There isn’t a lot of thinking going on. It’s a lot of cut-and-paste from right wing blogs and regurgitation of what was heard from Rush or Sean Hannity. How else would they know of all these “associations”? Hell, I’m on the left and I’ve never seen Michael Moore’s website, nor do I have any need to. I didn’t even know he had one.
Y’know, the Women’s main purpose seems to be to smear Bush for getting us into this war and letting her son die.
There is no shortage of smears on either side, though if this thread is evidence the the left-wings smearers far outnumber the right wing smearers in numbers and smears.
I’m tempted to do a smear count on this thread, and I’d bet that smears by the left vastly outnumber those by the right.
So whine not to me of the right-wing smear machine which is at best a Ford Pinto compared to the hulking Hummer of the left-wing smear machine.
You’re all a bunch of hypocrites.
Fortunately, I stand above all of you, chaste and impartial, and unwilling to lower my self to your disgusting penchant for derogatory behavior.
Considering the Left Wing Media completely controls all your actions it’s a wonder they don’t make you check in for instructions more frequently…
-Joe
are you suggesting that the traditional clamor from the posters on the right here about it being such a vast left leaning board isn’t true? Surely (and I can call you that, can’t I?) , that would have to be the truth for your idea here that the ‘smearers on the left outnumbering those on the right in this thread’ being significant of anything on a national scale.
and I suspect that you’d also be aware of the difference between musings on a message board and some cable tv schmuck pontificating ad infinitum on the national airways, eh?
Now I see why you rely on Rush Limbaugh for your material. Original thought is not your strong suit, is it?
Of course you do Scylla. You always have. 
Sarcasm, dude. 
Typically, though, the righties try to make themselves feel better by not telling you you’re evil to your face. Instead, they point out that as a Librul you just don’t know any better.
You just need some educatin’.
-Joe
I didn’t question this at all.
Vile? You called Moore’s strategy vile? I’m not a Moore fan because he’s dishonest. I’m not sure he has enough impact on anything to be vile. The dishonesty coming from the White House and the consequences of that dishonesty certainly qualifies as vile.
PLease. She’s a mother and identifies with other parents whose** children** are in harms way. Fahrenheit 9/11 was far to dishonest for my taste but that doesn’t mean Moore had nothing to say. The comment to O’Reilly, {a waste of an interview} was about those who support the war sending their own kids. Our president for example, avoided combat when his fellow countrymen were risking their lives for the cause of freedom he professes to love.
Sure, and she may have been influenced by Moore and/or MoveOn. SO FUCKING WHAT? I point out that loads of others, including a remorseful republican congressman, have changed their position on the war and the president. That’s what information tends to do.
It could only be that if she didn’t actually lose a son in Iraq or if it was discovered that Moore was paying her some huge sum to do all this. That would discredit her in my eyes but not change the importance of the message. In one of the articles cited by Mr. Moto Sheehan says she wants less support from liberal groups and less attention on herself and more on the message.
It’s obvious that Rush, OReilly and others are trying to use any association with liberal organizations to take the attention off her message. “It’s just a political stunt” is an often used tactic to divert attention from the issues. But it’s not a stunt in the very real sense that other men and woman are dieing in Iraq on a regular basis and we as citizens have a right to ask why, over and over again and demand an answer.
Neither do I. But I’d ask the question, what possible difference does it make? Perhaps Sheehan likes Moore and thinks he’s completely right about everything and wanted to be on his site. I wouldn’t agree with her about Moore but that still doesn’t change the importance of the issue about lives being lost daily basis.
Moore and MoveOn are painted by the White House shills you seem to enjoy as dangerous left wing radicals completely out of touch with reality and the American public. If you buy into that BS then you’re only choosing which lie you prefer. Do you call that progress?
So the SDMB and Air America have more listeners than Fox and Rush? Doubt it.
Stateing the facts is not a smear. Twisting the facts and presenting an illogical conclusion as the only logical one is. You’re right. Both sides do it.
snort
Boy am I glad I wasn’t drinking anything then. You’d owe me a new keyboard.
Wait, what do you mean “that wasn’t meant to be a woosh”?
Am I missing out on the SDMB Radio Show? When’s it on? 
Are you suggesting that I was suggesting such a thing? I was merely observing the vast prevalence of liberal smears in this thread.
I don’t see the head of the Republican pulling a Howard Dean and talking about how he hates liberals and Democrats. I don’t see TV news anchors fabricating documents to falsely implicate Democrativ figures. No. I stand by thesis. The liberal smear machine is a Hummer to the Pubbie Pinto
Like say… Um… Dan Rather?
This can’t be for real. It’s got to be some type of hoax or parody. I don’t even think Michael Savage would make a charge like that. Then again, I didn’t think the whole “Kerry faked getting his medals” claim would be taken seriously beyond a few delusional hardcore right-wingers.
Still, if Rush did say this and does believe it, I wouldn’t be too harsh on him. It’s just the OxyContin talking (again).
Most of your post, Scylla is about Dan Rather and the piece he did that got him fired. Um early retired. are you really attempting to stack that against Hannity & Colms, Bill O’Reilly, the entire Fox galaxy of stars, Rush Limbaugh et al?
wrt the counting posts here etc. what other interpretation should I get from your post? you posted this
which merely should follow logically if we believe the standard SDMB right wing poster claim of the board being skewed hard to the left. Naturally one would expect far more posts from the left than the right here. why would one even bother to be tempted to ‘do a smear count’ unless one was attempting to link that thought to the next paragraph, to wit
ie the topic of this thread, that is the **national ** smear campaign.
IOW - if this board skews to the left, we’d expect to see more stuff from the left in a thread. the concept of the board ‘skewing to the left’ inherently contains the concept “as opposed to the nation at large”, does it not? So, talking about how many smear-left posts occur in this thread has no relation to the smear campaigns nationally.
Review: “small message board but lots of smear left posts” compaired to “nationally syndicated smear hard right news and ‘entertainment’ sources + one failed Dan Rather attempt”
I’d suggest the pinto is rather the small message board and the fleet of Hum-vees is O’Reilly et all.
“There is no shortage of smears on either side, though if this thread is evidence the the left-wings smearers far outnumber the right wing smearers in numbers and smears.”
-Scylla
Of course, the OP itself contains several smears, including:
“Bill O’Reilly and Matt Drudge and the other Bush-apologizing idiots”
“the hypocrisy, fraud, and venom in these folks’ hearts”
“right-wing nutjobs”
“pissing over the grieving parents back home”
that’s four “left-wing” smears right there.
then there’s a couple of mild Bush smears. Certainly on page 1 of this thread there is a preponderance of these “Left-wing” smears. But then a right wing smearer chimes in, Stephe96:
“the Michael Morons got ahold of her”
“The Left’s shameless explotation of this woman is sickening.”
“She’s an excuse for the Move-On idiots and the Michael Moore dopes to camp out and chant ‘Bush sucks’ all night long.”
“Michael Moore’s army of idiots”
“Kerry and Hillary felt compelled to send US troops into battle”
“Funny how she’s not blaming the enemy for killing her son.”
“this lunatic liberal whackjob”
“money for children and Alzheimer’s patients somehow winds up in the coffers of Air America?”
“I loved watching the Move-On idiots and the Michael Moore morons lose ‘the most important election of our lives.’”
quickly tipping the balance back to the right side.
then Scylla calls RedFury a “dipshit,” which causes an escalating “smear campaign,” which culminates in the bizarre spectacle - no, let me simply display the words.
First, RedFury to Scylla:
“Otherwise they wouldn’t have revised it, brainiac.”
“Just not locksteppin’, leave-your-brain-at-the-door, warmongering cumstains such as yourself.”
“You’re the prototype of imbecil that made Bush possible.”
“For a member of the 101st Keyboarders like you”
“Which reminds me, how many ragheads did you kill from your puter-chair today anway?”
“I’d do it, but not much into looking at assholes.”
There’s more, but finally, here is Scylla’s ultimate riposte to RedFury:
“You, know for a country that I think is leading the world history count for genocides and general bad behavior, you’d think you’d be a little more discreet about venturing opinions on adventurism.”
“Admit it, you really hate neocons because you associate them with Jews, correct?”
“Total fucking cowardice.”
“Fighting terrorists isn’t exactly the same as torturing jews, or systematically exterminating indigenous peoples. Not quite the Spanish cup of tea.”
Wow. Then, apparently to get us focused back on the matter at hand, we get Stephe96 again:
“I’m sure that the Cindy Sheehan protest is just the kind of ‘cause’ that gives these losers [Deadheads] an excuse to thumb a ride down to Crawford and sit in the dirt and sing protest songs to each other.”
“is she being supported by the Soros/Move-On whackjobs?”
“Is she taking money from Michael Moore, by any chance?”
“I’ll bet if those Deadhead hippie losers had jobs…they’d also vow not to pay any taxes!”
“Why doesn’t she simply admit she’s changed her mind once the Michael Morons and the Move-On idiots got ahold of her?”
Well, rather than take up any more space, let me just say that I have counted the smears in this thread, and I counted 52 right-wing smears to 47 left-wing smears. Pretty balanced, actually.
There are some more left-wing smears, such as:
I love how those on the right have come to believe that Dan Rather personally forged those documents. Keep drinking that koolaid!
She’s clearly stepped over the line from activism into politics, and that makes her fair game. She’s being less than honest in saying she wants to meet with President Bush. All she wants to do is berate him and demand that he withdraw troops from Iraq. Even if all of that were to happen, she still wouldn’t be happy and would continue berating the President. She had her time, and chose to act respectfully, so she should live with that and move on.
She’s also made her political position clear and has chosen allies, now she should take it as well as she gives it. What’s wrong with that?
Oops, I didn’t notice that bottom bit, there. I can post others, if urged, but I doubt I will be.
One more thing, though. Early in this thread, Inigo Montoya posted this statement:
“She’s gonna get creamed as a grieving woman who has lost her mind and is to be pitied”
Later in the thread, we got these three posts:
“Let hysterical women dictate US foreign policy now?” - Stephe96
“I feel worse for her that she’s unable to find some kind of resolution or understanding of it that enables her her to find her own way through her grief.” - Scylla
“I pity her, and I hope she comes to find some kind of peace.” - Debaser
Oh, one more thing. Debaser keeps trying to let us know that CodePink is some kind of dangerous left-wing radical organization. Hee hee. That’s a good one. From the website:
http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?list=type&type=3
“We call on women around the world to rise up and oppose the war in Iraq. We call on mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters, on workers, students, teachers, healers, artists, writers, singers, poets and every ordinary outraged woman willing to be outrageous for peace. Women have been the guardians of life—not because we are better or purer or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied themselves making war. Because of our responsibility to the next generation, because of our own love for our families and communities and this country that we are a part of, we understand the love of a mother in Iraq for her children and the driving desire of that child for life”
Woah. Why, they’re practically commies!
Seems to me we might need a recount here:
Oh, touche, Scylla.
Sure, Ol’ Gunga Dan fabricated that whole story himself. Wrote it, forged the documents, took care of the lighting, ran the cameras, the whole nine yards.
He got duped, bought into a scam which happened to fit nicely with his political bent[sup]*[/sup]. He was not an objective journalist and it blew up in his face. CBS investigated, people were fired, CBS issued an apology and gave Dan the old heave-ho. In short, they said something that wasn’t true, were called on it and admitted their failures.
I can’t for the life of me see how you equate this single episode with “some cable tv schmuck pontificating ad infinitum on the national airways,” but that’s just me.
[sup]*[/sup] To be fair, I have no idea what Dan Rather’s political leanings are, but for argument’s sake, we’ll go with the current meme that he’s an arch-liberal because…well, because of this one episode, as far as I can tell