Democrats ‘hijack’
WND website

February 1, 2002

A website run by Democrats is “hijacking” a number of other sites – including WorldNetDaily.com – in a “spin-control” campaign that some feel is derogatory.

Democrats.com is using the address rightwingnutcases.com to bring readers to WorldNetDaily’s page that lists commentaries written by former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, now a columnist for WND.

Patrick J. Buchanan

“Patrick Buchanan has won the right to send people to www.rightwingnutcases.com to find his extremist commentaries,” declares the site, which is operated by Democratic activists, but has no formal connection to the Democratic National Committee. “Since Pat has now left the Republican Party for being too moderate, how much longer until he renounces his American citizenship and seeks asylum in Paraguay?”

Buchanan, who in addition to writing columns is also selling a new book, “The Death of the West”, says his political opponents are apparently returning to a familiar strategy.

“Devoid of ideas themselves, leftist Democrats have taken to the old name-calling and smear tactics, interfering with speakers and writers, that they perfected when they were all wallowing in the mud of Woodstock in 1969,” Buchanan told WorldNetDaily. “Where conservatives gave us Ronald Reagan and victory in the Cold War, these folks gave us Bill and Monica and the soiling of the White House. As they have nothing to say themselves, they can only attract attention by interfering with and attacking others who do have ideas.”

No one with Democrats.com responded to repeated inquires from WND, but the site explains its intent on one of its pages:

“Democrats.com is proud to announce a major new achievement in our ongoing effort to recapture the English language from reactionary forces who would hijack it. Today we are releasing version 1.0 of our exclusive new Spin Control Machine. The Spin Control Machine makes it possible to relabel websites that misrepresent themselves. This has become urgent since the events of September 11th, since it is now commonplace for the extreme right to try to appropriate the language of patriotism and claim exclusive proprietorship of the words indicating a love of America. … Congratulations for setting new lows and shame on all of you for testing the limits of tolerance.”

It goes on to list what it calls “crazy conservative zealots,” creating hyperlinks to relabeled addresses, among them:

“We’ve been framed!” was the initial reaction at ConservativeHQ.com, according to its Internet consultant, William Greene. His site has since inserted a code to break out of the framing by Democrats.com, but staff are nonetheless enjoying the attention and view the label as a badge of honor.

“We must really be making a difference in the fight against liberalism if Democrats.com does something silly like this,” Greene said.

Some Web surfers might confuse Democrats.com with the official site of the Democratic National Committee, as their addresses differ only in suffix. The DNC’s homepage is Democrats.org. The DNC refused comment about what Democrats.com was doing, except to say, “We have no control over this website.”

Democrats.com is the brainchild of two veteran Democrats, David Lytel and Bob Fertik. Lytel was co-developer and managing editor of the White House website, called in 1995 by Hotwired “one of the best sites on the Internet.” Fertik created the Web consulting firm I-Progress and has been a consultant to numerous campaigns, including Geraldine Ferraro’s 1998 Senate race.

Bill O’Reilly

The site says of Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, “Only an idiot would believe he’s fair and balanced,” to which O’Reilly replies, “These fanatical websites are popping up all over the place, both on the left and the right. Some are well-financed [such as Slate.com and TomPaine.com], but all of them are fringe outlets. I ignore them as most of America does.”

Ann Coulter, another weekly columnist for WND, doesn’t appear bothered by the rightwingcrazies.com label.

“I’m delighted Democrats are reading my column!” she said. “I just hope their lips don’t get tired.”

But not everyone is thrilled about the relabeled hyperlinks. WorldNetDaily’s Editor and CEO Joseph Farah feels it’s a clear violation of Internet etiquette and thinks it will make many people angry.

“What should we expect from people who describe themselves, apparently proudly, as Democratic activists?” Farah asked. “If ever there was a philosophically bankrupt political party, devoid of values and virtue, bereft of ideas and without a moral center of gravity, it is the party of Bill, Hillary and Carville and company.”

Etiquette is one principle, but law is another, and hyperlinking to other websites by creating another domain name doesn’t appear to be illegal. That according to Brian Marcus, an intellectual-property lawyer in San Francisco. He says there’s no problem as long as “they’re not passing off someone else’s information as their own.”

“As far as ‘right-wing crazies,’ I think that’s First Amendment and protected free speech,” Marcus said. “If I were to have a link to knuckleheads.com and have a link to your website, that is in essence protected free speech.”

Because the Internet is relatively new compared to other media such as newspapers and broadcast stations, there’s not a plethora of existing laws governing it. But some standards were spelled out in the Digitial Millennium Copyright Act, considered a hot potato by many involved with copyright law, according to Dr. Robert Diotalevi, director of legal studies at Mountain State University in West Virginia.

“Some claim the DMCA would hinder concepts of fair use and other acceptable means of validly utilizing copyrighted materials,” wrote Diotalevi. He states others believe it “stifles operation, free thought, expression, system corrections, etc.”

President Clinton signed the measure in October 1998, saying, “This bill will extend intellectual protection into the digital era while preserving fair use and limiting infringement liability for providers of basic communication services.”

Despite the state of the law on the matter, the notion that one website would purposefully create derogatory domain names for others still leaves WND’s Farah amazed, especially when it comes to Democrats.com.

“They have no imagination of their own, so all they can think of doing is to rip off and deface the ideas of others,” Farah said. “They can’t debate. They can’t stand toe to toe with people of principle. They are like a desperate band of graffiti artists. It’s pathetic, really.”

“The No-Spin Zone” – personalized and autographed by Bill O’Reilly