Don’t know what Tumblr is? Ask your kids.

For everybody else, follow Obama’s Tumblr here. They’re using it as a way to tell a collaborative story about the campaign. Anybody can submit stories/photos/etc and a few will get picked for publication.

So while you probably won’t get any hard hitting news on this channel, you’ll be able to get a lot of personal stories about life on the campaign trail. The other campaigns would do well to follow suit.

Hi. Remember me? Probably not, but that’s okay.

It’s been nearly 18 months since my last contribution here at The Donk. For that, I apologize to you — the reader — and even moreso to our benevolent host, Mister Gardner.

Since my last post, I have gone from being a stay-at-home-dad/pajama-clad-political-blogger to being amongst the gainfully employed. This is the primary reason for my blog-hiatus (although, admittedly I have kept my own blog relatively up-to-date).

Now that I’m 18 months into the job, I feel as though I “have gotten my sea-legs” and am ready to burst back out into The Donkle-scene — that is if you and Justin will have me. I’m ready to start posting again.

So, with all of that out of the way….

In his last post, Justin talked about the Anthony Weiner scandal and asked the question, “Why isn’t this guy stepping down?”

A great question to be sure. My response?

David Vitter.

If the junior Senator from the state of Louisiana doesn’t have to step-down after his own scandal, why should Congressman Weiner?

Don’t get me wrong, they both should step-down. But hey, these are politicians — they are above the rest of us peons.

Oh, and if you are interested, I just posted my reactions/review of the GOP debate in New Hampshire last night. Check it out.

As Kathy Kattenburg of Moderate Voice said earlier, this transcends politics.

Here’s the info…

She is a University of Washington undergrad and she has been missing since Saturday afternoon, when she left the Rainier Beach neighborhood headed to the UW Seattle campus. Her parents have been trying to reach her all weekend; she apparently never made it to campus and has not been heard from by phone/Internet. They’ve filed a missing persons report with the Seattle Police Department. Hospitals have been alerted, according to family members, and bus and train routes have been checked. No sign.

Here’s more info we’re trying to spread via Facebook and Q13Fox/KCPQ in Seattle:

MISSING PERSON

Name: Marizela Perez

Date Missing: March 5, 2011, 12:00-12:30 P.M.

Last Seen: Rainier Beach area, heading to UW Seattle campus to meet friends for lunch or study in the UW libraries

Possible Routes: Sound Link Light Rail stations, downtown/Chinatown areas, UW Seattle campus, U-district
Description – Asian female, 5’5” tall, 110 lbs, skinny build, asymmetrical bob with short bangs and brown/red highlights hairstyle, tattoo on left inner arm with the words ‘lahat ay magiging maayos’, last seen wearing denim jeans, light brown suede laced boots, possibly wearing green eye contacts, possibly carrying a plaid backpack with a Macbook Pro laptop, taking medication for depression.

Please contact if you have any information regarding this person:

Edgar: 609–646–0905
Jasmin: 609–742–2360
Mel: 206–760–1822
Joy: 609–742–2336

Seattle-area readers, can you please help get the word out — and if you or anyone you know might know anything about Marizela’s (nickname: “Em-Em”) whereabouts, please get in touch with the Seattle Police Department/UWPD or contacts listed at Facebook link above ASAP.

Marizela, if you are able to let your dad and mom know that you are okay, please contact them. You are so loved.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give Michelle’s family.

Since mw invited me to guest post on my own blog, because he apparently found a news item about the Tea Party I hadn’t, I thought I’d take him up on his thoughtful offer. I guess I’ll finally find out what it feels like to be him.

First, about the Tea Party stuff, great news. I’d be pleased to see even more stories like this regarding overall defense spending. Because, aside from Medicare, unnecessary defense spending is the biggest threat to our fiscal health. Glad mw saw that and posted it. It’s as if this whole idea of having other contributors makes a lot of sense!

So, to address the other point mw brought up…

Yes folks, I haven’t been blogging much lately. I know, huge surprise. Still, I’ve managed to write 36 posts in 2011. mw has written 11 on his blog and cross-posted 4 here. Think of that what you will.

But here’s some more perspective about blogging in general…

Donklephant was founded in July 2005. Since then I’ve written 6,460 posts. Thankfully, WordPress makes that number easy to find because I would have no idea otherwise. This will be post 6,461.

What that means is I have, on average, put up 3 posts a day for the past 6 years. And, on average, it takes about 30 minutes to read an article, look for other supporting facts and put something up. This is especially true when considering the type of blogging I like to do, which is more along the lines of reading something, sharing the news with you and offering my opinion.

If you add all that time up into your typical 16 hour days, I’ve spent about 7 and a half months creating content for this site. I say this not to complain or have you feel sorry for me. And if you do, don’t. I enjoy blogging and I’m lucky to have had so many interesting discussions with such a diverse crowd of people over the past 6 years. I’m a better, smarter person because of it. Well, at least I think I am. You’ll have to ask my friends if that’s actually true or not. Still, it has taken a lot of time and I’m not sure I’ve ever shared just how much it does with all of you.

And that’s not even taking into account the behind the scenes stuff that I have to deal with like deleting and approving comments, clearing out spam, archiving content, making sure the site is running effectively and taking part in the comments sections as well. Those conversations can be a huge time suck if you let them. Let’s just call it an even 8 months. :-)

So I’ve done all of that while maintaining a full time job, writing & producing & directing short films and web series, creating a new filmmaking fund here in Kansas City with the help of Robert Altman’s family and quite a bit more.

Oh, and I do have an actual life. Friends, family, a girlfriend, vacations, parties, concerts, movies, fine dining, sports. Yes, it’s a good time, and one of the reasons it’s that way is because blogging doesn’t dominate it. Sure, sometimes it has, but over the past year, I’ve been less interested in blogging…so I haven’t done it as much. The daily slog of the health care fight and the inanity of much of the Tea Party’s messaging made for a very uninteresting political conversation. There are only so many times you can point out that what somebody is calling unconstitutional is actually the exact opposite and the same goes for details of what is or isn’t in the health care legislation, if it’s bad, how much money it wil save, will it work, etc.

And I’m sure most of you have picked up on this by now, but I don’t aspire to be a political pundit. I don’t want to be on CNN. I don’t want to be on talk radio. I’m just trying to build a small little corner of the political blogosphere where people aren’t terrible to each other. And I think, for the most part, we’re accomplishing that.

So there you have it. I’m not going to promise any more or any less posting. What I will promise is that I’m sticking around. Hope that’s enough.

Oh, and mw…if you ever ask me to guest post on my own blog again…I will crush your head.

The liberal blog Open Left suddenly announced today that they’ll stop posting content because…

we have gradually run out of money to maintain operations. It is a difficult decision, but we kept going for as long as we could.

But…

The site will not disappear, and all published content will remain online {…}

Wait…what?

Open Left is run on Soap Blox, which is a blogging platform and hosting service. The blog platform appears to be free and the most expensive hosting costs $40 a month. Sure, there are add ons, but Open Left doesn’t get a ton of traffic. They say they’re going to keep the website up, so it’ll cost $480 at the most every year. If you add in extra storage and overages every month, maybe it costs $1,000 a year…maybe.

So the idea that it was too costly to maintain the site is hard to swallow. Why didn’t they just throw a fundraiser? Think they could get 100 people to pitch in $10…or more? This is, after all, some of the same readers who rocketed Howard Dean from obscurity to the national stage because he was able to raise a ton of money online.

Bottom line…if they really cared about their readers they’d simply tell them that they can’t pay their writers anymore so content contributions will go down. And that’s assuming they paid their writers in the first place. Many political blogs simply invite people to blog and pay them zip. The platform, readership and communication is enough compensation. Also, I’ve been frank with all of you about content dropping in the down years between elections…and our hosting costs more than what they were paying. Do you see us going away?

Just saying…Chris Bowers and crew could easily keep that site up and post to it when they want to. But they’re not making any money. That’s the reason they’re quitting. Not very “open” if you ask me.

No mystery. I’ve been VERY busy. And I didn’t want to keep posting about being very busy. So I figured, upon returning, I’d just let everybody know what’s going on. Between work and other projects (film and multimedia), my time has been completely consumed. My apologies if it seemed like I don’t care about the blog. I do, but life oftentimes gets in the way.

Also, to be honest, I’ve been bored with politics lately. Especially since it’s either about A ) what Bill Maher will post about Christine O’Donnell next, B ) something stupid a Tea Party candidate has said or C ) something smart that Jon Stewart says about something stupid a Tea Party candidate has said.

But now the horse race is starting to heat up and the polls are getting interesting. So I’m getting back into it. Not making any promises that I’ll post as much as I have in the past election cycles, but you’ll see an uptick. My goal is to post at least once a day. I think I can make that work.

Onward and upward.

(PS – The pictures have absolutely no meaning. Consider it a non sequitur treat from me to you.)

First he told Jeffrey Goldberg that he was wrong when he told Russia to bomb us during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Now he’s saying that the entire Cuban model is flawed?

From The Atlantic…

But during the generally lighthearted conversation (we had just spent three hours talking about Iran and the Middle East), I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

“The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore,” he said.

This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, “Never mind”?

I asked Julia to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, “He wasn’t rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under ‘the Cuban model’ the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country.”

What a difference a near death experience makes.

Your thoughts?

Most active political bloggers get between 20 – 30 emails a day from PR companies and other news sources trying to get you to write about their news. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of releases from National Journal about new journos they’re adding to their team. I noticed a few higher profile names, but this latest one is a much bigger fish jumping into NJ’s pond so I thought I’d share.

Former Fox News correspondent Major Garrett is joining the team…

Washington, D.C. (August 25, 2010) — National Journal Group announced today that award-winning political journalist Major Garrett is joining National Journal as a Congressional Correspondent, reporting and providing analysis across all of National Journal Group’s publications.

Garrett comes to National Journal from Fox News Channel, where he is currently the Chief White House Correspondent. During his eight years at Fox News, Garrett also covered Congress, two presidential elections, the war in Iraq, and many other issues of national importance. He will join Sue Davis, recently hired from the Wall Street Journal, to lead National Journal’s Congressional coverage.

“Major Garrett is the embodiment of the new team we’re building here at National Journal,” said Editor-in-Chief Ron Fournier. “He is known across Washington as one of the hardest-working journalists in the business, a fierce competitor on his beat, and a good and decent man. It is a rare combination, and one we’re incredibly lucky to be bringing into our newsroom.”

So that’s Garrett, but what about the others?

Here’s some more about the team NJ has been putting together…

In the last several weeks, National Journal Group has added several talented writers, editors, and analysts, including veteran magazine writer and editor Matt Cooper, political analyst Matthew Dowd, The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, USA Today’s Aamer Madhani, the Wall Street Journal’s Yochi Dreazen, Sue Davis, and Fawn Johnson, Politico’s Josh Kraushaar, Coral Davenport, and Tim Alberta, the Tribune Washington Bureau’s Jim Tankersley, Campaigns and Elections’ Jeremy Jacobs, Modern Healthcare’s Matt Dobias, and more. Further announcements will be coming in the next days and weeks.

National Journal Group, which includes premium publications such as National Journal, CongressDaily, Hotline, The Almanac of American Politics, and Global Security Newswire, is undergoing a transformation that will build upon its reputation for intelligence and depth, infusing it with currency and speed.

All this for online news? Or could they be thinking about something more public? In Garrett’s case, you don’t go from being the Chief White House Correspondent to a different gig unless it’s something as big or bigger than that.

Hmmm…

We here at Donklephant want to make sure you know that we’re laughing at you, not with you…

23) Saul Alinsky (7)
23) Bill Clinton (7)
23) Hillary Clinton (7)
19) Michael Moore (7)
19) George Soros (8)
19) Alger Hiss (8)
19) Al Sharpton (8)
13) Al Gore (9)
13) Noam Chomsky (9)
13) Richard Nixon (9)
13) Jane Fonda (9)
13) Harry Reid (9)
13) Nancy Pelosi (9)
11) John Wilkes Booth (10)
11) Margaret Sanger (10)
9) Aldrich Ames (11)
9) Timothy McVeigh (11)
7) Ted Kennedy (14)
7) Lyndon Johnson (14)
5) Benedict Arnold (17)
5) Woodrow Wilson (17)
4) The Rosenbergs (19)
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)
2) Barack Obama (23)
1) Jimmy Carter (25)

If I were picking worst blogs, guess which ones would be on that list…

UPDATE:
Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse concurs.

Solomon Kleinsmith, who is a contributor here from time to time and just started a great new site The Rise Of The Center, has put together a list of indy/centrist/moderate blogs you should check out.

Here’s a taste:

The Pragmatic Center – Nick Goebel, who I’ve chatted with a bit, has his head on straight. His blog is a mix of common sense political talk on national and Michigan state politics.

Third Party and Independent Daily – This site doesn’t just stick to centrist type stuff, as any third party groups are discussed, but there is a lot of great coverage of smaller stories you don’t see anywhere else, related to those on the front lines of the war against the two party system.

POLI-TEA – Probably the site out there that is most like mine… so of course I think its great! haha… Almost all really in depth discussion. Its a must read.

Centrist Zealot – I only came across this one a few days ago, but its already one of my favs. Schmitty, one of the two man team that runs Centrist Zealot, have chatted a bit and he’s really got his head in the right place. CZ is a lot more… snarky than Rise of the Center, but the content is good.

So, what are your favorite reads around the middlesphere?

And how about in the rest of the blogosphere? Not all liberal and conservative blogs are awful. What do you check out from time to time?

This was certainly a nice surprise!

In a column that runs through names like Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker, Michael Smerconish, Joe Scarborough, Joe Klein and David Broder…we’re mentioned!

Here’s the photo. It focuses on Joe Gandelman and the fantastic work he has done with The Moderate Voice, but we’re right there in the description…along with our tagline.

Here’s the text…

Alongside TMV, the excellent centrist site Donklephant.com (based out of Kansas City and boasting the slogan “Big Teeth… Huge Ass.. and Surprisingly Reasonable”) and BookerRising.com, is providing a home for the center online, persisting while respected efforts like Mark Satin’s Radical Middle have gone on hiatus.

Actually, it’s BookerRising.net, but nonetheless…very cool!

Thanks John Avlon!

Just an FYI for those of you who are looking for some late night political reading. Media Temple is scheduling some maintenance on their infrastructure and it’ll mean that the site will most likely be down at that time.

But never fear…we’ll be back up soon!

Best,
Justin

The title says it all. If you tweet or have been thinking of a good excuse to get on Twitter, follow us @thedonklephant. We tweet all of our posts and some other fun facts too.

Now, if you’re new to whole “twitter” thing, this article provides some good pointers: What Should I Tweet About?

Also, Twitter has a Downloads Page that’s full of applications to make the service more useful. Personally, I use a site called Hootsuite and I like it because you don’t have to open an external application. It’s all right there in your browser.

Hope you’re having a great holiday!

Hey all,

I’ve been dormant these past couple weeks given work and other obligations, so I wanted to write and tell everybody what’s been going on.

First and foremost, I’ve been focusing on my job over at AMC. We just launched a new website in late October and you can imagine how much work that involves. We’ve also been planning for next year, and that takes a lot of time and effort too.

In addition, I’ve been working on a personal project throughout the last year and am finishing it up soon. I can’t wait to share it with all of you, and it should be done in the first part of the new year. Fingers crossed.

Thankfully, the fantastic contributors I’ve invited to blog on Donklephant have picked up the slack and are reporting regularly. Do know I continue to visit the site everyday and read the comments (and moderator them), but I don’t take part in as many of the discussions as much as I’d like.

Nonetheless, it’s a pleasure reading the thoughts of such talented folks and I couldn’t be more happy with the conversations that have been going on in my absence.

Do know that I’m still committed to Donklephant, but this break is necessary given where I’m at right now. I appreciate your understanding and please feel free to drop any comments as to how I could make things better in 2010.

All the best!

Warning, this may bore some of you to tears. Others may find it absolutely fascinating. My hope is more of you fall into the latter camp since I’ve essentially been forced to give you a behind the scenes look at how contributors come on board.

Confused? Don’t be. All will be revealed soon enough.

Some backgrond…

In July I put out a call for bloggers and received a lot of replies. A good problem to have, and I added many more than I thought.

One of them was from David Anthony Hohol, a Canadian an American living in Dubai. Upon reading some (not all) of his editorials at his site Relativity Online, I thought he could provide a unique perspective. Unfortunately, one of his first editorials accused Israelis of ethnic cleansing and characterized them as “scheming thieves.” Needless to say, his content was deleted from the site and his posting privileges were taken away (although a cache of the post still remains).

Understandably, a rather heated email exchange began. We were both able to have our say and leave it at that. Or so I thought. Because today I’m reading my private correspondence on a public blog.

Even more unfortunate? Hohol has chosen to excerpt pieces of our emails instead of reprinting them in full.

So, what follows is the ENTIRE exchange, not just the emails and segments he chose to share. I haven’t edited any grammar or spelling so all errors remain, including my own. Yeah, it’s embarrassing, but at least it’s honest. The only thing I did take out was some log in information and video embed code. Both are noted as such below.

Please feel free to tell me what you think. I’m open to constructive criticism and am curious to hear your thoughts on how this process works. Do know that I’m unable to pay anybody (at least for right now) so I have to put a lot of trust in my contributors. Sometimes it works out. This time (and recently) it didn’t. But I’ve found it’s better to cut ties quickly to avoid any further confusion and/or damage to the site.

So here we go…the private emails of one Justin Patrick Gardner…

July 2, 2009, 1:27 AM: His initial email asking if he can join
Hello Justin,

I am interested in blogging for you, am ready to commit to 5 blogs per week. Please visit http://www.relativityonline.com/ and click on the “From the Editor” tab for a sample of my writing. Visit the staff page for my bio and qualifications.

Regards,
David Anthony Hohol

July 2, 2009, 4:27 PM: My response
David,

Do you still live in Dubai? If so, I think there’s the potential to not only lend a needed perspective from the Middle East and cover foreign affairs, but also do more blogging during the time when most Donklephant authors would be sleeping.

Drop me a line with a little bit more about yourself and what niche you think you could fill at the site.

Best,
Justin

July 3, 2009, 5:09 PM: His response
Hello Justin,

Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, I still live in Dubai. As far as a niche for Donklephant, yes, a Middle Eastern perspective is something I could offer. I’ve lived in Dubai for going on six years and spent time in Syria, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and Sudan, with much of my outside the UAE time being spent in Jordan (my wife is Jordanian) Further still, with Dubai being the Disneyland-like Crossroads of the Middle East, I have access to endless variety of nationals from around the world. Finally, not only can I access the goings on of the Middle East, but also the perspective of America and the West as seen through the eyes of this region.

My own personal perspective of this region is genuine, informed and from the inside, all of which are often limited in terms of the Western Media. Standing outside the machine, and having passed through more than forty countries also gives me a better perspective of North American life than many of those living within in it…

Let me know what you think.

Regards,
D.

July 4, 2009, 12:00 PM: Having read some of his work, my response
David,

Okay, I’m sold, and it’s my pleasure to offer you a spot at Donklephant.

I’ll be in touch soon with more details, but my plan is to announce all of the new authors around July 13, which is the anniversary of the site launch in 2005.

Thanks so much for reaching out. Really looking forward to working with you.

Best,
Justin

July 5, 2009, 11:23 AM: His response
Hi Justin,

Thanks for the opportunity. I truly look forward to working with you. I’m currently in London adn will be arriving in Canada in a few days. I would be prepared to submit regularly by the end of the month. Let me know if yuo would need me sooner…

Regards,
D.

July 5, 2009, 12:41 PM: My response
Great!

By end of the month do you mean the week of the 20th? The reason I ask is so I can set expectations on the blog. Because I want to announce on the 13th, and if you’re going to start a week later I’d like to tell everybody that.

Thoughts?

July 5, 2009, 6:52 PM: His response
Hi Justin,

I’m on an 8 week break from work in Dubai and will be hopping around until July 25th. I’ll swing back into my routine after that, so starting on the 27th would be more suitable for me. By the way, let me know if you have any topic areas you would like me to hit on. . . Also, I would like to direct traffic back to RELATIVITY via links within the blogs I write for you. Are you cool with that?

D.

July 5, 2009, 11:14 PM: My response
Sounds good. I’ll be on vacation then anyway, so let’s just say Monday, August 3rd.

Yes, linking back to your own content is encouraged, not only because it sends you more traffic, but it also makes Google like Donklephant better, and vice versa. So, when you can, please link back to Donklephant from Relativity.

Also, I’m assuming you want to be know as David Hohol on the blog. If not, tell me what you want your author name to be. I prefer people to be themselves, but don’t require it.

Alright, many safe travels and I’ll be sending you an email with a bunch of info soon.

Best,
Justin

July 6, 2009, 6:29 AM: His response
Looking forward to the info… and yes I want to go by my full real name, including middle name: David Anthony Hohol

Enjoy your vacation and I look forward to hearing from you
D.

July 12, 2009, 6:28 PM: My standard “intro” email
Hi David,

I’ll be announcing that you’re part of the team on Monday. After that feel free to begin posting any time you want. I think you said you’d begin posting at the end of July, and if that’s the case that’s fine by me.

In any event, the following are some dos and don’ts and tips about pictures, videos, etc. Please drop me a line if you have any questions.

INTRO POST
For your first post, please provide a brief intro of yourself and then just launch into the actual post. There’s no “right” way to do this, just “your” way of doing it.

CODE FOR POSTS
Please only use the code provided in the WordPress options. That means you shouldn’t used tags or font tags or

tags. The most important thing I can stress is that you shouldn’t simply copy and paste code from Blogpost into WordPress because it’ll cause problems with the look and feel of. I know it’s a pain, but please make sure that this code is clean. It’s essential to making sure your post looks good on Donklephant.

Also, if you ever want to code a table into a post for whatever reason, create a blog post on your Blogpost site, take a screen capture of it and embed a picture of it in your post. I recommend a desktop app called Skitch, but you can obviously use whatever you deem fit.

For photos, the maximum width is 430. You can use the following code with the width set and the height will work itself out: . Seriously. You don’t have to adjust the height and width. Just set the width and the height will set itself.

For videos, the maximum width is also 430. I would suggest embedding only YouTube videos, but I don’t want to limit you, so if you want to use one that has a bigger width, please recalculate what the height would be at a 430 width and plug the new numbers into the code. For instance, BrightCove videos nearly ALWAYS at least 480 width, but the following is even bigger…

(Boring embed code deleted)

In this code, I would have to replace numbers in two places, the top and bottom. I know I want my width to be 430, but I need the multiplier. That means I’ll take the smaller number into the larger number and come out with 0.98. Take that times 430 and you get 421. Those are my two new width and height numbers, and the code will now look like this…

(More boring embed code deleted)

As expected, the above would be the appropriate code to include in the Donklephant template to make the site look good. Anything else would look out of place.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS CHECK YOUR WORK
Yes, ALWAYS check your posts after they’re posted on the site. If something looks messed up, please try to fix it. If you can’t fix it, unpublish the post and email me and I’ll fix it as soon as I can. I’d rather have something post late then post wrong. I’m sure you understand.

EDITING
After you post your work, I may come in and rework some things just in case you miss something. Usually all I do is add a photo, but that’s only if I can find something appropriate for the subject and tone of your post. If I can’t, I simply leave it alone.

LOG IN INFO
(Deleted for privacy)

Again, please drop me a line with any questions. I’m here to help with anything and everything.

Welcome aboard!
Justin

August 2, 2009, 10:18 PM: Notifying me he was ready to post
Hey Justin,

As promised I have submiited my first slew of articles by August 3rd. I am currently on my family’s farm in Alberta and will be heading back to Dubai in a couple of weeks.

I wasnt sure if I should directly publish my work or not. That being the case I posted them all as drafts, so you can make any changes, edits or additions that you see fit. Is this how I should always do things? Or do you want me to post them publish straight away?

I also have a confession to make… all that code shit is greek to me. I dont know how to post videos. I’m just a redneck with a laptop. I did try to upload some pics but it would not allow me to….

Best Regards,
D.

August 2, 2009, 10:22 PM: Notifying me he had posted them all

Check that… I accidentally posed one, so I figured i’d just post them all’ Let me know if thats what I should be doing anyway…

D

August 3, 2009, 10:28 AM: Shorter response from me “WTF?”
David,

I’m not sure what was unclear from my invitation to the site, but your post on Zionism is COMPLETELY inappropriate. Donklephant is about balanced coverage, not blatant advocacy. There were so many different ways you could have approached that post about the settlers, but you chose the one way that forces my hand.

Given that, I think it’s best we just called it a day on this partnership and left it at that. I simply can’t risk the integrity of the site.

Take care,
Justin

August 3, 2009, 8:15 PM: His response
Hello Justin,

I must say that I am quite surprised by your reaction to the article about Zionism. You wanted me to write about the Arab perspective (review your own description of me as an upcoming writer) and that was what I did.

My words in the article were “many in the region” (ie. the Middle East) look at Israeli as “scheming thieves”. “Many in the Region” is not Donklephant, not you, but just that – the Arabs. That, my friend is the Arab perspective. Full stop. That is the side, the perspective, the opinion, that offers the balanced coverage you say you want.

Balance is about both sides, not one side being free to say what they want and the other being forced to be politically correct. And when you then say, “Okay, I don’t want you to write anything at all anymore,” it makes me wonder why you even invited someone to offer you the Arab perspective in the first place. By telling me, a secular Canadian , that you don’t want me or my stories about the REAL Arab perspective on your site after asking me to do so, is COMPLETELY inappropriate and that, Justin, is where the integrity you say are trying to protect is lost.

Best of luck,
David Anthony Hohol

August 3, 2009, 9:21 PM: My response back
David,

Actually, I said you’d be giving us an insider’s perspective, not a one-sided Arab perspective that accuses “Zionist Israel” of ethic cleansing. I mean COME ON. How would you ever think that’s appropriate to post given what you know about the site and its goals?

What’s more, and forgive me for being so blunt, but when you say that the words in the article aren’t Donklephant’s…are you serious? If you, as a writer for this site, use the words “scheming thieves” and then link those words back to an editorial written by you where you call the state of Israel a terrorist state, well, guess what…that makes it seems as if Donklephant is endorsing that view.

And yes, balance is about both sides. That’s why I invited you. Because I thought you were going to offer a perspective that took a look at the situation colored by more of the realities of a foreigner living in the Middle East. If you feel that viewpoint has integrity, I can’t dispute that, but as somebody who has defended Palenstine on Donklephant I can tell you that it has absolutely no integrity on the site. Think of that what you will.

August 7, 2009, 2:27 PM: He responds back 5 days later
Hello Justin,

I recently posted an article about the Burka and was thinking of your last email. In the end, I guess I couldnt resist replying to you.

It may be a rhetorical question, but when I asked you to read over my editorials so as to get a better perspective on my writing style… did you even read one article form beginning to end? If you had you would have seen where I come from what transpired could have been avoided. You would not have wasted my time… or yours for that matter. It was unprofessional on your part not to know who it is you invite to write for you. Perhaps now you’ve learned your lesson and will be more thorough in the future.

Saying you wanted an “insider’s perspective” as opposed to a “perspective of the region” is just semantics, by the way. That phrase could be defined any number of ways. At NO TIME did you ask me for a foreigner’s viewpoint, as opposed to the Arab perspective.

Further still, calling what I wrote a “one-sided Arab perspective” is flat out wrong and prejudiced. There are many in the international community, not Arab, and not even Muslim, who hold these views. I mean COME ON, you must know this.

I must say I found it interesting that in your first email you cited the phrase “scheming thieves” (which is what 99% of Arabs think of Israelis) as the problem in my article and now in your last email you have left this phrase behind and moved onto to new words like “ethnic cleansing” and “Zionism” as issues of concern. It leads me to think you are trying hard to convince yourself you are right…

Justin, ethnic cleansing is defined as when a single group of people are being eradicated or forced to disperse from their native land, through military action and illegal land grabs to create an ethnic homegeneity. In other words… this IS what’s happening in Palestine . Case in point, a recent Time Magazine article stated:

“And yet to much of the world, the Katzes (a family of West Bank Israeli settlers) are participating in illegal land grabs forbidden by the Geneva conventions, which do not allow an occupying power (like Israel ) from settling its own civilians on militarily controlled land.”

Did you know there are many Jewish groups around the world, growing by numbers and influence everyday that refer to Israeli as a Zionist Warring State ? In an open letter to the people of Palestine , Rabbi Ahron Cohen wrote:

The world stands aghast as the atrocities being committed by the Zionist regime in Gaza, becomes known in ever greater and shocking detail. Mere words are insufficient to express the pain that all mankind feels at the plight of the Gaza and Palestinian people.

Throughout their history, the Zionists have resorted to intimidation, war, ethnic cleansing and state—sponsored terrorism to achieve their goals. This is, has been and continues to be, the criminal agenda of the Zionist movement.
source: http://www.nkusa.org/index.cfm

But I guess these words, the words of a Jewish Rabbi, would not be acceptable on the pages of your magazine.

60 minutes reports, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7XtT91yO6g , Pullizter prize winning American authors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjBttx6Gd2c , or mainstream online magazine writers http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein01012009.html represent the fact that the media’s viewpoint of Israel is changing. Simply put, Israel ’s is cold-blooded in its dealing with the Palestinians and the world media as a whole is shifting. You can join the fearful herd and be a follower Justin, some are better suited to do so than others. But I will join the others in the distance and lead. Being against Israeli actions in Palestine , calling them bullies and thieves, or any other number is names, is NOT anti-Judaism. This is a manipulative lie whose shelf life is finally and thankfully reading its end. Think of that what you will.

Best Regards,
David Anthony Hohol

August 7, 2009, 5:09 PM: My response back
David,

I wasted your time? Respectfully, are you forgetting the part where you contacted me? And yes, of course I read some of your work, but I obviously didn’t read all of your work. Otherwise you never would have received an invite.

Also, you’re pulling the “prejudiced” card on me? You brought up the notion of “Arab” in your response to my initial email, and I was using that term to describe what I thought your perspective was, not to characterize the entire Arab world as sharing that perspective. And I’m sorry, but who called Israeli settlers “scheming thieves” and then linked back to his own editorial?

Moving on…you found it interesting I moved on to other terms beyond “scheming thieves?” Well, I find it interesting that you don’t understand that when you attack somebody, they’re going to defend themselves by providing more detail. Yes, I was justifying my position. It’s called debating.

As far as your definition of ethnic cleansing and then citing the activities of one family as proof? Also, a Rabbi who doesn’t even think that the state of Israel should exist? David, seriously, I’m not trying to be a dick here, but if you brought that into any serious forum for debate you’d get laughed out of the room. As I’ve said before on Donklephant, I think the Israelis have obviously overreached and need to stop building settlements. But you’re going far, far, far, far beyond that and assigning some nefarious “ethic homogeneity” plot to them. That’s just the type of conspiratorial nonsense that instantly discredits you nearly in every forum except ones that still believe that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are valid. Not good company.

Listen, we obviously don’t agree and that’s fine. I wish you and yours the best and let’s just leave it at.

Best,
Justin

December 8, 2009: The email that sparked this post
Hello Justin,

Thought you might enjoy this article. It’s about our chance online meeting this past summer.

http://www.relativityonline.com/from-the-editor/battle-lines/

D.
+++++++++

And so here we are…

One additional note…after I revoked Hohol’s privileges and took his post down, he posted a comment on a site called Newstin that this article was the one taken down.

His post…

I was fired from donlkephant for posting this story. Told it is a “one-sided Arab perspective” and any site that would carry it had “abosultely no integrity.” RELATIVTY OnLine thankfully offers its writers the freedom to reveal their own individual perspecvtive. To read the full version of the above story click here

Note that Hohol not only linked to the wrong article, but he also claims that I said any site that would run his editorial would have no integrity. But, as you’ll remember, I actually said…

If you feel that viewpoint has integrity, I can’t dispute that, but as somebody who has defended Palenstine on Donklephant I can tell you that it has absolutely no integrity on the site.

So there you have it.

Please share your thoughts below.

Hey folks, Justin here.

Yesterday a new contributor, Kyle Brady, started posting on the site. As is my policy here, I allow people to blog as they see fit unless I think it goes against the spirit of the site. However, upon reading the post, I felt it contained several things that could be considered “bomb throwing” and therefore didn’t promote the type of discussion we’re looking for here. So I talked to Kyle about it and we reached the conclusion that it was best he move on. (Update: The author disputes that we jointly reached the conclusion that it was best he move on, so I’m willing to say that I alone reached the conclusion that it was best he move on.)

I’ll continue to keep the post up because I think a worthwhile discussion started and I wanted to make sure everybody had a chance to join it if they want. (Update: At the request of the author, the content of the post was deleted from the site.)

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments.

At the request of the author, this content has been deleted from the site.

It feels a little hard to believe, but we’re marking another milestone on the site today: 9,000 posts in a little over 4 years.

Many, many, many thanks to my fellow contributors who have written thousands of thoughtful posts. And many, many, many thanks to all of you who read and comment everyday.

Here’s to the next 9000!

Cheers,
Justin

UPDATE:

Soon we’ll be over 9,000!!!!!

Thanks bubbles!

Hey all,

I’ve heard quite a bit of back channel chatter about the last two posts on the blog and I wanted to explain how I was responsible for the topic even showing up here in the first place.

Doug and I are friends on Facebook and he feeds his posts through his profile. I saw the bowing post and we had the following conversation…

As far as John’s post, well, I give everybody the same access to post when I invite them to have an account. That means he can come and go as he pleases. And that policy is my responsibility too. (Although I’d prefer the headlines were less sensationalist than what John wrote, and have told him as much.)

So, not that I want this to turn into a prolonged fight over the protocols of bowing, but if you have an account here to blog…tell us what you think.

In any event, hope this clears up any confusion.

Also, I hope you don’t unsubscribe because of a couple posts rubbed you the wrong way. After all, that’s sort of the point of this site.

I found this over at Power Line and I’m reprinting it in full…

I’m delighted to be collaborating with Joe Trippi, one of my favorite liberals, on a bipartisan project to support America’s veterans. The project is called the Eleven Eleven campaign; the objective is to get 11 million Americans to contribute $11 apiece to support America’s vets. The campaign will be internet-driven, and all bloggers are invited to participate. Here is a description of the campaign:

This Veterans Day marks the beginning of The Eleven Eleven Campaign — a nationwide campaign by BeyondTribute.org to change the way America honors its Veterans.

The objective of the campaign is simple: to get 11 million Americans to donate $11 to support America’s Veterans. We’ve made giving back to our Vets simple through a national Text to Give Campaign (simply text “VETS” to 85944 to contribute).

Contributions are distributed directly to Beyond Tribute’s 11 coalition partners, who specialize in providing direct services and advocacy for Veterans of all eras and conflicts, including World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, and the present day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We’re asking bloggers from around the web and across the political spectrum to join us in making this Veteran’s Day a holiday not about sales in the stores, but about making a difference in the lives of our Veterans.

To that end, we’d like to invite you to a special campaign announcement call for bloggers this Monday, November 9th at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT. Join Gold Star Mother Ruth Stonesifer, Democratic political consultant Joe Trippi and Power Line blogger John Hinderaker to learn more about the campaign and how you can help make this November 11th a day when bloggers come together to support our Vets.

Please RSVP to the conference call here:

http://action.eleven-eleven.org/t/5400/signUp.jsp?key=2817

Dial-in Number: 1-213-289-0500

Participant Access Code: 4670471

The Eleven Eleven Campaign begins on Veterans Day, 2009 – but it continues every day until our goal is reached: bringing 11 million Americans together to change the way America honors its Veterans – moving beyond tribute to action and support.

The organizations that will receive support from the campaign include groups like American Gold Star Mothers, the Wounded Warriors Project, the VFW Foundation, and more. If you have a web site, please join us on the conference call tomorrow at 5 Pacific, 8 Eastern for more information. Thanks!

Do you have $11 to spare on November 11th? Hope so, but if not please promote this on your blog and/or social spaces so the word is spread far and wide.