Some of you may be aware that veteran, regular Dkos contributor
DHinMI has been making rather harsh statements on DKos lately about Justin Raimondo and his generally well-regarded site,
Antiwar.com. In comments and diaries, DHinMI has been claiming Antiwar.com to be a
hard right, anti-Semitic website, and an
illegitimate news and commentary source. Furthermore DHinMI has repeatedly accused the site's owner, Raimondo, and by extension, most of the commentators who post on Antiwar.com, as being anti-Semites, "buchananites" and mass-murderer/Milosevic-lovers, in so many words.
Some
examples:
Antiwar.com (3.33 / 3)
You do realize, I hope, that a lot of the people whose stuff is posted on antiwar.com are rightwing cranks, and quite a few of them are or at least flirt with anti-semitism. Raimondo is an unreconstructed Buchananite, and Wanninski was one of Ronald Reagan's favorite "thinkers." These guys are often coming from a place anyone on the left should want no part of.
Unlike some folks, I don't always believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Sometimes it's just a different enemy.
The revolution will not be televised, but we'll analyze it to death at The Next Hurrah.
by DHinMI on Sat Jul 9th, 2005 at 09:05:33 EST
And this:
Fine (none / 1)
Obviously you don't know who Jude Wanninski is. And apparently you're not troubled that Raimondo's motives may be less than pure.
They post some anti-Semetic nutball crap at that site.
The revolution will not be televised, but we'll analyze it to death at The Next Hurrah.
by DHinMI on Sat Jul 9th, 2005 at 09:19:20 EST
And this rather intemperate (to say the least) partial comment,.
Need proof?
How about Raimondo's "The Jews Knew About London Just Like They Knew About 9-11" Bullshit?
Cite a fucking blatant anti-Semite, and you're going to get called on it. If you can't find somebody who's not an anti-Semite or who doesn't knowingly associate with anti-Semites, and maybe your theories don't have much support...from those who aren't anti-Semites or who are unbothered by the anti-Semitic motives behind the theories they're latching on to.
The revolution will not be televised, but we'll analyze it to death at The Next Hurrah.
by DHinMI on Sat Jul 9th, 2005 at 10:15:54 EST
Sometime later DHinMI followed up with a substantial diary, Antiwar.com Is NOT a Legitimate Source, in which he repeated and elaborated upon many of his earlier statements above, apparently with the intent to further discredit antiwar.com and and drive the stake deeper into Justin Raimondo's character and credibility.
In the interests of full disclosure, I stated at the time I thought this behavior as inappropriate, coming from anyone posting on DKos, much less a senior DKos contributor, and I again said as much recently.
Ignoring DHinMI's exhortations against the `illegimate and antisemitic' site, yesterday I went to check out Antiwar.com as usual, and saw to my surprise an Antiwar.com Blog entry that directly responded to DHinMI's " anti-semite", radical-right wing, and Milosevic-lover accusations.
Raimondo began by giving further references to justify statements and bases from his earlier essay that DHinMI had characterized and attacked in this way: How about Raimondo's "The Jews Knew About London Just Like They Knew About 9-11" Bullshit?
Raimondo then followed up with passages specifically addressing DHinMI's "Antiwar.com Is NOT a Legitimate Source" diary on dailykos.com. Here they are:
My own column drawing on these sources drew fire, not only from the usual suspects, but also from dailykos.com, the Democratic party website spawned by the Dean campaign. "Antiwar.com is not a legitimate source," * declared one poster.
This from a website that headlined "Did BushCo Tip Off London Bombers?"!
An author who goes by the *name "DHinMI"
manufactured a quote, purportedly from me, that was nothing more than a crude fabrication: it had quote marks around it, as if I had written it, when in reality I had written no such thing. DhinMI's point: that to even suggest that Netanyahu had advance notice of the London bombings is so obviously an "anti-Semitic conspiracy theory" that no discussion is required, regardless of what the Associated Press reports.
The Kossacks, as they call themselves, are trying to clean their act up so that they can be more closely associated with the Democratic party apparatus. (I don't know if I buy that. I've detected no significant let-up in the level of embarrassingly immature profane language being used by DKos role models. But perhaps Raimondo is referring to the recent purge of conspiracy theory diaries, diarists and recommenders, in which Kos "made a mass banning of people perpetuating a series of bizarre, off-the-wall, unsupported and frankly embarassing conspiracy theories" -shumard). However, why limit themselves to condemning my column: why not condemn AP as an "illegitimate source" for publishing the news of Netanyahu's foreknowledge to begin with? And while they're at it, they need to add a few more media source to the list, including some of the Israeli media. Israel Insider cites Mossad chief Meir Dagan, in an interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag: ...
In the remainder of the same Antiwar.com Blog entry, Raimondo also responds to another DHinMI accusation that Antiwar.com is essentially a mass-murderer-coddling, Milosevic-loving website:
I might add that some of the DailyKos folks are shocked - shocked! - that Antiwar.com opposed the Kosovo war. We, in turn, are shocked at the hypocrisy of those who support a war of aggression against a country, Yugoslavia, that had never attacked us, and that was never sanctioned by the United Nations. They only oppose wars started by Republicans: we at Antiwar.com, on the other hand, oppose all wars of aggression, regardless of the partisan affiliation of those in power at the time.
So, fellow Kossacks, what do you think? I am not here to defend Antiwar.com, its owner, or its many highly respected [or not] contributors. The point of this diary is to ask if it is appropriate for a prominent senior (emeritus front-pager, iirc) DKos contributor to be allowed to repeatedly make clearly visceral, and arguably "bat-shit crazy" accusations and aspersions against a generally well-regarded/respectable antiwar and anti-republican/neocon news and commentary site.
One thing is clear: Dkos is definitely attracting major attention, and having an measurable impact in the Blogosphere and beyond. But is this the kind of attention we wish to be drawing to the DKos community? That the upper echelon of DKos is populated by some contributors who are locked and loaded to spew `dirty anti-Semite' epithets at the drop of a hat in their diaries and comments?