Have you ever been Googlebombed?
Would you know it if you had been?
I just found out that I was selected to be the first target of a political Googlebombing attack in 2005 – a distinction I wear as a badge of honor.
By now, most of you are wondering if Farah has flipped his lid. You’re probably asking yourself: “What is he talking about? What does it mean to be Googlebombed?”
I’m glad you asked.
A Google bomb is an attempt to influence the ranking of a given site in results returned by the Google search engine.
One of the first Google bombs was discovered in 1999 when someone got the bright idea to search the phrase “more evil than Satan” and Microsoft’s home page came up.
But the term wasn’t even coined until two years later in 2001 by Adam Mathes.
Later, Internet users were stunned to find out that when you searched the terms “miserable failure,” the first selections were for President Bush. The White House had been Googlebombed. During the 2004 presidential campaign, it was discovered that searching the term “waffles” brought you to the official John Kerry website. It still does. Kerry had been Googlebombed. (He’ll probably claim a Purple Heart for this.)
Well, now it’s my turn.
Introducing the Googlebombproject, an endeavor apparently launched last month, whose goal is “exposing the hard right through Googlebombing.” And, as I mentioned, I was the first target, followed quickly thereafter by radio talker Tammy Bruce and then Karl Rove.
I guess we know who rates around here.
Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt. I didn’t feel a thing, in fact, until an e-mailer brought this to my attention.
The site, apparently organized by blogger Scoobie Davis (not to be confused with Scoobie Doo) did lead to a host of inaccurate reports about me and those with whom I am accused of conspiring.
Scoobie announced breathlessly Jan. 6:
I finally started working on the Googlebomb Project site. My first target is Scaife monkey-boy and the head of WorldNetDaily, Joseph Farah. Googlebombing is a cheap, easy method of media hacking. Let’s help Internet researchers with the truth about Farah.
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this Googlebomb attack is not in the words used – but “the art.”
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Check out this massive acrylic-on-canvas mural painstakingly painted by Joel Pelletier on AmericanFundamentalists.com. It is 8 feet, 4 inches by 14 feet, 1.5 inches – a knockoff of an 1888 Ensor original.
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Pelletier admits it took him six months to study and paint this band of conspirators, which includes yours truly, as well as George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, Ann Coulter and close to 120 others.
Why?
Because “all Americans need to know what is going on – the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy that Hillary Clinton warned about is real, they think they can do no wrong with God on their side, and they are here on this painting,” the artist hyperventilates.
Yes, promoting this conspiracy is part of the Googlebomb attack on me. Now when people search my name, they will see me linked with other famous “fundamentalists” like Bill O’Reilly and Sun Myung Moon.
Scratch just under the surface of some of the other links used in this particular Googlebomb effort and you will see the dark underbelly of the impotent, extremist American Left – a sick and seething anti-Semitism so virulent it would make Josef Goebbels blush.
In an open letter written to me, one of the Googlebomb conspirators charges:
Jewish power is pushing us to the eve of destruction, and … you are a liar and a hypocrite and just as unethical in your own way as the media you seek to supersede.
It just warms my heart that people like this detest me so that they would make me their No. 1 Googlebomb target in 2005.
I pledge to do my best this year and beyond to live up to and fulfill their worst nightmares.
