems, is way too sober an assessment for some.

Michelle Malkin went completely bananas. She writes that it is a "snitch police" mechanism that seeks to "report all dissidents and enemies." These remarks are actually among her most rational. She hyperventilates with such gasping paranoia later that it becomes a marvel to read:

"Also note: AttackWatch is using cookies to track visitors and collect info.

They are watching us. Be sure they know that you are watching them!"


Not cookies?! The inhumanity! 

As Mataconis notes, Ed Morrisey and Matt Lewis seem to take a comparatively reasonable look at the thing. I mean, it's a website for crying out loud. However, the right wing's twits are tweeting like mad, the hangers on like Jim Hoft are roused from their bottom dwelling and we still have 6 whole more hours of "fair and balanced" over at Fox to look forward to. I suspect this is going to be a loooong evening

At least this non-story is more substantive than "paper clip-gate."

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