If you haven't spent the last month under a rock in a cave in an undisclosed location, then you're well aware of Bill O'Reilly's recent vendetta against Daily Kos. From mere insults to false accusations to outright slander, Bill-O has been throwing everything he's got against our community in a nationally-televised hissy-fit.
Ol' Loofah-boy can't seem to distinguish between front-page stories, diaries, and troll comments--calling DKos a "hate site" while citing hidden comments (perhaps we should call them "banished comments"?) written by trolls to back up his false assertions. Recently Kos decided to illustrate the absurdity of the whole situation by referencing a statement by a troll on the Maine Web Report and linking it to Senator Susan Collins in the same ridiculous manner that O'Reilly has been insinuating that troll posts on Kos represent the voice of Markos himself.
How did the denizens of the Free Republic react to this turnabout? Put on your biohazard suits and follow me below the fold for a guided tour.
Now, from time to time, I (for reasons unknown) take it upon myself to slog through the sewers of the internet to see how we, the Daily Kos Community, are viewed in the vitriol-filled world of Freeperland. So, how did the freepers react to Kos's turnabout? The answer, in short, is "not well". Though the majority of freepers seemed to have little or no problem with Mr. Falafel calling Daily Kos a hate site, when one of their readers pointed out Kos's front page entry regarding Senator Collins, it was suddenly a different story. Attributing troll posts to the Daily Kos community at large was fine, but when Kos does the same thing? Suddenly the freepers indignantly declared: "Kos Falsely Smears GOP Senator With Leftist Troll's Words", claiming that:
...the far left has always specialized in false moral equivalence
False moral equivalence, huh? Not unexpectedly, none of the freepers was able to demonstrate the falsity. Instead, they offered a veritable buffet of debate fallicies:
Appeal to authority, Red Herrings, and Strawmen (oh my!):
As NewsBusters pointed out earlier, left-wing blogs and their commenters are much more likely to use profanity than conservative blogs.
Ad Hominem:
It should be called Daily Qos in FReeper lore. Q not followed by U is usually NUTS
Appeal to Soviet Russia:
...the left immediately attacks the moderate to right as guilty of [the same action] and demands that it be stopped.
Leninism?
Not to mention a complete failure to understand the Daily Kos diary vs. frontpage vs. comments system, where almost any user is free to post a diary if they so desire:
On the other hand, the comment on the Kos hate site about ... Sen. Lieberman was posted by a person with a regular diary, Sharon Jumper, not some drive by troll as was the case here.
In short, it's all fun and games for Billy McLoofah to smear Daily Kos up one side and down the other using troll remarks, but if we do the same thing, even noting, as Kos did, that "this is a ridiculous game, but if they insist on playing it", suddenly some horrible crime has been committed. Props to Kos for picking up a couple of their lemons and winging them right back--even if they can't grasp the equivalence, there still seems to be comprehension there that attributing troll remarks to the owners of a blog is wrong.
And there was one bright spot in my trip through Freeperville, though, and that was this comment:
No way Susan Collins would talk like that, that sounds more like a FReeper.
Truer words were never spoken.