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The Man Who Guards Clinton's Wikipedia Entry
Timothy found a profile in The New Republic of Jonathan Schilling, a 53-year-old software developer from New Jersey who works to keep Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry clean and fair throughout the election season. "After he started editing her page in June 2005, Schilling became consumed with trying to capture her uncomfortable place in American culture, researching and writing a whole section on how she polarizes the public... [T]he attacks on Hillary's page mainly take the form of crude vandalism... It's different on Obama's page, where the fans — no surprise — are more enthusiastic, the haters are more intelligent, and the arguments reflect the fact that Obama himself is still a work under construction... The bitterness of the fights on Obama's page could be taken as a bad sign for the candidate. But it may actually be Hillary's page that contains the more troubling omens. Few, if any, Hillary defenders are standing watch besides Schilling. In recent days, the vaguely deserted air of a de-gentrifying neighborhood has settled over her page..."
Just make sure to keep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles in mind, Jonathan.
The problem with the mudslinging is that if you do not follow the process on a daily basis, you may hear about falsehoods spread, but do not hear when those falsehoods are proven to be wrong. The same goes for these small clips that are all over the place that can easily be taken out of context.
There really isn't a lot of press coverage for when baseless accusations are proven to be nothing, but there is a ton of coverage when those initial accusations are made.
Elections seem to be nothing but bitter slander now.
That's largely how they've been for most of the history of our republic. Try looking up some of the things that Alexander Hamilton said about Aaron Burr.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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:-(
And for those of you who can't be bothered to google for the Wiki entry
"Who guards the guardians".
I thought the whole point of Wikipedia was that is was essentially a public resource, where anyone could add to it. If the whole whing is moderated, who draws the line between "vandalism", and just something that might put the subject "in a bad light" (regardless of the factual accuracy of it).
So anyone looking for "real" opinion may as well stay away from Wikipedia, as it's being managed by some of the same spin-doctors who manage the actual campaigns (and we all know how unbiased they are)
That's not the fault of the First Amendment or of the U.S. political process. That's the partially the fault of the media's sensationalism and everybody's short attention spans. But there is press coverage when baseless allegations are proved false and, IMHO, the ultimate responsibility lies on the voters -- if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug*
My blog
Everywhere?
The opposite of progress is congress
Having browsed through the Hillary Clinton page today I can't help feeling that the article has been vacuumed clean of any real criticism against her. One thing is removing obvious vandalism, but has Schilling (or someone else) gone too far in removing any reasonable criticism of Hillary?
1. Where is the mention of her being criticised for taking lobbyist money?
2. Where is the mention of critisism for her "exaggerating" her own stories for dramatic effect?
These are just two issues I can list at the top of my head which are completely missing from the article. Instead there is ample reference to awards she has been given.
As far as I know, Schilling has no official authority at Wikipedia and at the moment just acts as a self-appointed dictator that spends so much time on it that he manages to keep it "clean". When this happens, it is only fair to question whether he actually has an overly censoring position with regards to this article.
Given that just about no one uses Middle English anymore, and that almost no one uses the term that way, the more current definition applies. This is just another example of the many words we use that effectively don't mean what they originally meant, just like the surname "Smith" doesn't mean you're a blacksmith.
Hey, it's nice to see somebody stand up and defend the guy. I'm a lil tired of seeing us use that quote too -- how is beating McCain to death over that quote any different from going after Gore for "inventing" the internet or swift-boating John Kerry? I do take issue with one thing you said though:
Typical of the leftWhy was that even necessary and what positive thing do you contribute to the conservation by taking that sort of swipe at "the left" (as if "the left" is one monolithic entity with a single agenda and battle-plan)? I think we'd all be a lot better off if the people on both sides of the political divide could at least respect each other and avoid taking those kinds of pot-shots at each other.
I didn't even finish the rest of your McCain rantI can't speak for the GP, but my rant about John McCain doesn't have much to do with Iraq. I disagree with him completely on Iraq but I can at least respect him for his viewpoint and acknowledge the fact that he was one of the few Republican voices that questioned the Administration on Iraq (he called for more troops long before the surge became fashionable). My rant with John McCain is how he effectively sold out his own positions to kiss the ass of the base in order to secure the nomination. He went from having the courage to stand up to the likes of Jerry Falwell to kissing his ass four years later. That cost him a lot of respect in my eyes -- he got some of it back by speaking out against torture, but still.....
I miss the John McCain from 2000. If that guy was running he'd have a decent shot at getting my vote. Hell, if that guy had won in 2000 I think we'd be a lot better off -- he wouldn't have made Afghanistan into a side-show while outsourcing the job of catching Osama to local warloads of questionable loyalty. He wouldn't have run his administration from the extreme far-right while further dividing this country. He wouldn't have cost us our creditability on human rights by torturing prisoners. He wouldn't have stopped talking about Osama until he was "dead or alive".
Karl Rove has done his country a lot of disservices in the last eight years -- but as far as I'm concerned his biggest disservice was using his gutter politics against John McCain in South Carolina's 2000 Republican Primary.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. - Churchill
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Go commit a felony and you'll see.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
And where did I say that I'll vote for John McCain?
and face the fact that your little tantrum is going to help destroy this country"My little tantrum"? That's the way to convince me that your point of view is the correct one. Did it occur to you that there's a bit more of a difference between Hillary and Obama then one calling the other one a 'poopy-head'? I see little difference between the tactics of HRC and those of George W. Bush. Hillary's entire campaign since Super Tuesday has consisted of FUD. Fear (who do you want answering the phone at 3AM?), uncertainty (he won't survive the Republican attack machine) and doubt (he hasn't been vetted). Her stated goal is to throw the "kitchen sink" at him and hopefully create enough doubt in the minds of the superdelegates that she can overturn the will of the voters.
The best part of it all is that she has no one to blame for it besides herself. If she hadn't started drinking the "inevitability" kool-aid then she might have realized that she'd actually have to compete beyond Super Tuesday. Instead, Obama somehow managed to squeeze out a near-draw on Super Tuesday and proceeded to run away with the next 11 contests because Hillary had no plan to win them and no orginization on the ground. She didn't take any of her follow Democrats seriously enough to make the effort to win the nomination until after Super Tuesday and by then the damage had been done. Her own arrogance is directly responsible for the position she's in.
you'd have thought after losing two Presidential elections because you thought your guy wasn't any different to their guy, you'd have learned this by now. "Gore and Bush are exactly the same, I'm going to stay home", "Kerry voted for the war, so even though he has a history of liberalism, and now opposes the war, I'm going to pretend he's exactly the same and stay home."Your painting with a pretty broad brush here. Personally, I voted for Gore and Kerry. I've spoken out against people who claim that the Democrats and Republicans are the same. That doesn't change how I feel about HRC though. Gore and Kerry didn't run their campaigns the way she has -- I could find things to like and respect about both of them. Try as I might I can't say the same about HRC.
Clinton is not McCainYour right. She's not. John McCain is capable of taking a principled stand for something even if his own party disagrees with him (torture) or even the majority of the electorate (Iraq -- his quote was "I'd rather lose an election than lose a war"). Hillary doesn't seem to be capable of moving much past the latest focus group or opinion poll. And since the Iraq War seems to be a major issue for you, you do know that she voted to authorize it, right? That was her chance to take a principled stand (23 other US Senators had the backbone to oppose the war) and she made the wrong decision.
She's not the enemy here. Don't fuck up for a third time.As far as I'm concerned the only way people can "fuck up" is if they allow themselves to be scared into voting for someone they wouldn't otherwise vote for. I won't vote for HRC. I won't vote for John McCain. If Obama doesn't get the nomination then I honestly don't know what I'll do -- probably give Nader a good long look. But I won't be scared into voting for Hillary.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.