This really sounds just like adolescent George Allen. Remember his painting the walls of his highschool with racist remarks, hoping to make it look as though the black team's partisans were the ones doing the painting? Like so much of the right wing campaign tactics, it reminds us of the clever, vicious yet slaphappy sappiness of high school or college elections... where, now that I think about it, so many Republican operatives like Rove and Norquist got their start. Note the confluence of the support the troops-support the war-support Bush approach, also evidenced recently in the House of Representatives' so-called debate on Iraq.  Does Mr. Webb plan on ignoring this until some one goes public with it?

This appears to be a simple word for word ripoff from from some blog post in Kansas (September 10, 2005)

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/sep/10/diverted_resources/

The battle between liberals and and the far right in that town has historically been particularly nasty and extremely polarized with venomous name calling coming from both sides.

Here's what happened.  These events caused a fair amount of concern throughout the academic community.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/11/28/kansas

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/07/mirecki

Maybe that email is just copied and pasted spew that originated out of the group in Lawrence, or another such group of extremists.

Sometimes the strangest pieces resonate and get passed around and around.  I just don't get it about that particular one.  It isn't even clever. And it almost comes off like a sexual fetish or something.

It's just a cut and paste by some joker who's probably local or in DC.  This is designed to distract and harass.  I guess it worked.

Frankly, I doubt that a marine even wrote that letter.  As the resident Republican on the linked page notes, most marines don't spell the proper name of the Corps with lowercase letters.

Text also appears here : http://www.newsdissector.org/blog/wp-print.php?p=1050

Feb 2005

If you read the Slate article the Swift boat guy said that Jim Webb's military reputation is above reproach. He's correct in that ... how ever this tips his hand in a couple ways. 

When John McCain was attacked in South Carolina it was some third or fourth party that made the insinuations ... never the campaign because John McCains service was "above reproach". GWB said as much and denied a connection to the action.

Of course this is similar. What it does tell us is where to go in this campaign with Jim Webb's record. VFWs and the American Legion. You go there with Veterans ... you go big with heavy hitters .... like Colonels and Generals ... Senior Enlisted types ...

You present Jim Webb for who he is and what he has done in the past ... particularly for veterans!!

You go there consistently ... and in a big way.

That SLATE article was great. It reminded me about what and who we are up against. I'm ready for this ... I'm committed and I will be relentless.

Webb for SENATE!!!

Seriously, is something this sophmoric the best they can do? So much for a campaign of ideas.

...as is Jim personally.  Blech.

The guy refers to Jim Webb by his last name only?  Seems pretty immature.  Personally, I say that this isn't worth the worry.  This guy is from Kansas, let him get pissed off.

That was one of the lesson's of Kerry's presidential campaign.  He's even said that he wished he'd spend more resources rebutting the Swiftboaters.  If it's possible to link this to the Allen campaign that's a double hammer.  I doubt that any of the Allen attacks will actually come directly from the campaign--they'll use proxies such as the RTD.  I still wish we'd rebutted the Miller flyer more vigorously from the RTD.  They needed to be called out publicly. 

Good thing for me. Thanks. And Lowell will love this comment.

You've reminded me of two things.  The article came out Saturday a.m. before the election.  One journalist wrote that Miller's people had been trying to get that story published for a week.  One can safely assume that the RTD was high on the short list of likely takers.

They sat on it until Saturday, barely enough time for a response.  It wasn't as if they were doing background research or anything.  If they did, they were mum about it.  Yes, they did some photoshopping, but that doesn't take over a week.

It's very clear that the RTD published at a time when they thought it would do the most damage, time enough to circulate but not enough time for a response to circulate in an unresponsive media.

A day or two after the election, I did some comparisons on alexa.  With these plots, it's usually pretty easy to go back and find events driving the spikes and bumps.  For example, gruesome murders cause RTD spikes.

I used RTD as a baseline to force the plot generation.  There's currently something glitchy there, because webbforsenate.com ranked 30,000 + for one day, where typically it had been ranking in the neighborhood of 750,000.  The underlying data causes those time series to be so extremely spikey over a huge vertical range that some graphs can't be generated without windowing, and that's not an option there.

But the reach graphs are more important anyway, and it really looks like RK helped save the day on that last weekend as a resource for those in search of up-to-date information.  Those couple of bumps of red on the right show that folks on the net were turning to RK hands down over online RTD for either last minute election information or for the real story on the cartoon and other issues, maybe both.  And in that window of time, the last couple of days, they weren't going to the candidates' web sites for the most part.

Overall, RK isn't high volume, but it had the correct information at the right time, and that's what counts. RK drops off on the very last day, but Webb's site picks that day up.  Makes me think that RK's last couple of bumps in part reflect those motivated to look into the cartoon story.

In contrast Miller's site doesn't spike going into the election.  It does have a spike around June 4, probably event related but to what I don't know yet. Both had good play in mid-May and Webb had extended activity back in March.

Webb gets a spike on the last day only, the true undecideds:

Details to reproduce the plot. 
-- Go to alexa.com and enter richmondtimesdispatch.com
-- Click on traffic details
-- Compare with raisingkaine.com
-- Go to reach
Note: you must get a high volume site such as RTD for a base or this won't work.

Here's their definition of reach.

What is Reach?
Reach measures the number of users. Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. So, for example, if a site like yahoo.com has a reach of 28%, this means that if you took random samples of one million Internet users, you would on average find that 280,000 of them visit yahoo.com. Alexa expresses reach as number of users per million. Alexa's one-week and three-month average reach are measures of daily reach, averaged over the specified time period. The reach rank is a ranking of all sites based solely on their reach. The three-month changes are determined by comparing a site's current reach and reach rank with its values from three month ago.

Actually, Gunnery Sgt. Guy Johns, or whoever is behind that ugly letter, just sounds like a nutter.

If Democrats have learned one lesson it's that candidates have to respond quickly and forecefully to real attacks. Especially to lies and half truths that distort their records.

But I'm not sure that I can even find a real accusation in that piece. It's just some sophomoric prank. This guy and his drunken buddies don't like what a pundit or politician says so they get even with that person by finding a picture of the him or her and sticking it in a urinal and then sending out letters to announce they are pissing on it?

People do that when they can't make a rational argument and don't have the brains to launch a real attack. Let's move on and remain vigilant about the real strikes that will no doubt come.

shouldn't be entirely dismissed.  If this was a targetted mailing to Veterans in Virginia--then it probably was coordinated through the RNC, the Allen campaign, or the like.  Not many individual would have the means to send out a $20,000 mailing.  I'd be curious to know who the recipients of the letter were.  If this just went out to campaign donors--a list that could be obtained fairly easily through the FEC--no harm, no foul.  Campaign contributers aren't going to be swayed easily at this point.

The best way to neutralize attacks is for Jim to make direct contact with military voters.  If he hasn't done so already, a targetted mailing to Virginia Veterans explaining the reasons for his candidacy would work wonders.  I realize that many folks in the military will already be familiar with him through his writings. 

The danger is that Jim is still a relative unknown.  If Allen, or his surrogates, have the opportunity to define Jim Webb first--it's going to be an uphill battle swinging opinion back in the right direction.  First impressions count.

Evolution must be true; afterall, Kansasians evolved from sunflower seeds, right?  ;)

If this letter is not showing up in the MSM or on blogs that reach Democrats, I wouldn't devote much attention to it or you will elevate its importance in the eyes of the voters.

Rapid Response is important.  We learned that during the Clinton campaigns.  But you don't want to respond to matters that don't see the light of day until you highlight them.  Otherwise you are helping the "Swift Boaters" do their dirty deed.

A more important question is why Webb didn't attend the state VFW Convention.  Tell me if I am wrong, but the press shows that only Allen attended.

Democrats should learn, I hope, that the best response is to say it's an honor to be compared to Murtha. Or for that matter, Kennedy - it's a chance to show Webb is embracing his new Party. He could align himself with Kennedy's superior stand on Veteran's health care that is much better that the Republicans, and say that for other positions they can agree to disagree.  He should not apologize for the comparison.  Even the Republicans--cross-over moderates, anyway--will look up to him for standing tall.

I can attest to the fact that Webb was a reluctant candidate who was drafted primarily by progressives. My impression is that it took some arm twisting and almost begging to get him to run.

Webb also doesn't like the role of big money in politics and that's one reason he didn't run for office before. Webb really is against the war. That must be pretty hard to take for conservatives from Kansas.

I also heard today that according to a recent poll the majority of American troops in Iraq think we should get out within a year. I guess that must make the Kansas know-it-alls very angry.

sorry for the double.

I think these letters are hoaxes by Republican non-supporters and are probably unaffiliated with the Allen campaign.

However, some of this sentiment is very real.  Totally misguided, but real nonetheless.
A real e-mail I received from a former Marine colonel after I posted a message about Webb's candidacy on a marine yahoo group in March:

"william:

Any Marine that would vote for a democrat for any office of government is a complete idiot.  And, any Marine who would run for office on the democrat ticket is a complete idiot--plus he or she would obviously be stone deaf and blind in today's media world.

The democrat party leaders are akin to Leninist communists.  Additionally, they are traitors during our Nation's time of War.  How any Marine could associate himself with democrats trying to defeat the honorable, patriotic, pro family, Christian and solid supporter of our troops and President Bush, Senator George Allen, is beyond my comprehension.  I used to hold Webb in high esteem.  He apparently has joined the limited ranks of Ex Marines that hover on the fences between democracy and socialism or subsist in the liberal cabals of the anti Americans in our society.

Take me off your mailing list.  I don't tolerate idiots or traitors.

Donald Cathcart
LtColonel USMC (Retired)"

Fortunately, this dude doesn't live in Virginia.
The lesson is that people who harbor these sentiments against Jim are out there, and they are just begging LaCivita and the SwiftBoat crew to come calling.

William

I utterly DESTROYED this guy in my response.
Never heard from him again :)

Did this guy defect to the US from the Nazis so he wouldn't be tortured after the Soviets marched into Germany?