Fiting the RadRite Online
The crazies of the Radical Right have, for years now (since at least the inauguration of President Obama), been using online comment areas to spread their poison, and to try to mislead casual readers into thinking that the rabid views of a tiny minority are mainstream, what most people are thinking. There may actually be email alerts to a small group of semi-pro or perhaps even professional commenters, paid by Rightwing groups funded by the likes of the Koch Brothers, because there is the feel of a coordinated attack to some of these blitzes.
+
Today I decided I had nothing I'd rather do for a couple of hours, so decided to read thru and respond to some comments left at a story on Yahoo News, "Bill Clinton, Paul Ryan square off in Iowa op-eds".
+
The Radical Right long ago realized they could skew perceptions by descending, in small numbers of very active commenters, on message boards associated with news sites, and posting hundreds of mostly very short, poisonous remarks long on bile but short on facts. Many don't even really relate to the specific story, and the posters plainly don't even bother to read the story. It is just a pretext for getting their poisonous misrepresentations published. I do not dignify the comments I answered by quoting them here. You should be able to infer the points I am answering.
+
Liberals have been so disgusted by the 'quality' of public discourse to which those comment-locusts have reduced many discussion areas on targeted news items at, for instance, the Huffington Post/AOL, that they have surrendered the most densely attacked comments areas to the Radical Right. I decided I didn't want to let them take over that particular Yahoo story unopposed, so posted a number of replies to these "trolls" and agents provocateurs, as below.

The racists attack Obama for being black, and then pretend that their hyper-racist rants were caused by Obama! It is not Obama who is dividing the Nation but the neo-Confederate bigots who can't get over there being a black man in the White House. The only thing we know about the Romney candidacy is that his election would put a white man back in the White House. We know absolutely nothing else about him, because he says one thing to one audience and another to a different audience; he says one thing today that conflicts with what he said yesterday or a year ago or five years ago. From pro-choice to pro-life. From instituting Romneycare to opposing Obamacare, which IS Romneycare. You can't trust Mitt Romney on anything. He wants to be President because he WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT. It is the most important thing in the Universe to him. Not to DO anything, of any ideology, for anyone. Just to BE President. To make up for his father's failure, or to show his father up, we cannot know. All we can know is that it's all about HIM, and not the slightest about YOU. We know Obama. We CANNOT know Romney, the man of 1,000 faces.

And:

How much do you think YOU could accomplish if the Party of No threw up 246 filibusters against your program, and prevented ANY of it from being enacted? Obama's economic policies are NOT in effect. They have been BLOCKED by 246 filibusters. I don't know why Obama isn't telling people that, but the voters have to remember gridlock in Congress. The Republicans now pretend to want bipartisanship, but they HATE bipartisanship. If they don't get their way on every particular, they will obstruct EVERYTHING. Crush them. Vote Obama back in, and give Democrats MASSIVE, overwhelming control of both Houses of Congress. Then Democrats will save us from gridlock and move the Nation forward again.

And:

Hillary was not thrown under the bus. She plainly told the world that the White House did NOT get the reports that Obama is being blamed for not acting upon. Hillary has been heroic in saying "The buck stops here", but the Republicans are calling her a liar.

And:

I guess you never heard that the Republican NIXON opened trade with China, and Republicans have pressed for more and more free trade, while Democrats have insisted on provisions that protect American workers. Bush the Elder negotiated NAFTA — look it up. And NAFTA is not the problem. Communist CHINA is the problem, and Romney has sent JOBS to Communist China.

And:

Actually, Dave Camp is that chairman [House Ways and Means Committee; not Ryan]. But Republicans don't want you to know that Dubya DOUBLED the national debt in eight years. Reagan TRIPLED it; Dubya's father added a third to what Reagan had already tripled, so that at the end of the 12 years of Reagan-Bush, the Republicans had QUADRUPLED the national debt. The Democrat Clinton held the line, and left office with the largest surplus in the history of the world. Within one year, Bush had thrown it all away, then in the rem[a]inder of his two terms, DOUBLED the national debt again, from the Reagan-Bush years, so that Republicans OCTUPLED the national debt. Don't trust them when they tell you they are "fiscal conservatives". They are not.

And:

Sex is not public policy. [Answering the suggestion that Bill Clinton's sexual peccadillos make everything he says unworthy of hearing.] The electorate has the right to complain about public policy, not tell people what to do in their sex lives. Mind your own business. And let dedicated public servants mind PUBLIC business. As for the assertion that Obama is Moslem, give it up. Everybody knows it's a lie. When people continue to lie once found out, they are revealed as pathological, not opportunistic.

And:

Given a choice between a President who doesn't do everything we want him to do, and a would-be President who will do a great many things we DON'T want him to do, the choice is plain: Obama. Liberals know they have to push him. But we also know we can rely upon Romney being our ENEMY.

And:

I suppose you never heard these famous words from a Democrat: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." What ever happened to that? Oh, I know: Republicans stomped that spirit to death.

And:

Conservative blogs are not "literally" on fire. How can anyone believe any further assertion you make when you start out with an absolute falsehood? And "alleged" comments are, absent proof, mere rumor, slander, or fiction.

And:

Actually, EVERYONE should be REQUIRED to vote, so the end result represents the people's actual will. Republicans will never support mandatory voting, however, because they would never win another election. The only way they can ever win at the national level is if a great many people stay home.

And:

Just because the Republicans are dominated by the Koch Brothers, do not delude yourself that Democrats are dominated by billionaires too [in reply to an attack upon George Soros as puppetmaster to Democrats].

And:

Study after study has shown that Liberals are better educated and smarter than Conservatives. Blue States are richer than Red States. And "white trash" vote for the very people who think them trash.

And:

How, pray ([username] "N A" — "not applicable" to today's problems?) are people to "get to work" when the economy was destroyed by Republican greed and mismanagement?

And:

No, "rich" has been repeatedly defined in the national debate as a single person who makes over $200K a year, or a married couple that makes over $250K. There are also Federal definitions of "poverty". Everyone not rich nor poor is "middle class". Pay attention.

And:

NAFTA is NOT the problem. COMMUNIST CHINA is the problem. NAFTA was designed to keep Mexicans in Mexico by providing jobs there by means of which (a) U.S. manufacturers could save some money near-in and (b) create new customers in Mexico. Would you rather that every Mexican looking for work come here? NIXON opened trade with Communist China, and THAT is the country that is depressing U.S. wages, thanks to people like Romney who were 'pioneers of offshoring' — that is, exporting U.S. jobs.

And:

Bill Clinton was born and raised in the Deep South. Get the picture? He GREW, however, something the Radical Right base of the Republican Party and its "Solid South" are unable to do.

And:

Hillary said plainly that the White House did not see the requests for more security that Obama is being blamed for. She stood up as an honorable person. She was not 'thrown under' any bus. As for where she is, she's in the State Department, doing her NONPARTISAN job, dealing with our EXTERNAL interests.

And:

Let us by all means inquire into every single citizen's sex life and broadcast it over all media. Powerful people of high intensity often have high libidoes. And who of us really wants Congress demanding the right to know every detail of our sex life? Get a REAL issue.

And:

You do know that merely saying something doesn't make it happen, right? I know a lot of Rightwingers believe in economic magic, such as voodoo economics, but there is no such thing as a "self-fulfilling prophecy", and YOU are not a magician, so YOUR predictions have less than even the force of stupid people's credulity. Let's just wait for Wednesday, and see what ACTUALLY happens, alrite?

And:

So you want to believe Romney, who has changed his stance on EVERYTHING from his days as governor of Massachusetts — remember "Taxachusetts"? — to his run for office at the national level. Romney will tell you anything you want to hear. I don't trust him one whit.

And:

So you want people to have to BEG for charity, eh?

And:

Nonsense. Clinton left office 8 years before the Bush calamity. You can't blame him for ANYTHING.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM