Paul-Bat Found in Chicago
The Chicago Sun Times has printed a Letter to the Editors (their crappy web site won't show the Letters section despite having a link to it on the home page) from a 22 year-old Ron Paul supporter from Wheaton, IL. named Ted Bodine. The "title" in the Letters section is "Censoring Ron Paul threatens democracy; How are young people today supposed to get excited about politics?" Mr. Bodine is miffed at Mr. Paul's lack of support from the press. Mr. Bodine watched the CNN coverage of the Republican debate in Manchester, NH and was shocked at the fact that Congressman Paul got such little face time and that he was not even discussed in the post-debate coverage. Mr. Bodine went on to write that he visited a CNN message board that was dominated by his fellow Paul-Bats who had also run up the Ron Paul score in an online poll. Mr. Bodine also wrote that the message board that had been overwhelmed by Paul-Bats was later taken down by CNN and he described such an action as "censorship".
First off, Mr. Bodine needs a better education, "censorship" generally involves the government not a private enterprise like CNN. I might add that I find it shocking to defend the likes of CNN but Mr. Bodine is simply wrong on this issue, CNN may not show the Ron Paul scrum but it's not as if those Paul-Bats do not have other public outlets for their craziness. Secondly, as any reader of Charles Johnson's fantastic blog Little Green Footballs knows, the Paul supporters have been overwhelming the thoroughly unscientific internet polls to give the impression that Mr. Paul has wide spread support. The actual (ahem) scientific polls consistently show Mr. Paul as the consummate also-ran with less than 1% support. The rigging of polls has included multiple hits from the same servers that only vote for Paul. It has gotten so bad that Johnson of Little Green Footballs has included Ron Paul as a choice in numerous polls including this one from last Monday that asked "Should the Bush administration lift sanctions against the terrorists of the Fatah party?" The choices are Yes, No, Undecided and Ron Paul. Mr. Paul is currently running second with 28% of the "vote".
The fact that the Sun Times printed this half-page of nonsense gives me the impression that the editors at the Sun Times are unaware of what and who surrounds the Paul candidacy or that they want undermine the actual Republican Party by making it falsely appear that this nut-case Ron Paul has wide support in the Party. Considering that the Sun Times is an average newspaper (with a great Sports section!) in this uber blue state city I would lean towards the later with a good strong dose of the former. The silly part of all of this is that Ron Paul is in the wrong party; the guy has made common cause with the 9/11 truther nuts who believe that Bush had something to with 9/11, a nutty idea that just happens to be a Democratic cause.
For More on the nutty Ron Paul and the crazy people who are supporting his candidacy see this list of Little Green Football entries on Mr. Paul.
First off, Mr. Bodine needs a better education, "censorship" generally involves the government not a private enterprise like CNN. I might add that I find it shocking to defend the likes of CNN but Mr. Bodine is simply wrong on this issue, CNN may not show the Ron Paul scrum but it's not as if those Paul-Bats do not have other public outlets for their craziness. Secondly, as any reader of Charles Johnson's fantastic blog Little Green Footballs knows, the Paul supporters have been overwhelming the thoroughly unscientific internet polls to give the impression that Mr. Paul has wide spread support. The actual (ahem) scientific polls consistently show Mr. Paul as the consummate also-ran with less than 1% support. The rigging of polls has included multiple hits from the same servers that only vote for Paul. It has gotten so bad that Johnson of Little Green Footballs has included Ron Paul as a choice in numerous polls including this one from last Monday that asked "Should the Bush administration lift sanctions against the terrorists of the Fatah party?" The choices are Yes, No, Undecided and Ron Paul. Mr. Paul is currently running second with 28% of the "vote".
The fact that the Sun Times printed this half-page of nonsense gives me the impression that the editors at the Sun Times are unaware of what and who surrounds the Paul candidacy or that they want undermine the actual Republican Party by making it falsely appear that this nut-case Ron Paul has wide support in the Party. Considering that the Sun Times is an average newspaper (with a great Sports section!) in this uber blue state city I would lean towards the later with a good strong dose of the former. The silly part of all of this is that Ron Paul is in the wrong party; the guy has made common cause with the 9/11 truther nuts who believe that Bush had something to with 9/11, a nutty idea that just happens to be a Democratic cause.
For More on the nutty Ron Paul and the crazy people who are supporting his candidacy see this list of Little Green Football entries on Mr. Paul.
Labels: 9/11, 9/11 Truther, Chicago Sun Times, CNN, Ron Paul
posted by El Rider at 10:49 AM
9 Comments:
Well, you are correct about censorship. The free media can run whatever they choose to (or choose not to). I do wish all the anti-Paul folks would stop the name calling, though. Does it make you feel better to call people "nutty" or worse? Most Ron Paul supporters I know (and I know many) are pretty normal, middle class, middle age people who are sick of big government and simply want to be left alone. As for the scientific polls, their methodology is becoming outdated, in that they are administered by calling people on landline phones (admittedly randomly). Who answers landline phones? Most people use caller ID to screen out commercial calls. Many younger (and some not-so-young) folks only use cell phones; so they are excluded by their choice of technology. Respondents to Gallup, Rasmussen, et al may be random, but they may not truly represent the electorate.
Dear Sir,
I AM Ted Bodine, and I am the "Paul-Bat" you refer to in your blog.
Say what you will about "censorship" but please don't try to deny media bias. You don't have to like Ron Paul, or any second-tier candidate, but this early in the election process the public deserves to see equal talk-time in the debates. CNN give an unsolicited bias towards Rudy McRomney, and I'm sorry, but that just isn't fair.
Hey Ted,
Thanks for stopping by. I must state that when I was younger I thought that Libertarians were the answer; the people who identify as Libertarians diabused me of that notion pretty quickly. What exactly is "fair" about giving air time to some joker who is polling at less than 1%? That's like me claiming media bias because I don't get enough attention. I still stand by what I say and if Mr. Paul wasn't such a nut he would be getting more attention due to the dearth of candidates running in both parties. The spamming of polls done by Mr. Paul's supporters is a disgrace and it makes you folks look like fools. Good luck in your further endeavors and I would like to suggest that you find some new friends.
Anonymous,
You are worried about "name Calling"? Grow up kid. Your fellow travelers are spamming polls to make it appear that some loon is a serious contender for the Republican nomination when the guy should be in the Democratic primaries with Mike Gravel & Denis Kucinich. How should a reasonable person describe you folks? Nutty and crazy is rather tame, all things considered.
Ted,
"please don't try to deny media bias", nice try kid; where in that post or anywhere on this blog is some sort of media bias being denied? Straw men are for the ignorant who are losing the argument. Face it kid, ignoring a guy with less than 1% support is not bias, its business.
um yeah lets elect four more wars, and years of it. ok hillary and adolf juliani
Anonymous,
You wrote "um yeah lets elect four more wars". Let's look at that "sentence"; I think that you meant to write "yeh" rather than "yeah" but I could be wrong and you may have actualy been cheering, no biggy, "lets elect four more wars", stop the presses, are you stating that the band War is running for public office? Collectively? No Way!
"ok hillary and adolf juliani" What the ----? Sure it was terrible when Mayor Guiiani incarcerated New York's Jews in Hell's Kitchen but he was just trying to get your vote. Where's the love?
Is it spam, or is it that Ron Paul has a huge internet presence? Spam means that it's a malicious attempt by one or more computers to repeatedly send unwanted information. It's very easy to set up a poll such that there is only one vote per IP address. Assuming that the poll was created by a decent web developer, it would already have that safeguard built into it to prevent "hijacking". Calling the vote results for Ron Paul spam is a convenient canard to dismiss the poll in its entirely. A more rational position would dictate that if the poll was "one vote per IP", it is what it is: a sign that Ron Paul has a massive following online. This may not translate into actual polling results, since phone polls (as mentioned above) use land lines. Also, phone polls are just as bad as internet polls. They usually poll a small number of people (around 500 normally), and anybody who uses VOIP, cell phones, or is on the "Do Not Call" list will not get polled. Moreover, polling is randomly selective, whereas voting is self-selective. In other words, it's only a useful measure of "name recognition" among people who do not screen their land lines.
Also, keep in mind other candidates polled low early in the race, and ended up winning the presidency: this includes Carter and Bill Clinton. Others have been front runners and gone down in flames: consider Lieberman. This does not necessarily mean the Ron Paul *will win*, but that his clinching the primary is within the realm of possibility.
Also, I forgot to mention censorship. The definition of censorship is "The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated". Any group can commit censorship, whether it's editors, blog writers, or oppressive regimes. However, the first amendment doesn't protect your free speech in the private sphere; a newspaper can publish whatever it damn well pleases. It's just dismaying that CNN chose to take down its forum, but not illegal.
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