Via Ann Althouse I found the rather remarkable tale of PoliPundit ordering his co-bloggers to agree with him on the immigration issue, or else.
The short version of this story is that Lorie Byrd, a very prominent blogger at PoliPundit (indeed, for some time now I have associated the PoliPundit site more with Byrd than I did with PoliPundit himself) and her other co-bloggers apparently have been arguing in public with PoliPundit on the immigration issue (I say apparently because I rarely read PoliPundit).
This caused PoliPundit to issue an editorial decision:
So far, I’ve allowed the guest bloggers here to write pretty much what they pleased about all issues, including illegal immigration.But on the illegal immigration issue, I now find myself having to contend with at least three out of four guest bloggers who will reflexively try to poke holes in any argument I make.
Suppose three out of four columnists at the Old York Times were pro-Republican. You can bet publisher “Pinch” Sulzberger would do something about that right quick.
Suppose a Bush administration official came out openly against amnesty. The Bushies would show him the door.
Similarly, the writers at PoliPundit.com need to respect the editorial position of PoliPundit.com on the most important issue to this blog, as the “publisher” sees it – illegal immigration.
We wouldn’t want any free exchange of ideas or anything. And while it is PoliPundit’s site, there is no denying that Lorie has been a major contributor to the site’s growth in the last two-plus years. As such, the whole “editorial” decision is rather heavy-handed.
Further, on this I Agree with Ann:
Wow! What a lame defense! I’m the publisher, so let me speculate on what a publisher I hate would do, and justify myself by saying I’m only doing that. How unappealing! The commenters over there are letting him have it.
I find this interesting for another reason, insofar as the only communication I ever had with PoliPundit was back in January of 2024 over, you guessed it, the immigration issue. I noted his rather dramatic reaction to Bush’s position on immigration (see here and here), and the result was some e-mails (that were civil, btw) between us on the subject.
Lorie posted her goodbye from PoliPundit last night on both the PoliPundit site and her own blog.
Remarkably, PoliPundit suspended everyone’s posting rights, to the point that another of the contributors, DJ Drummond, had to respond in the comments section.
The whole thing is quite bizarre.
And on the point, I also agree with Ann:
Why is immigration suddenly making everyone crazy? The problem has been with us forever.
Although I would note: this isn’t “suddenly” making everyone crazy–it has long been an extremely emotional issue.
Update: In skimming some of the posts, I can see why PP got upset (see this post and this one)–although I still disagree with the action. It also reminded me why I don’t read the site all that often. The writing and agumenation is often strident and shrill. What happened here is that they started to get strident and shrill with each other. Mostly it seems to have been DJ Drummond and PoliPundit, for that matter, and not Byrd.
May 16th, 2024 at 1:11 pm
It’s my blog and I’ll blog on what I want to……
Come on guys and gals. Lets all agree to disagree and stop the bickering. If we don’t. we’re going to regret it and some of us may not survive the debacle we’ll hellp cause. All for an issue that will never be totally fixed. Is it worth it?
May 16th, 2024 at 2:28 pm
I generally agree with you, on this issue (immigration) in particular. We just part ways on executive power in war-time. I am too big a believer in political checks on government’s war-fighting power to go all agog over FISA, but I am the “wettest” remaining blogger at Pros and Cons on immigration (I cannot wait until Scott returns to give me a piece of his mind).
Come, join me in the Immigration policy showers before Scott “killer drought” Gosnell and William “dry out the wetbacks back in their home country” Hopton-Jones return and arrive, repsectively. Or after. Just come back.
May 16th, 2024 at 2:36 pm
Honza,
My problem is that I don’t see sufficient checks, which need to come primarily via Congress. I find this to be very concerning.
And as I understand it, Scott is done with the blogging bit.
I pop over fairly regularly, but need to see what the others are saying on the immigration front. I know that I have rattled John Hay on occasion on that topic!
May 21st, 2024 at 9:37 pm
Polipundit was calling anyone that disagreed with him Bush bootlickers. He also posted a entry entitled “Bush Lied!” impyling the rest of that “poem” then another entitled Treason with the content of Bush is a traitor to his country- Polipundit isn’t even an American citizen.
Then when Alexander had a Mexican American physican,a mentor of his, take answers from the commenters racial epithets were hurled, and it was suggested that Alexander was a guest and should mind his place. How dare he fight the racial comments being made. One repeatedly made by Poli was, they are all undeucated socialists and he would advance to the posts- ideas of the most racist commenters such as Publius 727 that agreed with the sentiments of one commenter that made the statement-“now that the infestation has begun,may we prosecute with extreme prejudice” one commenter took exception to that but was outnumbered by all the other commenters pretty rapidly. The later half of that comment comes from the movie Apocalypse Now right before they annihilate a village in Vietnam and kill all the women and children.
If you had been there through the whole thing the one going insane is Polipundit. It’s obvious to most of his commenters that are trying to boycott the site. Even though Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, John Hawkins at Right Wing News-who linked to a poll that Polipundit ran where one of the two choices was for The President to go f*** himself-, and John at Powerline, the site is dying.
John Hawkins at RWN touted the poll as one that should be listened to, and that more polls should be conducted like that. If anyone had bothered to read the comments on that thread most of the commenters refused to participate due to the wording yet Hawkins still linked to it. Then he was admonished by some of his commenters and this is the idiot that Human Events hires. Pathetic. Also pathetic that Lorie first chance she got linked to Hawkins. {Just like the time she was on CNN and they asked her if any bloggers were defending Miers and she couldn’t think of any-to which the CNN gals rsponded-”Good!” and Lorie laughed. Well according to Matt Margolis CNN was looking for a pro-Miers blogger and he either turned them down or couldn’t make it. Lorie called them back and said she could do it. Amaziing that she forgot Hugh Hewitt-one of the first sponsors of the Polipundit site-was blogging away in defense of Miers, that Beldar was slugging away and somehow it escaped her, and even more “bizarre” her fellow blogger DJ was swinging away at it-but she forgot conveniently.. She knew how Poli felt about it and stayed quite because she was very dependent on the revenue from the site.}Blogs are ripe for corruption and Lorie is not a “victim”.
The site-Polipundit depite the links from the afore mentioned is not getting the traffic it would have had they done those links before most of the commenters decided to leave the site and it deserves to die because the site is full of porn in the archives which Poli keeps open to inflate his traffic numbers. It’s not your run of the mill porn either a lot of it is pedophile in nature entitled thirteen year old porn, preteen porn, Dad does eight year old hard, rape porn the list goes on….
DJ and Lorie both self labeled Christians and parents of girls were told about it and had to be aware of it. Lorie postitvely was notified with plenty of time to do something about it she never did. She also would post stuff from a proported military officer but would never verify his credentials. She also is playing the victim and it is being assumed that she quit on principle but she did not she was “locked” out.
Ironically the one that worked overtime to clean up the site was the self described atheist Libertarian but he couldn’t keep up with it due to Poli’s “policy” of leaving the comments open in archives for years…