eBattleground

There is a battle raging now between Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and the daily kos web site.

At issue is the fact that some of the people who post on the daily kos have posted some very vulgar, outrageous, and objectionable material, and Mr. O'Reilly thinks that it should be taken down by the people who run the site. There is no doubt that some of this stuff is offensive, but what we need to keep in mind is that we are talking about an open forum web page, and not a news service. Sure, some of the people who post on there are far left loons, and some are just radical nut jobs, but a lot of the people are regular, everyday Americans who happen to lean a little to the left, or even quite a bit to the left.

I went to the daily kos and checked it out for myself. What I found is that, sure, there is some crazy stuff on there. There is a lot of twisting of facts, and certainly some flat out lying. But more than that, there is a lot of basic, everyday, run of the mill, normal Americans, who happen to be democrats, voicing their positions, and the reasons for them. I applaud this, even though I disagree with a lot of them, remember, I like debate and discussion.

Furthermore, remember what I said about this being "open forum?" Well, that's what it is, just like it sounds, people can pretty much say anything there that they want to. This is a decision of the people running the site, that they won't censor and edit what people want to say in their blogs (actually I think they do a little bit, just to keep lid on some of the most extreme stuff) because they want people to feel free to express their ideas. It just so happens that the daily kos is geared toward a democratic/leftist/liberal crowd, and therefore, that is the kind of thing you find there.

This is where I think that Bill O'Reilly is doing a dis-service to his audience. If I were someone who didn't understand the Internet and it's workings as I do (and I'm certainly not the most knowledgeable, but I still understand it pretty well), from watching his program I would come away with the impression that the daily kos has an editorial staff that is writing all of these things, and that it is the official line of some group of far left extremists bent on taking over the whole of the Internet.

I do have a great deal of respect for Mr. O'Reilly, and watch his show nearly every day. I think he's a smart man, and most of his reporting is very well done, and appreciated by me and a great deal of other Americans, and he's not even a conservative, but more of a centrist. That being said, however, every now and then he gets ahold of something like a bull dog on a bone, and just won't let it go, and won't let anyone tell him where he is going wrong, and the no spin zone becomes more like the spin cycle on my washing machine. This is one of those cases.

I'm not saying that we should all start reading the daily kos on a daily basis, as I said, it caters to a left leaning crowd, and is not a place for me, but they have every right to be there, and if they want to give voice to some of the crazies, that is their right also, they make no secret of the fact that they lean to the left, they are not trying to trick anyone into going to their site, and only some of them are far left loons. I think Bill should just back off a little, and try to be more honest when it comes to reporting this kind of story.