LGF and Free Republic

A professor at Crooked Timber writes "Before the Internet, the average liberal or social democrat was largely insulated, on a day-to-day basis, from the kinds of views represented by Free Republic or Little Green Footballs...Now we can see them minute-to-minute and it’s obvious that the idea of treating them as part of a legitimate discussion is absurd."

Two months before the 2004 election Dan Rather tried to prevent George Bush from being reelected President by airing the Killian Documents. These documents purported to show that Bush lied about aspects of his National Guard Service. The documents could well have cost Bush the election.

But Charles Johnson writing at Little Green Footballs and posters on Free Republic convincingly and quickly showed that the documents were forgeries. Little Green Footballs and Free Republic, consequently, played a tremendous role in preventing fraudulent information from influencing the 2004 Presidential election. Yet somehow our professor at Crooked Timber feels that "treating them as part of a legitimate discussion is absurd." If detective work by the Daily Kos had saved Bill Clinton's Presidency through debunking false charges, leftist professors would have nominated Kos for a Nobel Peace Prize. But when rightest blogs do the same for Bush, leftists believe that the right-wing blogs shouldn't even be part of the legitimate discussion!