# Reeder's Official Bush-Bashing Thread
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [March 12, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987 "2004-03-12T23:54:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/101 "2004-03-14T16:10:11Z")
I never said it was universal, I just said that it was interesting that there is a lot more condemnation of Lynn’s move than there was of december’s banning, and it’s been by posters identifying themselves as liberal. December and Reeder are the same poster from opposite sides of the political fence, both post innane OPs usually based on someone else’s blog, and then can’t defend them very well, yet december’s banning was (mostly) hailed as a good thing, while some people are claiming that this move to limit reeder’s screed to one thread is unfair or censorship. Since the only real difference between the two posters is that one is a looney liberal and one was a crazy conservative, I find this dichotomy interesting.
Minty, one of the first posts decrying this move in this thread was from lissener. Now, are you trying to assert that lissener was fighting the good fight against december’s banning? Please. You’re reasonably intelegent, but when you post in a visceral response to your jerking knee, you usually sound like an idiot. Think about what you’re posting for more than 2 seconds and you wouldn’t say as many downright stupid things as you do.
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/102 "2004-03-14T16:31:53Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> I never said it was universal, I just said that it was interesting that there is a lot more condemnation of Lynn’s move than there was of december’s banning, and it’s been by posters identifying themselves as liberal. December and Reeder are the same poster from opposite sides of the political fence, both post innane OPs usually based on someone else’s blog, and then can’t defend them very well, yet december’s banning was (mostly) hailed as a good thing, while some people are claiming that this move to limit reeder’s screed to one thread is unfair or censorship. Since the only real difference between the two posters is that one is a looney liberal and one was a crazy conservative, I find this dichotomy interesting.
> .
selective memory now. **december** did indeed post many threads where he’d post some blog quote and defend it poorly, just as **Reeder**. His banning, however, was due to the thread where he posted a quote (in GD IIRC) attributing it to “The President” where it was more correctly attributed to “Former President Clinton” and admitted that he did it deliberately for reactions. AKA “trolling”.
So comparisons about how the one is treated vs. the other are inexact. They never tried this particular tactic with our winter friend. I would have applauded it then. As I do in this case.
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### Author:  [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/103 "2004-03-14T16:40:30Z")
> [@](#):
>
> His banning, however, was due to the thread where he posted a quote (in GD IIRC) attributing it to “The President” where it was more correctly attributed to “Former President Clinton” and admitted that he did it deliberately for reactions.
Actually, his quote was mostly from Hilary, who obviously was never president.
I recall defending December at the time (if that gives me any street cred with his followers), and if you pulled up the old threads you would probably see me saying he shouldn’t have been banned, but in retrospect it was the right choice. Not just for his deliberate misquoting, but for how he responded when he was called on it.
As for Reeder, I don’t know that he has done anything of that sort. I also haven’t noticed him flooding the forum, but I think it is fine to limit the number of threads he can create on the subject.
However, making an “official thread” strikes me as a poor joke, rather than an honest attempt at a solution.
Why not just say he can only start one thread on Bush per week?
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/104 "2004-03-14T16:48:28Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> there is a lot more condemnation of Lynn’s move than there was of december’s banning
Here it is months later, and you’re _still_ bitching about it.
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### Author:  [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/105 "2004-03-14T16:52:21Z")
> [@wring](#):
>
> His banning, however, was due to the thread where he posted a quote (in GD IIRC) attributing it to “The President” where it was more correctly attributed to “Former President Clinton” and admitted that he did it deliberately for reactions. AKA “trolling”.
I remember well. I personally thought that this was grabbed as an excuse, a technicality, just to ban him. The rule, as it was stated when it was issued, was that you can’t misquote another poster to misrepresent what they had said. It was expanded to include “misquoting” (Which I still don’t think he was doing, he was making a point-and a good one-lots of people react not to what is said but rather to who is saying it,) anyone to be the final solution to the “december problem”. I seriously doubt that you, for example, or (pulling names out of a hat) Ex-Tank, or AirmanDoors, or me or minty would have been banned for the same offence, but he was skating on thin ice anyway. He’d used up any goodwill that he may have had and was thus banned at the hint of misdoing. When one has a reputation as a “troublemaker”, one is going to get a lot less slack, we’ve seen THAT time and again.
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### Author:  [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/106 "2004-03-14T16:54:15Z")
> [@Squink](#):
>
> Here it is months later, and you’re _still_ bitching about it.
Care to back up that statement with any cites? Other than this thread, which is dealing with a similar situation (which is why it came up, duh), can you offer any cites for my “bitching about it” in the last few months?
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### Author:  [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/107 "2004-03-14T17:02:50Z")
**Weirddave** , you’re invoking the law of equal complaining, which is invalid. No-one around here is obligated to complain even-handedly about supposed ill-treatment of other posters. Or any other issue for that matter.
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### Author:  [@fruitbat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fruitbat)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/108 "2004-03-14T17:35:54Z")
**Lynn** I think we are all aware that **Reeder** is a pain in the ass. That being said, couldn’t you just pit him honestly? Saying that this thread is for his Bush screeds is disingenuous. It was a well deserved pitting disguised as a moderator warning.
Your goals, were they to curb **Reeder’s** obsession, could have been accomplished much more privately and quietly than this. Of course, even as I am writing this I’m having trouble feeling bad for the wanker.
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### Author:  [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/109 "2004-03-14T17:49:21Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> Minty, one of the first posts decrying this move in this thread was from lissener. Now, are you trying to assert that lissener was fighting the good fight against december’s banning? Please.
Very nice. Have you been taking moving target lessons from Scylla? Your bullshit december-martyrdom claim, if you recall, was not about lissener’s alleged personal hypocrisy. Observe your own words in this very thread (bolding mine):
> [@](#):
>
> Heh. I love how **many** of the same voices that were crowing over december being banned over nothing are now crying foul.
**lissener** =“many”? Nope, just you pulling crap out of your ass.
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### Author:  [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/110 "2004-03-14T17:55:05Z")
I take it back, you’re just an ass. I refuse to get involved in your “ignore the substance of the posts, argue incessantly about semantics and minutia” tactics. Honestly, try this: say “I was wrong” See? That didn’t hurt a bit, and you’ve made your frist step down the road to maturity, one day you’ll be a grown up!
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### Author:  [@county](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/county)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/111 "2004-03-14T18:49:18Z")
> [@Nightime](#):
>
> However, making an “official thread” strikes me as a poor joke, rather than an honest attempt at a solution.
Concur with the “poor joke” but wonder just what a “solution” would be. I do not agree that there is a problem, at least I haven’t seen it. (Opinion based on the quality of some of those “first page” threads that need protecting.)
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/112 "2004-03-14T21:53:49Z")
> [@](#):
>
> No-one around here is obligated to complain even-handedly about supposed ill-treatment of other posters.
True. However, it does make them look petty.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2004, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/113 "2004-03-14T22:31:31Z")
Late to this party, but i thought i’d throw in my 2c.
I agree with those who think that this thread was rather badly thought out. If **Lynn** was going to start a thread like this, asking **Reeder** to “confine [his] complaints about Bush to this one thread,” then she should also have made it clear to other Dopers that the thread should not be hijacked with discussions over the merits of its very existence.
Because now, if **Reeder** wants to start any discussion about Bush, the only place for him to do it is in this thread. And this thread is so devoted to discussing the merits of the thread itself that no-one is ever going to be able to hold a discussion about the President here.
Another thing that demonstrates how little real thought went into this thread is the apparent contradiction in the OP itself, to wit:
> [@](#):
>
> Reeder, from now on, please confine your complaints about Bush to this one thread. You may have ONE open thread about Bush in the BBQ Pit on the front page at a time.
Does this mean that if _this_ thread drops off the front page, **Reeder** can start another one? And what happens then if someone bumps this thread back to the top? Does **Reeder** then get blamed for someone else’s actions?
I have no problem with consolidation of similar threads, or warnings about being a one-trick pony, and i think that **Reeder** could usefully become more focused in his posting about Bush, rather than going for the scattergun approach. But the way this was done is silly and unproductive.
Note for **Weirddave** and others who are alleging hypocrisy among leftists/liberals over the **december** issue: if you check my posts around that time you’ll find that i was opposed to his banning.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/114 "2004-03-15T01:33:56Z")
> [@Dewey Cheatem Undhow](#):
>
> No, it’s because he’s fond of starting non-substantive threads that basically say nothing but “Bush is a poopyhead” without providing any meaningful material for discussion. It’s the utter lack of substance in **Reeder** ’s posts, and their annoying frequency, that’s the caused this thread.
## Ok, permit me to test this hypothesis. Your post was number “65”: I will evaluate the 5th and 6th threads listed in the reference list **Metacom** kindly provided.
Ok, I strongly disagree with #5, which asked, “Why has the White House stonewalled the 9/11 investigation? And why are they against extending it?
Quote:
THE WHITE House doesn’t want to give the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the 60 more days that it says it needs to finish its report.”, followed by a [link](http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/7822324.htm).
## It seems to me that is a fair question. It seems to me that it is factually substantiated by a link to the Philadelphia Daily News. (Ok, admittedly the latter was an opinion piece.)
Going on to number 6:
In the next post, Reeder complains that Bush has set aside $150 billion for Iraq, $1.2 billion for “happy marriages” and only $120 million for job programs.
## He then provides a CNN [link](http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/19/sotu.advance.ap/index.html), whose headline reads, “Bush to unveil workforce training program”. I hardly think that CNN is a partisan website, and I question the perceptions of those who do. Furthermore, it seems fair to discuss the nuts and bolts of Bush’s economic policy.
IMHO, Dewey’s characterization is off-base, at least insofar as these 2 examples are concerned.
## I myself read very few of Reeder’s posts, as it happens. I guess I can see how his tone can be somewhat repetitive. Still, these 2 examples were both substantive and substantiated: I disagree with **DC&H**.
I explicitly leave aside the issue of whether disparate threads should be linked together by “tone” (& poster), as opposed to topic. I agree that the 2 threads that I linked to were anti-Bush. The underlying topics, however, seem very different to me. Still, I stress that this post addresses DCU’s point, and not the underlying board policy.
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### Author:  [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/115 "2004-03-15T01:36:14Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Concur with the “poor joke” but wonder just what a “solution” would be.
I think the best solution would be to just limit how many threads about bush Reeder can start per week.
I don’t know what a reasonable number would be, but it makes more sense to go by threads started per week (which Reeder can control) than threads on the front page (which he cannot necessarily control).
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2004, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/116 "2004-03-15T01:56:46Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> I never said it was universal, I just said that it was interesting that there is a lot more condemnation of Lynn’s move than there was of december’s banning, and it’s been by posters identifying themselves as liberal.
Can you cite that? I remember the reaction to **december** ’s banning being anything but universal, and the breakdown of responses not being at all predictable according to political affiliation. There were, from my memory of it, as many liberals opposed to his banning as there were conservatives in favor of it.
> [@](#):
>
> December and Reeder are the same poster from opposite sides of the political fence, both post innane OPs usually based on someone else’s blog, and then can’t defend them very well, yet december’s banning was (mostly) hailed as a good thing, while some people are claiming that this move to limit reeder’s screed to one thread is unfair or censorship.
But can you show that they’re the same people? You pegged **lissener** : that’s one, but he’s hardly the Liberal Archetype. If you’ve got specific posters you want to complain about, name some names. As a liberal, I’m more than a little uncomfortable with the idea that my reaction to any event is going to be judged on the basis of how **lissener** has previously reacted to a superficially similar event.
> [@](#):
>
> Since the only real difference between the two posters is that one is a looney liberal and one was a crazy conservative, I find this dichotomy interesting.
I find this dichotomy non-exsistant, although, as always, I’m open to evidence to the contrary. Do you have any?
For the record, I was glad to see **december** banned, and I’m vastly amused by the administrative smack-down **Reeder** has taken in this thread. This liberal, at least, is consistant, and I don’t think I’m exceptional in that regard.
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### Author:  [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/117 "2004-03-15T02:03:24Z")
Another liberal checking in. Did not like december being banned and think this is wrong but funny. For the record:
Did like Wildest Bill getting banned. Didn’t like Collounsbury being banned. Wouldn’t like it if Reeder got banned.
Hey, this liberal really is showing a pattern!
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/118 "2004-03-15T02:05:05Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#):
>
> IMHO, Dewey’s characterization is off-base, at least insofar as these 2 examples are concerned.
>
> I myself read very few of Reeder’s posts, as it happens. I guess I can see how his tone can be somewhat repetitive. Still, these 2 examples were both substantive and substantiated: I disagree with **DC&H**.
I’m not going to get into a post-by-post pissing contest with you. Suffice it to say that [this is the quintessential **Reeder** post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=223488), and I stand by my earlier characterization of same.
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### Author:  [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2004, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/119 "2004-03-15T02:09:44Z")
> [@Biggirl](#):
>
> Another liberal checking in. Did not like december being banned and think this is wrong but funny. For the record:
> Did like Wildest Bill getting banned. Didn’t like Collounsbury being banned. Wouldn’t like it if Reeder got banned.
>
> Hey, this liberal really is showing a pattern!
That should be **Didn’t** like Wildest Bill getting banned.
Although I understand why each of them got (themselves) banned, I just don’t like anyone besides trolls, spammers and unsavories being banned.
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### Author:  [@county](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/county)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/120 "2004-03-15T02:17:17Z")
> [@Biggirl](#):
>
> That should be **Didn’t** like Wildest Bill getting banned.
> Although I understand why each of them got (themselves) banned, I just don’t like anyone besides trolls, spammers and unsavories being banned.
Well, if that is all you ban then the mod’s job descriptions are going to need to be rewritten. IMO.
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