Soundoff: Obama foes pour the hate on FCW

Federal Computer Week, it would seem, is the tool of a fascist government, if not an agency of the government itself.

That was one of the recurring themes in the hundreds of comments we received last week after we published an article on the Open Government Dialogue. The favored rhetorical devices were historical references (primarily Goebbels, for some reason), profanity and the occasional obscene image.

The Open Government Dialogue, in case you missed it, is an Obama administration initiative aimed at getting public input on how to make the federal government more transparent.

As we reported in the Buzz of the Week, the site was overtaken for several days by an unknown number of participants seeking to air their complaints about the legitimacy of the Obama presidency. In short, we wrote, the Web site got slimed (you can read the full article here; be sure to click “View all comments” to get the full effect).

Within an hour, the comments started pouring in, and they continued to arrive by the bucketful for the next 24 hours. Early on, most every writer echoed the comments found in abundance at the Open Government Dialogue: Obama was not born in the United States and so his presidency is not legitimate; he has spent millions of dollars to keep his birth certificate under wraps or else the gig would be up and his plans to create a fascist regime in the spirit of Nazi Germany would be foiled.

Needless to say, these are not your typical FCW readers. Instead, these appear to be the same participants from the White House site.

Many of these readers assumed that our personal or corporate politics were the motivation for the article. That is, we are either left-wing political hacks or, more commonly, budding fascists.

Their worst fears were confirmed when we declined to post comments that simply reiterated their accusations about Obama’s birth certificate (as explained in an editor’s note). Instead, we encouraged them to focus their responses on the process used to manage the Open Government Dialogue or other aspects of how the government should interact with the public online.

One reader responded with a comment that was simply a long string of profanities -- no subject, no verb, just color commentary. Others were just as angry but more lucid.

Nonetheless, in the span of an hour or two, the mood changed and many commenters -- say, one out of every three or four -- began to focus on the matter at hand. They were still angry and convinced that the Open Government Dialogue was a waste of time, but they were on point. All in all, we ended up posting more than 50 comments.

Still, not everyone was pleased. One individual, apparently frustrated with having a comment refused, sent us this letter, which captures the spirit of the discussion in such vivid terms:

Open Government Dialogue did not get "slimed" as you call it. How in the hell can you have "transparancy" and "open dialogue" with a criminal administration comprised of cheating, thug, jackal-like scumbags who have waded their way through the most politically corrupt and despicable city politics in the country? The truth is, most of the lobotomized, entranced, ignorant, "American Idol-like" bobble-headed SHEEP in this country are not aware of Obama's birth certificate charade and his continued efforts to obfuscate and hide his TRUE birth place and school records. It wouldn't just be WND readers demanding the Messiah prove his eligibility. I have never even heard of this stupid "birther" terminology as I don't frequent "blogs" or whatever. How nice that you ignorant douche-bags consider a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISES and an ILLEGAL "comrade-in-chief" to be a "nuisance" to your ideas of government as usual and corruption abound just so long as the sheeple think we are trying to be "open" and "honest." I know that there is a special place in hell for you and your despicable, despotical turban-headed scumbag that YOU PEOPLE call YOUR PRESIDENT! HE WILL NEVER BE MINE! ROT IN HELL YOU BASTARDS!