January 24, 2006 by s.z.

WaPo Invites Snarky Blogger to Online Chat

Experts Say This Could End Civilization as We Know It

 Blogger Says Something Impertinent to Dowager Ombudsman*

Yes, the delicate flowers who make up the Washington Post editorial board may need smelling salts on Wednesday, for it seems that they have inadvertently invited the blogger who said mean things about Kate O'Beirne to their online discussion about comments and such.

Here's K.Lo with the story: 

UNHINGED, UNPLUGGED [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Washingtonpost.com has invited the “Kate O’Beirne is a dangerous bitch” blogger who spearheaded a campaign against Kate's book, Women Who Make the World Worse on Amazon.com to participate in an online chat.

Michelle Malkin follows up on my Amazon-becomes-a-liberal-nuthouse-jungle piece from Friday here.
Posted at 08:21 PM

Clearly, any writer who uses bad words (you know, like "bitch" ... or worse) should be banned from the Post.

Anyway, K.Lo wasn't the only blogger to post about Michelle's piece; Vaughn Ververs of CBSNews.com wrote:

If you thought the flap over Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell was something, take a look at this growing point of contention on the Web – the Amazon assault. Michelle Malkin has all the details about the campaign, apparently led by left-leaning blogs, to use reader reviews on Amazon.com to drive down the site’s rankings of conservative tomes.

Michelle has ALL the details?  Then I guess there's no need to check out what those left-leaning blogs might have to say about why they have problems with Kate's book -- Michelle's post is all you need to understand the story.  (And to Michelle's credit, she does mention Kate's "sandpaper snatch.") 

Vaughn concludes by suggesting that those crude left-wingers will cause Amazon to shut down the customer review program, just like they made the Post close its comments section by being nasty, all because they didn't like what Deborah Howell said about Democrats taking money from Jack Abramoff (about which Vaughn says "I think the inclusion of Democrats is accurate when discussing this scandal given what we know at this time").

One of the commenters at the CBS blog adds this to the "Amazon Attacks" piece :

I always find it SO humorous that the liberals and ‘left wingers’ shove down out throats the words tolerance and inclusion. This is just another example of how they are exposed as a bunch of fascists! You think we will ever see the MSM cover this…I don’t think so. They get away with throwing pies in peoples faces and shouting down conservative speakers at colleges and news organizations like CBS give them a pass. However, let a conservative pull a stunt like they do and CBS reporters will be tripping over themselves to get it on the air.

Proof once again that conservatives are actually the nice ones; that liberals get away with throwing pies at people, suffering no consequences for their actions; that CBS and Amazon cater to and protect liberals; and that conservatives are a poor, picked-on minority that never gets a break.

Oh, and while Jane has already responded ably (and not all that uncivilly) to Michelle's characterization of her as "one of the left blogosphere's crudest, unhinged haters," I did want to discuss this part of Michelle's post:

Meantime, the moonbat manipulation of Amazon.com's reviews deserves a lot more attention than it's getting. Kathryn Lopez shed light last week on the organized campaign against Kate O'Beirne's book (published by Penguin/Sentinel).

Daniel Coppens at Crown Forum writes today that one of its books is now being subjected to the same abuse:

Rebel in Chief, the new book by Fred Barnes, has also been subjected to the Liberal smear campaign. The attached photo has appeared on our books' Amazon page after each time we make Amazon take it down.

Thanks for sharing that Liberal Smear photo with us, Daniel and Michelle.  I hadn't seen it, and it would have been a shame if I and others had missed it.

Then Michelle goes on to quote some of the reviews of Barnes' book from the "Amazon.com Review Cesspool" (stuff like "This is bound to be a book that right-wing Republican supporters will love and one that non-Bush supporters will find hard to take. Sound bites and emotional photographs fail to come to grips with the facts and fallacies of the radical right, whose visible leader is President Bush.")

She then says:

[E]very author deserves a fair shake, and conservative authors aren't getting it.
Amazon.com's cozy, exclusive business arrangements with liberal celebrities such as Bill Maher and Al Franken only exacerbate concerns that the online book-seller is soft on left-wing online vandals. 

Have YOU been concerned that Amazon is "soft on left-wing vandals"?  (Because I know that I haven't.)  But to see if the left-wing vandals are getting away with more than the right-wing Visigoths, I checked out the Amazon customer reviews of Michael Moore's Will They Ever Trust Us Again?. which came out in October 2004, but is still getting one-star reviews like the following:

No Michael I Won't Trust You, January 12, 2006
I wouldn't trust that guy with a potato cannon. 

Let the weak minded sheep follow a man who hates life., December 5, 2005
More of the same from Michael (I despise the country that has made me a multi-millionaire) Moore. These supposed 1000's of emails came from a few unfortunate soldiers who either A. Joined the military for a paycheck and in no way did they ever want to serve their country or fight for the freedoms of innocents. or B. Have been bullied and brainwashed by liberal propaganda and strong armed into their views by filth like Michael (americans are disgusting idiots) Moore.

ARE YOU PEOPLE SERIOUS???, October 11, 2005
How anyone can call this piece of crap "an accurate representation of US soldiers thoughts" must be on crack. [...] This "piece" of work by Moore should be taken as exactly what it is....a one-sided, un-original blathering from someone trying to push a minority agenda!  Thank you Michael, I sometimes forget how stupid you are until I am reminded by things like this!

More drivel for the "hate America" crowd., October 9, 2005
[...] As a former military man who still has very close ties to the service, I can absolutely guarantee you that eighty percent of the servicemen in Iraq would love to punch out Michael Moore if given the chance. To us, his operation is just another enemy cell.

Making Michael Moore Rich, August 6, 2005
Scanning this book at the bookstore made me lose my appetite for lunch. Moore joins the ranks of American traitors such as Jane Fonda, Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean. The book's cover is a dead giveaway as an instrument of liberal propaganda. Moore is not only anti-Bush, he is also an anti-American of the first order.

And so on.

As Michelle said, every author deserves a fair shake, and liberal authors aren't getting it.  Perhaps Michelle will address this in her next book, Impolite:  Exposing Conservatives Gone Indecorous and Unmannerly. 

Anyway, I found it interesting that Crown Forum (the Random House inprint which "serves a conservative readership") makes Amazon remove stuff it doesn't like from the Customer Review section.  So, for informational purposes, I am providing Amazon links to some soon-to-be-released Crown Forum books, so that you'll know not to post anything unflattering about them. (The asterisked ones are by Corner Kids -- be extra careful not to say anything negative about them.)

* Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, ... America (or at least the Republican Party)
by Rod Dreher (Hardcover - February 21, 2006)

Getting America Right : The True Conservative Values Our Nation Needs Today by Edwin J. Feulner, Doug Wilson (Hardcover - March 7, 2006)

* Can She Be Stopped? : Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless . . .
by John Podhoretz (Hardcover - May 9, 2006)

Blacklisted By History : The Real Story of Joseph McCarthy and his Fight Against America's Enemies
by M. Stanton Evans (Hardcover - December 26, 2006)

Disrobed : The Secret Weapon Conservatives Can Use to Recapture the Courts and Defeat the Left's Assault on America
by Mark W. Smith (Hardcover - June 13, 2006)

The New Ann Coulter
by Ann Coulter (Hardcover - June 6, 2006)

The hell? They're unleashing a new Ann Coulter on the world?!?  Sure, the old one is awfully rancid (and ready to crumble into dust), but to bring forth a new one would be mocking God, and asking for annihilation..

But keep in mind that Crown Forum will be mighty pissed if anyone trashes their scholarly, reasoned, and well-mannered books.  So, if you review these tomes, make sure you don't call John Podhoretz a "dangerous bitch" -- because his editor (and K..Lo, Michelle, Vaughn, and Ed Morrissey) wouldn't like that, and you might force President Bush to shut down the Internet, all because you endangered national security by hurting somebody's feelings or injuring someone's sensibilities.   

*  As you undoubtedly know, the top photo is actually of Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont.  But you might not have known is that Margaret Dumont's name at birth was "Daisy Baker," meaning that she was a two-dollar lap dancer.

P.S.

I am happy to see that General J.C. Christian's and Atta J. Turk's reviews of Fred Barnes' Rebel-in-Chief: How George W. Bush Is Seceding from America are currently the Spotlight Reviews at Amazon.  I suggest you read them quickly, however, because I'm pretty sure that Daniel Coppins will be soon be making Amazon take them down.

12:19:03 AM