[Update here]

Washington Monthly ("WM"; Kevin Drum/Political Animal, washingtonmonthly. com) used to have an open commenting policy, and I've been posting the occasional and almost always critical comment at that site since Drum moved there and at his previous location (calpundit.com) since 2002 or 2003.

WM recently changed to some form of post-moderation of comments. Unlike almost everyone else who uses moderation, that includes the sleazy and underhanded tactic of editing comments without noting that they've been edited. In particular, adding extra characters to some URLs left in messages rendering them inoperable.

This has happened to me at least three times, once in January [1], again in February [2] and the second time earlier today (washingtonmonthly. com/archives/individual/2007_03/010948.php), when a space character was inserted into a URL [3] in my comment (search for "TLB"), causing that link to generate a 404 (file not found message) and causing me to have to add a redirect rule into my .htaccess file. The comment is below. [4]

I don't know whether it's Kevin Drum or someone else who edits these comments, but Drum certainly knows about it. After the second incident I wrote him regarding it and he said it "probably" wouldn't happen again. He also mentioned that the person who did it may have been "annoyed"; whether he was refering to himself or someone else wasn't clear. He didn't raise any issues with the contents of any comments I left there. Note also that in December a comment I left there was deleted entirely.

Note also that two other URLs left in the comments on the latest thread were not modified, one to this page and another to this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Slepian

Clearly, as with those sites that have deleted comments I left or banned me entirely, they realize they don't have an argument and are forced to resort to playing sleazy games.

On the technical side of things, WM now uses the nofollow tag, meaning that all those who help WM create a "community" are doing so for free. Their older entries are clogged with spammm (example: washingtonmonthly. com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=8000). Meaning that they penalize legitimate commenters at the same time as they probably turn up in search results for spammmmy terms and generate click-through traffic for those spammmers. Anyone who links to their entries is linking to pages filled with spammm links and keywords.

On the wider issue, I was banned from RedState despite having posted almost 75 diary entries there over a one and a half year period. I've also been banned from ThinkProgress and QandO and I was banned from DailyKos back when he was just a solo blogger. And, I've had one or more comments deleted from MyDD (2), Think Progress, Brad DeLong, the New Haven Independent, Brothers Judd, the Arkansas Family Coalition, Media Matters for America (2, 3), John Kerry's blog, and, last but not least Blogs For Bush (example 1, 2). Obviously I'm doing something right.

~~~~~~~~ FOOTNOTES ~~~~~~~~

[1] In January a comment I left at washingtonmonthly. com/archives/individual/2007_01/010513.php had the link in the following converted into gibberish:

Arnold is/was taking advice from someone linked to the MexicanGovernment. Details here. I don't expect Kevin Drum to understand this, but perhaps he should evaluate who Arnie is linked to, who he's being advised by, and who his plans will ultimately benefit before jumping on board.

[2] In February a comment I left at washingtonmonthly. com/archives/individual/2007_02/010675.php had a link left in a comment changed from "lonewacko.com" to "lonewdfhsdfhaacko.com".

[3] The link https://24ahead.com/blog/archives/005911.html was changed to have a space character before the period.

[4]

I agree with our host about the 'hearts and minds' aspect, but he seems to have left a few things out of the equation. Many of those on the far-left think the U.S. is a bigger terrorist than, you know, the terrorists. Moderate Democrats don't exactly seem to be doing their part to reign in people like that.

On the wider issue, both the GOP and Dem leaderships are willing to put the U.S. at great risk out of fear of alienating their respective interest groups.

Recall that ChuckieSchumer pulled a web video about BorderControl simply because one or two Hispanic groups sent out press releases. Rather than taking them on, he capitulated. And, here's something most probably don't know either: HezbollahTerrrorists have infiltrated the U.S. over our porous SouthernBorder. That happened on Bush's watch, but you haven't heard any Democrats speak out about it.

Perhaps the GOP leadership should put the U.S. CofC on hold and think about protecting the U.S. And, perhaps the Dems should put the NationalCouncilofTheRace on hold and think about the same duty.