Friday, March 24, 2006

The Angry Left at washingtonpost.com

[A hearty welcome to readers of Instapundit, Ed Driscoll and Captain's Quarters.]

The Washington Post hired young conservative blogger Ben Domenech for a very brief stint hosting a new in-house righty blog, "Red America." Then Domenech left under a cloud of plagiarism allegations (generally from his pre-blogging, print days). Technically, as the folks at the Post are taking pains to emphasize, Domenech's brief employ was with washingtonpost.com, a separate company from the Washington Post.

Domenech was urged to give up his position by bloggers from the left and right. Instapundit has a round-up full of links, including to Domenech's self-defense.

In the meantime, I skimmed through the comments on a post from washingtonpost.com's blog announcing Domenech's (then) forthcoming blog. Some of the comments were reminiscent of my prior forays into the thoughts of the Angry Left at Atrios. But this time the posters were not on a far-left blog, but on washingtonpost.com--I mean, c'mon!

I've chosen some direct quotes and placed them in four broad categories. You'll notice some themes emerging.

Theme 1: Domenech is a bad guy/Nazi/fascist:
  • Your "Red America" is only a Right Wing Hackery (RWH), and it is only a pure Nazi-like Propaganda Machine.
  • you guys bring in a snot nosed little Hitler to add comment.
  • with his cockamammy regurgitated fascist mantras.
  • Your new blogger... lied and said that his right-wing sicko ilk is...
  • With fascists behind the scenes it will be that much more difficult to know what is real.
  • fascist propaganda
Theme 2: Conservatives are Nazis/fascists:
  • The more time goes on the more neocons resemble the early Nazi movement, although most of them are so illiterate I doubt if they would grasp the undertones of the allusion.
  • those who knowingly or unknowingly adhere to the principles of fascism.
  • right-wing, crypto-fascist hacks
  • Red Amerika, the land where fascism has found at last its true home. And the Washington Post ... gives these not quite yet humans a space to exhibit their excrement.
  • The inevitable descent into fascism has begun!
  • This country is skidding into fascism and now the Washington Post is going to distinguish itself by becoming a political tool...
  • Shame on you for caving in to the fascists.
  • Giving a Bush Inc. drone his own blog is not balance.... ; it is decreasing the already drastically reduced credibility of journalism in this country. Where lies are treated as truth, where facts are presented as opinion, where partisan agenda is given the weight of actual reporting, there is the work being done of those who are pushing journalism, government and the people of this country toward fascism.
  • Red * America?? This is it - the communits fascists _have_ taken over America!
Theme 3: Bush is a Nazi:
  • George Bush Jr.'s junta is today's equivalent of Hitler's Nazis, that my friend is not an opinion it is a fact.... George Bush Jr.'s junta is just as far on the road now that the Nazis were on in about 1933.
Theme 4: Bush looks like a chimp:
  • 51% voted against Chimperor GeeDub in '00.
  • the brain dead chimp in the whitehouse
Ah, the finest of American brain power at work, kicking around some intellectual ideas on the web site of our capitol city's paper of record.