Right-Wing Harassment of Liberal Bloggers

For seven years, our good friend Libby of The Impolitic has been writing a column for the Detroit News. Hers is a thankless task because she is a token liberal at a right-wing rag, which means she is also a frequent target for harassment. On any given day, trolls will gang up on her, fabricate lies from thin air, lift phrases out of context and misquote her, and assassinate her character. Ugly stuff! To make matters worse, the folks who run Detroit News hold liberal bloggers to a different standard, which means rapacious right-wingers get to ride roughshod and rampant while comments from liberals are sometimes deleted. The latest example is Libby’s post, Another 'Lone Wolf' attempts domestic terrorism, about the arrest of the would-be bomber of a Detroit mosque. Predictably, the rabble ganged up on Libby … shamelessly attributing "anti-Bush liberalism" as the motive behind the madman. In Libby's defense, I left this comment:

Libby,
I referenced your links including the Detroit News coverage of this story, and NOWHERE DO ANY OF THESE SOURCES MENTION ANYTHING about the partisan leanings of the accused. Nowhere is the name “Bush” even mentioned. Yet there are three critics below who fabricate stuff for only one purpose: To HARRASS ANY LIBERAL in this forum. Notice the same bogus claim and parallel structure in each of the following comments:

IFindThisHumorous - the guy was an anti-Bush liberal [my bold]
Sensical Thinker - he was a Bush-hating liberal [my bold]
Herb Smoker - He is a Bush Hating pot smoker just like you [my bold]

These comments confirm the impression that there are Freeper trolls who single out liberals for bullying, harassment, and ultimately persecution. I am even more shocked that your bosses who run this forum tolerate this kind of gang-up mentality, especially in the aftermath of the recent Tucson massacre. Evidently, Detroit News has learned nothing from this tragedy and continues to purvey a business-as-usual form of low-life partisanship. This is junk journalism at its worst.

A quick Google search of “anti-Islam" rhetoric retrieves 421,000 articles in 0.14 seconds, articles such as these:

White Supremacists Find Common Cause with Pam Geller’s Anti-Islam Campaign

Media rife with anti-Muslim rhetoric

Anti Muslim Rhetoric Reaching a Dangerous Level

Anti-Muslim rhetoric threatens fundamental rights

Over 420,000 more just like the above; hate speech from pols and pundits such as Newt Gingrich, Martin Peretz, Patrick Buchanan, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Morris, Tea Party candidate Lou Ann Zelenik, and Republican Congressman Peter King; in towns and cities from coast to coast such as New York, Gainesville, Murfreesboro, Oklahoma City, and now Detroit.

Predictably, right wing trolls crawl out of the woodwork and double down on stereotypic rhetoric … accusing all liberals of “Blood Libel” in the name of that dreaded liberal conspiracy of all conspiracies, political correctness. Character assassination, sandbox bullying, and slander - these are not free speech. We do not allow children to bully children at school; yet we tolerate this kind of bullshit from adults!  How many innocent bystanders, judges, and children will be killed on the street before the mental and moral midgets of the far right finally get the message!