My Excellent Adventure With Rep. Cantor
This morning, Atrios put up a post on Congressman Cantor (you'll have to scroll down the page). He linked both to the congressman's blog, which contained a vile screed against House Speaker Pelosi's recent visit to Syria and to a Think Progress post on that vile screed.
I was sufficiently appalled that I posted a comment on Rep. Cantor's vile screed. Here is what I posted:
Mr. Cantor,
I assume, given your passionate call for pressure being brought against House Speaker Pelosi for meeting with President Bashir Assad of Syrian, that you will also be calling for the same pressure to brought against Rep. Issa of California for doing the same.
Is that right?
The congressman's blog initially noted my post with the announcement that it would be moderated. While we don't moderate comments here (it takes too much time and we don't get many visitors, much less commenters), I really don't have any objection to moderating comments. People ought to be able to run their blogs with that tool, especially since some commenters do such slimy things as post home addresses and telephone numbers of bloggers.
I didn't have to wait too long: my comment was posted, with my name attached, only now it read as follows:
I applaud your passionate call for pressure being brought against House Speaker Pelosi for meeting with President Bashir Assad of Syrian and hope you will do the same to the Republicans on the trip.
Some moderation, eh?
I wasn't the only one sucker punched like this. If you click on the Atrios link and on the Think Progress link and scroll down into the comments, you will find that several others had their comments altered.
Because Atrios had also posted the telephone numbers to Rep. Cantor's offices, I called the DC office and complained quite bitterly about this outrage. I also threatened to complain to the blog's ISP, with a copy of that complaint going to House Speaker Pelosi. The man I spoke to (who was initially skeptical until I started with the threats) promised to look into it and call me back.
I haven't received that phone call, but, in checking further, I discovered that the post attributed to me at 11:17 had been removed. I guess the blogmeister didn't keep a copy of my original post, so it didn't replace the offending one. Still, at least my name was no longer appended to the one that applauded Mr. Cantor on his stance on the issue.
I'm still steamed, however. The same right wingers who complain that lefty bloggers are uncivil and destroy rational discourse have no problem when one of their own engages in such dishonorable and unethical behavior.
And the offender is a US Congressman. Actions like that could give Republican congressmen a bad name, know what I mean?
I was sufficiently appalled that I posted a comment on Rep. Cantor's vile screed. Here is what I posted:
Mr. Cantor,
I assume, given your passionate call for pressure being brought against House Speaker Pelosi for meeting with President Bashir Assad of Syrian, that you will also be calling for the same pressure to brought against Rep. Issa of California for doing the same.
Is that right?
The congressman's blog initially noted my post with the announcement that it would be moderated. While we don't moderate comments here (it takes too much time and we don't get many visitors, much less commenters), I really don't have any objection to moderating comments. People ought to be able to run their blogs with that tool, especially since some commenters do such slimy things as post home addresses and telephone numbers of bloggers.
I didn't have to wait too long: my comment was posted, with my name attached, only now it read as follows:
I applaud your passionate call for pressure being brought against House Speaker Pelosi for meeting with President Bashir Assad of Syrian and hope you will do the same to the Republicans on the trip.
Some moderation, eh?
I wasn't the only one sucker punched like this. If you click on the Atrios link and on the Think Progress link and scroll down into the comments, you will find that several others had their comments altered.
Because Atrios had also posted the telephone numbers to Rep. Cantor's offices, I called the DC office and complained quite bitterly about this outrage. I also threatened to complain to the blog's ISP, with a copy of that complaint going to House Speaker Pelosi. The man I spoke to (who was initially skeptical until I started with the threats) promised to look into it and call me back.
I haven't received that phone call, but, in checking further, I discovered that the post attributed to me at 11:17 had been removed. I guess the blogmeister didn't keep a copy of my original post, so it didn't replace the offending one. Still, at least my name was no longer appended to the one that applauded Mr. Cantor on his stance on the issue.
I'm still steamed, however. The same right wingers who complain that lefty bloggers are uncivil and destroy rational discourse have no problem when one of their own engages in such dishonorable and unethical behavior.
And the offender is a US Congressman. Actions like that could give Republican congressmen a bad name, know what I mean?
Labels: Dirty Tricks, Disinformation, Ethics
posted by Diane at 3:19 PM
2 Comments:
people in the sun managed to get screenshots of his post in both "waiting to be moderated" and final form. and i noticed some other posts that were subsequently removed - no mention of the problem or apology, of course.
cantor should have his intertubes turned off for this, he obviously does not know how to use them.
And the offender is a US Congressman. Actions like that could give Republican congressmen a bad name, know what I mean?
I'm sure it was just a rogue bad-apple staffer.
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