Redstate

Hang in there, Ben.

What the left is doing to you is no different than what they did to Reagan, W., Quayle, Ken Starr, Robert Bork, Cheney, Tony Scalia, Sam Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Bill Bennett, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and many other stalwarts.

They hate it when conservatives succeed.

They are unsuccessful people by nature and the only success that they can ever enjoy is tearing down good people.

Cunningham and Abrhamoff, that is.

If they befriended you, would you continue to speak gloriously of them?

Than to be a friendless loser wasting our time.

Now you don't even have that anymore.

...I've been a loyal RedState poster for a good six months.  A quick check of my past posts (2006 predictions notwithstanding) will show me to be pretty solidly right of center on most issues.

"The truth is, no conservative could write for the Post without being subject to the gauntlet of the liberal attack machine. There is no question in my mind that any RedState contributor writing for this blog would have found leftists delving through his high school yearbooks and grade school book reports in an effort to discredit and defame him. And if you too were a sloppy teenage writer, your errors or

the errors of others would've been exploded."

I don't buy this defense.  If Ben was really a teenager when these bylines occured, then he should produce his birth cert along with proof of the date of publication.  If you were under 20 when you wrote this, and you stuck to your guns, all of this would have blown over.

This leads me to two conclusions: either he is a liar or he is a pussy who runs away at the first sign of attack from the left.  For his sake, I hope it's the former.

Thanks to his duplicate comment elsewhere.

I used that line here last week. You need to resign! ;-)

So you're plagiarizing me.  Or we both are plagiarizing me...dang.  Guess we're both toast.  

;)

Or maybe great minds just think alike.

but I had the thought a year ago, the intellectual property is mine ;-]

What are the odds?  Or is it just that we're getting the same daily Rove-o-gram via our dental fillings?

:))

today. I asked them why Ben D. was SUCH a threat to them. The place was in a frenzy over this! Both times I asked the very simple question my post was erased within five minutes. The wackos at DK don't put up with ANY deviation from the leftist line.

having just popped back to RedState after months away (for, I admit, reasons of schadenfreude), I have to say I don't see a whole lot of difference in the way dissenters are treated at dKos and RS -- except that at dKos only your comment disappears, not your account.  And even then, it doesn't actually disappear to a majority of users anyway.

I don't particularly like the idea of squashing anybody's statements for reasons of content (although I do appreciate the no profanity rule here).  I will say that I make a habit of dissenting at dKos (including advocating the candidacy of the Republican in the last mayoral race here in New York and posting a comment just today in favor of the clubbing baby seals) and have never been threatened with banning or had a comment suppressed.  Indeed, the only actual instances of banning that I know about there were for genuine nutball lefty positions, such as suggesting that the Bush Administration playing an active roll in the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Anyway, I thought I might attempt to answer your question here, since I assume you can't see the answers there at dKos.  I didn't see your original post, but if you want to tell me the account name under which you posted it, I'll copy the answers back over here (or at least, what's left of them after removing the curse words).

So here goes -- imagine this situation:

Some dispute breaks out over a column written at a major newspaper by some writer with an arguable conservative tilt -- say Carl Bernstein.  As a result, the newspaper decides to "balance" his long term presence there by also hiring a twenty-four year old Democratic political operative recently off the Kerry campaign without a college degree -- let's say an even younger version of Markos Zuniga (sorry if I spelled the last name wrong).

Now, I don't think the presence of someone like that would hurt you guys too much -- just as the presence of someone like Augustine (I've never read any of his material other than that published here, so I'll refer to him that way), wouldn't really affect public opinion one way or the other.

The "threat" (or "problem", as I imagine might be characterized by others) is not from the person per se, but rather from the idea that

1. The original columnist, a professional journalist who may have a slight tilt in the liberal direction to his writing, somehow counts as a liberal propagandist and
   
2. That the "other guys" (that is, you guys) are able to place an actual political operative as a journalist at a newspaper.

I realize you may not agree with the characterization of Augustine as a political operative, but surely you will realize that that's how he's seen (and for my part, I think it's not inaccurate).

As for the reaction, I can't really see the any daylight between even the nastiest reaction described here (which I didn't see at dKos, although admittedly I only read one or two diaries on this subject) and the kind of vitriol issuing routinely from right wing pundits and also from the proprietors and commentators on this site.

As an example, I think we can agree that one of the worst charges you can level against someone is that of disloyalty to one's country.  And yet that very charge is built into the discourse here at RedState.  Indeed, in one of his last statements here (the first I saw when I came back), Augustine posted "To my enemies: I take enormous solace in the fact that you spent this week bashing me, instead of America."

But of course, any reasonable person would recognize that, agree or disagree, the folks at dKos are no less certain that they're acting to improve America than the folks here at RedState.

        To me it's just a simple question of honesty. Ben D. never (as far as I know) claimed to be an unbiased reporter of the news. It seems he's always been honest about his political affiliation.

        Not so with the Washington Post or ANY of the largest mainstream publications. They are decidedly leftist and they all deny it. So does the left. This whole sorry episode only served to expose how pathetic the lie was in my humble opinion.

        When the Post gave Ben a blog in a feeble attempt at evenhandedness the political left ERUPTED at the intrusion on their turf!

        The plagerism issue only came later. It was a legitimate for sure, but not the original problem.

       I'm glad that the charge bothers you and other leftists. That means that all is not totally lost.

       Like it or not Larry, today's left is as disloyal to our country as ever. It's a fact. Many conservatives are convinced that most leftists would say or do ANYTHING to get their political power back. This attitude isn't something grasped from the ether. Many prominent leftists have TOTALLY ignored the old dictum that all politics stops at the borders. Clinton and Carter are exhibit one. They have been undoubtedly the most pathetic and damaging ex-Presidents in our history! They have both made common cause with the enemies of freedom and America. This is also undeniable.

       I'm glad that the idea of being labeled "disloyal" bothers you, that's a positive. I have stopped short of calling most leftists traitors since that seems like a legally charged term. Disloyal will do.

       I have a question for any leftist brave enough to answer. If you were to announce to the world your opposition and hatred of America, how would you change what you are saying right now? What would you say differently?