It's no secret.
The self-proclaimed tolerant, compassionate, inclusive Leftists, the Democratic Party of the Big Tent, have some of the most bigoted haters imaginable among their ranks.
From The New York Post:
A string of anti-Semitic rants about Sen. Joe Lieberman have popped up on the liberal MoveOn.org's open forum Web site, drawing criticism from the Anti-Defamation League.
..."We recognize that Action Forum is an open forum intended to foster the free flow of ideas," ADL head Abraham Foxman said in a letter dated Aug. 31 to MoveOn, which supported Lamont in the Democratic primary against Lieberman.
"Nevertheless, since such profoundly offensive content is appearing on a board clearly linked to MoveOn.org, we believe you should assume some responsibility to respond to this hateful content," Foxman wrote in the letter, which was forwarded by Lieberman's campaign.
Foxman cited examples from the site's Action Forum, including "media owning Jewish pigs," "Zionazis," a reference to the senator as "Jew Lieberman" and the question, "Why are the Jews so Jew-y?"
Foxman wrote, "Those who allow hate to rear its ugly head under their auspices bear a special responsibility to distance themselves from that hate, and to speak out against it, as loudly as possible."
The ADL has clout, so a letter from Foxman to MoveOn becomes a story in The Post.
However, it should be noted that this sort of ugly discourse from libs is not an aberration on the Internet.
I completely agree with Foxman's assertion that "those who allow hate to rear its ugly head under their auspices bear a special responsibility to distance themselves from that hate."
These Internet forums are monitored. There are moderators that have the capacity to delete anti-Semitic and other hateful posts if they wish.
I've encountered relentless Catholic-bashing on forums with a lib majority and lib moderation. I've read death threats directed at President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the conservative ranks. It's business as usual on these sites.
I'm not talking about some small fringe Internet forums. I'm talking about major forums. Comments on The Huffington Post site come to mind.
Of course, when a forum is open, sick people can post sick stuff; but what stays up on the board is the responsibility of the site's directors.
Allowing such comments about Joe Lieberman to remain on MoveOn's site is indicative of the mindset of those in charge.
Free speech is a right that must be exercised responsibly.
"Why are Jews so Jew-y?" is not appropriate civil discourse. That's not responsible free speech. That's pure hate. I guess those at MoveOn didn't see it that way, at least not until it received more widespread attention.
...Foxman and Eli Pariser, executive director of the MoveOn Political Action Committee, couldn't be reached.
But in a statement posted on the MoveOn site Saturday, Pariser condemned the anti-Semitic rants.
"Once in a while - as in any public forum - inappropriate material is posted," he wrote. "Recently, a few of the thousands of comments that are posted every week contained anti-Semitic language.
"The comments that were posted were abhorrent. We were dismayed to see them, and removed them as soon as they came to our attention 17 days ago."
He added that most of the comments were not made by MoveOn members and suggested it could be an effort by conservatives to "target" the group, and said any effort to tie the rants to MoveOn was "wrong."
Naturally, Pariser would pull a CYA move like that.
His notion that just a few out of thousands of comments are hateful is ludicrous.
The issue in this case is anti-Semitism and Joe Lieberman, but it goes beyond that.
Far Left sites overflow with ugly, threatening, and bigoted comments.
Pariser's "We were dismayed to see them" really means "We are ticked off that we are being exposed."
The moderators of the forum should not have allowed the comments to remain. They should have been deleted immediately.
If MoveOn permits comments to be posted, then the onus is on MoveOn to police its site. The buck stops with the moderators at MoveOn. Case closed.
Moreover, it's been my experience that moderators of such forums do not promptly respond to requests to have objectionable content removed, especially if the requests come from conservatives on a lib-dominated website.
The reality is some Leftists are not the tolerant and compassionate types that they profess to be. They are frauds.
The anti-Semitic comments directed at Joe Lieberman cited in The Post's piece are clearly objectionable. But the pool of hate is much, much deeper than that.
What's not highlighted is the other stuff -- the thinly-veiled bigotry that routinely runs through the Left's commentary; the failure to condemn anti-Semites like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan; the failure to condemn Howard Dean, Joe Biden, Robert Byrd, Hillary Clinton, etc., for their racial and ethnic slurs.
The truth is the farther Left one ventures, the more likely one is to encounter the sort of hate that MoveOn housed on its site.
Such places provide safe harbor for those haters and extremists. Accordingly, MoveOn must be seen as complicit in the anti-Semitic attacks on Lieberman.
On the evening of September 11, 2001, President Bush told the nation:
We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
I think that the same standard should apply to MoveOn and other similar sites.
If a forum permits such extreme hateful, irresponsible comments to remain, that forum should be viewed as condoning the comments.
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