Posted by Jed Lewison on Sun Jun 8, 2008 at 7:48 PM Pacific

LGF is crying wolf and it ticks me off

Like most Americans, I've got no tolerance for antisemitism, though the fact that I'm Jewish probably makes me more aware of it than most. So when the right-wing blog Little Green Footballs today claimed to have discovered a "shocking" amount of antisemitism on my.barackobama.com, I took notice. Here's their post, with emphasis added:

Searching Obama's Site for 'Jewish Lobby'

A search of the official my.barackobama.com site for “Jewish Lobby” reveals an enormous amount of antisemitic hatred being posted. This is really shocking stuff, and shows beyond any doubt that this is no fluke.

There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of posts that refer to the “Jewish lobby” at the Obama site. I stopped looking at the results on page 10.

Alarmed by LGF's allegation, I did exactly what they suggested: I followed their "Jewish Lobby" link and searched through the first 10 pages of results. Here's what I found:

  • There were one hundred posts (10 posts per page, 10 pages.) Not "hundreds," not "thousands," but one hundred.
  • Only 9 of the 100 posts actually used the phrase "Jewish Lobby"
  • 5 of these 9 posts could be potentially be considered antisemitic (a, b, c, d, e)
  • And 2 of them were actually statements against antisemitsm (f, g)
  • Many of the remaining 91 posts were written by Jews in praise of Barack Obama. My favorite favorite one featured a pro-Obama video from Rabbi Samuel Gordon from Wilmette, Illinois.

The bottom-line here is that LGF lied bigtime. On its face, their claim that there were "hundreds" or "thousands" of posts was based on nothing but their own imagination; by their own admission, they had looked at just 10 pages worth of posts.

Moreover, it's obvious they never looked at the search results -- nine in ten of the posts did not even contain the term "Jewish Lobby."

It is true that there have been isolated examples of anti-semitic postings on my.barackobama.com. There's no defending those posts, though it's worth noting it is unclear who actually made the posts, and the system adminstrators are good about taking them down once they become aware of them.

But LGF's claim of widespread antisemitism is false, and as a Jew, LGF's lie really ticks me off. By deliberately overstating the facts, they are making it harder to fight real examples of antisemitism.

The bloggers at LGF have become a delusional band of professional victimologists. There was a time when conservatives stood up against that kind of politics. What happened?

LGF is crying wolf and it ticks me off

Like most Americans, I've got no tolerance for antisemitism, though the fact that I'm Jewish probably makes me more aware of it than most. So when the right-wing blog Little Green Footballs today claimed to have discovered a "shocking" amount of antisemitism on my.barackobama.com, I took notice. Here's their post, with emphasis added:

Searching Obama's Site for 'Jewish Lobby'

A search of the official my.barackobama.com site for “Jewish Lobby” reveals an enormous amount of antisemitic hatred being posted. This is really shocking stuff, and shows beyond any doubt that this is no fluke.

There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of posts that refer to the “Jewish lobby” at the Obama site. I stopped looking at the results on page 10.

Alarmed by LGF's allegation, I did exactly what they suggested: I followed their "Jewish Lobby" link and searched through the first 10 pages of results. Here's what I found:

  • There were one hundred posts (10 posts per page, 10 pages.) Not "hundreds," not "thousands," but one hundred.
  • Only 9 of the 100 posts actually used the phrase "Jewish Lobby"
  • 5 of these 9 posts could be potentially be considered antisemitic (a, b, c, d, e)
  • And 2 of them were actually statements against antisemitsm (f, g)
  • Many of the remaining 91 posts were written by Jews in praise of Barack Obama. My favorite favorite one featured a pro-Obama video from Rabbi Samuel Gordon from Wilmette, Illinois.

The bottom-line here is that LGF lied bigtime. On its face, their claim that there were "hundreds" or "thousands" of posts was based on nothing but their own imagination; by their own admission, they had looked at just 10 pages worth of posts.

Moreover, it's obvious they never looked at the search results -- nine in ten of the posts did not even contain the term "Jewish Lobby."

It is true that there have been isolated examples of anti-semitic postings on my.barackobama.com. There's no defending those posts, though it's worth noting it is unclear who actually made the posts, and the system adminstrators are good about taking them down once they become aware of them.

But LGF's claim of widespread antisemitism is false, and as a Jew, LGF's lie really ticks me off. By deliberately overstating the facts, they are making it harder to fight real examples of antisemitism.

The bloggers at LGF have become a delusional band of professional victimologists. There was a time when conservatives stood up against that kind of politics. What happened?

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