<P>....and they all said, "hmmmmmm."</P><P>Well, that is about half way to what I hoping for. Is it the half a loaf we should accept and go away, or can we see this as the shift towards the victory we hope to achieve? I am really in a quandry.</P><P>Anthony</P>
 

No quandry for me here; if I tried giving half the mortgage payment due, I'd be given the foreclosure papers!  I'd look at it as heat in the kitchen and their having a hard time staying there.  My reply to their half assed blog was the following even though it's not been posted as a blog comment yet: ............................................................................................ ..... and we too want to be clear that there are many previous supporters that were on that "unofficial" page that was built by Joe Anthony and at this point in time about 90,000 less on this site than the one that was already established.  So you want to give us a warm welcome now huh?  Well I'd give you a warm thank you if I felt it was sincere, however posting this blog now after one of your campaign staff, (Joe Rospars) made a previous blog on the previously "official" barackobama.com site that said disparaging remarks and untruths about Joe Anthony, I'm still waiting for a real an honest apology to him and all of us that had the rug pulled out from under our community.  There have been literally hundreds of times that the main question was posed to TeamObama at the Obama HQ that to this day has still gone unanswered.  Just to refresh your mind in case you missed it all the other times; we want to know "specifically did your staff ask Joe Anthony to make a monetary proposal to which he them complied with?"  This is not a game of dodge-ball and we're not a bunch of little kids that you think you can manipulate by tossing a convenient bone (lacking the substance) when you finally start to feel some of the heat!  This is reality, there are MANY of us out here that are truly PO'd enough to not feel comfortable giving our vote to Senator Obama yet.  I don't know which one of the spin Dr's tossed this blog out here since it was not signed, but hear me when I say that business as usual is not going to cut it anymore in the Whitehouse and we've had enough of that for the last 7 years!  We got behind this candidate "BECAUSE" he represented another view, another option and claimed to champion his cause as "everyone counts" and "how important his grassroots" were.  Tossing a statement out here to us like ""Barack gave him a call to do just that" is just more of the same since he said "he stood by his campaign staff" in that call.  So by your actions and lack thereof to address this issue for almost 3 weeks now speaks volumes more about your concerns for Joe Anthony than this once again partial truth misleading blog.  We are looking for integrity and accountability in who we give our vote to and that's why we want Barack to finally "do the right thing" so that this issue can be put to bed once and for all.  It's not smelling to well at Obama HQ for a few weeks now because of this festering sore, it's time to clean it up no matter what the cost before the cost is too high on down the road when it's asked at the next debate or on down the line at the election.  Then how will it look and how will we all still feel?              www.myspace.com/dotherightthingbarack                  ~another average joe
 

The new 'official' statement came across as a half-baked, let's-respond-to-them-without-really-responding-to-them, 'CYB' (cover your backside) thing to me, too.

 
 

<P>You can be sure that I posted my thoughts on that candidates "official" page.  Of course there is no telling when those comments will appear as the team of moderators are unable to keep up with posts.</P><P>I think the blog is riduculous and more of the same of what is clearly the real direction of this campaign, which is politics as usual.  Joe's attackers are not responding to rumors, but to the slanderous blog written by Joe Rospars on the official campaign web site.  And what do they mean, "attacking Joe directly for his actions"?  What actions and should they be attacking him indirectly?  This is yet another bogus blog by that candidate's campaign staff.  Had they said, "We apologize if anything posted on the official blog reflected negatively on Joe Anderson.  That certainly was not our intent.  Joe was a dedicated supporter of this campaign and we are grateful for his efforts.  We would like to see these personal attacks on Joe's integrity to stop immediately."  I could have swallowed that even if I knew it wasn't sincere.</P><P>They have attempted to stop the attacks on Joe without admitting to instigating them in the first place.  They are also using the blog to get the word out that the candidate placed a call to Joe to smooth things over without mentioning the fact that the call was all of 5 minutes and much of it was spent by the candidate defending his campaign staff.</P><P>I think I am gonna offer my blog writing services to the campaign as it appears the 8 year old they are pimping in a previous blog wrote this last one.  Why can't I write one?  I have asked Joe if he thinks this is an acceptable apology and am awaiting his response.  If he is ok with it I will feel better, but my view of this situation has not changed.</P>
 

Team,

Sorry for the obnoxiously large text. When I 'previewed' this blog-post, the text appeared normal size. When I actually posted it, it became HUGE.

I've tried several times to go back, edit this text, and make it smaller. But, there seems to be a new bug in the MySpace software. I keep getting an "invalid date and time" error message, even though it's not invalid. So, I'm not sure when I'll be able to edit/fix that.

- PJ

 

No problem.  I could see it clearly.   By the way, Eugene in the Dryer is the one that alerted me to the blog.  He sent out a bulletin.
 

"""size="5">We want to dispel any negative rumors"""

Excellent!! And, when will you be starting on that?!

Just in case your plan to accomplish that worthy goal is not yet fully formed, here are some suggestions for you....

(1) Remove Joe Rospars misleading and slanderous blog-post, "Our Myspace Experiment", from any and all 'official' Barack Obama websites, publications, etc.

(2) In its place, post links to the following ...

(3) A video apology from Barack Obama to Joe Anthony -- that includes Senator Obama taking full responsibility for his staff's actions; and includes the steps Senator Obama has taken to ensure this type of thing will not happen on his campaign staff again.

(4) A transcript of the video apology.

In addition to that, you can also ...

(5) Send invitations to 1% (1600) of the 160,000 people who were part of  Joe Anthony's original Obama Myspace site, to meet Barack Obama at the campaign event closest to them. That way he can apologize to them in person, and thank them for their support. Each invitee would be responsible for paying their own expenses and making their own travel/hotel arrangements; and would be allowed to bring along 1 or 2 guests. The campaign would simply setup a time and place for them to meet Senator Obama in person, for a short period of time (a few minutes?), at the campaign event of their choosing. The 1% of the 160,000 people should be chosen by Joe Anthony himself -- or by a method of his choosing.

(6) ... that was just a start ... more to come ...

- PJ

 

I'd be hesitant to meet with Barack for fear it would be a fully scripted conversation that would place him in an even more negative light.  Further I don't know if it is a good idea to put Joe in that position as it would give people more ammunition to say Joe was trying to get something out of all of this, which couldn't be further from the truth.  I have not looked in a while but the blog on the offical page was deactivated.  While you can still see the title, you can't read the blog by Rospars nor any of the 400 some odd comments and you can't post to the blog.

I think Barack needs to fire Rospars because he made statements that cast Barack as a liar and those new moderators suck to high hell and definately need to go.  I'm starting to wonder if someone is trying to sabotage Barack from the inside and it doesn't bode well for him that he is blindly allowing them to do it.

I have contacted CNN, MSNBC, The Today Show, Fox News and even Bill O'Reilly and asked them to please get on this story.  That is the only way Barack will be made aware of what is going on.  I can assure you he is not looking at MySpace.

 

Joe Rospar's blog-post is still up, along with all the comments. It's at http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CvSl  

I'm not sure if it's possible to still post comments to it. Sometimes blog software turns off the ability to post comments on a story after 10 days or so, to prevent spam-bots from coming in later and adding a bunch of spam-comments. So, if adding comments is blocked on that story, it may have nothing to do with that story in particular.

PJ

 

I read the blog this morning, and emailed Chris Hughes directly to express my discontent. They've had every opportunity to apologize and take accountability, but I think by now it's clear that's not going to happen.

I'm proud of my actions, simply because I never did anything wrong. I built a Myspace community for this campaign that became a netroots phenomenon before they even got involved. If I could do it over again, I wouldn't have turned the page over to them for a million bucks. We had every right to support Obama, or any cause we wanted to on Myspace.

Their actions are just inexcusable, from their attempt to steal the page, offering to pay me a fee then accusing me of looking for a "big payday", to covering it all up by virtually libeling me in their blog.

Jerks!

It's a tough call to decide whether or not Obama himself should be held accountable, and that's a very personal decision to make. However, I think it's fair to say that I have a very personal and justifiable reason not to support this campaign any longer.

I'm probably not going to take this any further, and I'm not sure if I'll even answer any more interview requests from the media. I'd rather just put this all behind me and focus on better causes.




 

Joe,

Thanks for openly sharing your reaction with us. We appreciate that.

- PJ

 

I know you have to be tired of this.  I'm sending you a big internet hug right now sweetie.  You sit back and relax.  We here at Do The Right Thing have your back.  I'm also gonna say we have Barack's back because that man is clearly surrounded by idiots and needs help being alerted to their actions.  One thing he has proven is he is not a micro-manager.  His people get to run amuck without his interference and possibly without his knowledge.  The problem is can we afford to have a president that hires staff that are not in tune with his own mission?
 

Joe, can't say I blame you, good luck, by thge way, i bet there are a couple of candidates who migt appreciate your help... but then you might be about sick of presidential politics.

As for those of us at DtRTB, it is not just about you, even though it is all about you. Until they resolve this matter, it is hard for us to see how to proceed. I do not hold Obama responsible for the first dumb mistake of mishandling you, but I do hold him responsible for standing by his staff when he found out what had happened.

I am prepared to work on his campaign, as soon as he fires Rospars and anyone else he finds to have been involved. I know he hates to fire members of his official staff, but he has to if he wants my help, and I am pretty sure others feel even stronger. I have been actively involved in presidential and local political volunteer work for nearly a decade, I am used to having to swallow crap in the interests of electing the lesser of two evils, but I think Obama is at risk losing the excited first time activists, and that will kill his candidacy.

 

<P>I can see where Joe is coming from, and its sad! We all know what happened and for a candidate to cover this up is ridiculous. I dont think Obama knows the whole truth or he is just too busy with other things. Too busy ignoring 160K voters! Yeah we should move on, and then when another war breaks out we move on again, when our friends are sent away to die in other countries we will move on again (my friend Dave is leaving for Mosul today), I DONT THINK SO...if we move on we move on to discredit Obama and expose him.</P><P>Joe you got so many people actively involved in politics and this is their and my first trial of what really goes on. They dont want to do the right thing, fine but i will continue to try and get them to! If this is the real AMERICA then i want to work even harder to make it better. My family came here with two suitcases and a bad ass kid, thats ALL. I have a need to contribute. I understand you may be tired of this but this exactly the reason we all got in to Politics to begin with so that shady politicians dont go far in their careers!</P><P> </P><P>e</P>
 

<P>Bird also drew my attention to this "warm welcome" and asked my opinion on it. It was early in the a.m., and I was just getting home, but here is the my original response to her:</P><P><SPAN class=left><EM>May 20, 2007 1:55 AM</EM></SPAN> <SPAN class="right messageMediumFont"></P></SPAN><P>"RE: B.O.'s Latest Blog Entry

Well, if I had the time to Google and locate a little .gif image of a yellow smiley face rolling its eyes, that's what I would've opened this email with.

I would've followed that up with: "Puh-lease."

It's 1:30, and I just walked in the door from chowing down at TGIFriday's, so a good night's rest may change my initial impression, but I doubt it.

It's hard to tell how much my own biases are screwing up how I processed the words, but I just didn't feel much sincerity. Have you ever been talking to someone--say, an old boyfriend--and he was telling you something that he wanted you to believe more than he believed it himself? Kind of like a young child's, "I won't do it again, Mama." It's called "saving butt," and if a toddler can do it, I'm sure the O.C. (Obama Camp) can, too.

If the words in the blog are so sincere, why didn't they post them weeks ago when this entire situation was way off the Insane Richter scale? Running short on blog help, too?  

Honestly, Bird, it sounds like damage control to me, and who can blame him/them? He's selling an/his image as much as anything else. It also sounds like they're testing the waters--throwing that blog out there and seeing what kind of response it gets.

Third (or fourth or fifth or whatever--it's late and I lost count), it's almost like, "Joe's playing nice, so we will, too." Only I guess they already forgot how much about this they've misrepresented.

And why did they keep repeating Joe deserves to be thanked? Who doesn't know that? Apparently the O.C. was the last to realize this. STRANGERS publicly acknowledged Joe's work before they did! I think Joe deserves appreciation. Thanks and appreciation are two different things. And I think he's more than earned compensation. Thanks and compensation are different, too.

You can't repay 2 1/2 years of hard-ass work with a phone call, a thank you, and a MySpace shout-out.

Puh-lease."
</P>
 

The thing is, they don't have to repay me for anything.

I would've been happy to keep working on the page and keeping it up in my spare time and I expressed that verbally and in writing to the campaign. They could've started their own profile and featured it on the Myspace Impact Channel. This is what Hillary Clinton did (there is an unofficial grassroots profile, and an official one that the campaign started, both linked together).

Instead, because my profile was the biggest community of supporters on Myspace, for any candidate, they wanted to acquire it. I thought I should be paid in that case, and Chris Hughes offered a one-time fee to do just that. Once I did, they used my proposal against me as an excuse to take the profile from me rather than paying me. That was wrong.

The only way to "resolve" this is to clarify that Chris initially suggested the fee, clarify that I wasn't even obligated to give them the password in the first place (and prohibited from doing so by Myspace Terms of Use), apologize for having me locked out of my own profile, and apologize for Joe Rospars blog.

Joe Rospars's blog was misleading, and if something is not true, it is a lie. I don't see how they could possibily spin this any further, so they should just apologize and clear my name so we could all move on.



 

Joe,

Thanks again for openly posting your thoughts here. It is good to know what it would take for you to consider this ordeal reasonably resolved.

I do have to say, however, if that's all they do to fix this Senator Obama isn't getting my vote. Words are cheap. They set a very negative precedent and are responsible for destroying a large and vibrant online community of 160,000 people. It's going to take more than words to make up for the damage they caused - not only to you, but also to online political involvement in general.

I think MySpace has some owning up to do, as well.

Words are cheap. Actions are meaningful.

PJ

 

Wow! OK, seriously, Joe, when you gonna run for president? This is the kind of guy we thought Obama was when all started getting so excited about him. VOTE FOR JOE!
 

I don't have the heart for politics. There's nothing fair or honest about it.

I'd rather focus on shifting power back to the people. I think the 'roots is where I belong.


 

http://www.myspace.com/vote_4_joe



http://www.myspace.com/vote_4_joe


 

<P>I thought I was posting my comment on this page and then it went on the official page marking my first visit to the official page since it was taken away from Joe.  I had never joined the new official site b/c I'm not sur eof my feelings anymore.  I was one of the first time activists who was following Barack b/c I thought finally here is a politician who could make a difference.  I registered for the first time on Joe's site and I even DONATED for the first ever to a political campaign.  Now I'm a little pissed off since this campaign is not being handled well and that Rospars guy seems to be a big part of it.  It will be interesting to see if they post my comment on the official page and the people I was agreeing with were the comments left on DoTheRightThingBarack.  Thanks for starting this page because I do want to make a change, and I think we can get this campaign back on track.  Barack should hire some of you to work on his campaign like PJ, papa2girls, bird, and uplandpoet.  Vot for Joe!</P>
 

<P>(I was in typing too fast.)  Vote for Joe!  Joe's Barack Obama's page is where I first registered TO VOTE.  (I wasn't sure if that was clear in my previous comment.)</P>
 

<P>It is my understanding that Chris Hughes offered a one-time tranfer fee in a telephone conversation with Joe and even asked Joe to think about it (a figure) overnight. To make Joe look like an opportunistic cyber squatter is just one of the things that makes me crinkle my brow. AND the fact that Joe was willing to continue working on the site even without the campaign's money is just another testament to his character.
I think we all know who the true opportunistic was in this whole URL-snatching fiasco.
Further, the hypocrisy in most of the O.C.'s "Welcome" would be hilarious, if not for their overall (and ongoing) miscarriages of common sense, decency, and humanity in this situation.
And yes, I did call the message hypocritical. Did the O.C. really attempt to chastise others for actions that were inappropriate and unacceptable?   Did they further go on to claim, "We want to dispel any negative rumors and make clear..." Ha!
Surely they jest.
Excuse me, but WHOSE actions were inappropriate and unacceptable? If there is Joe-bashing going on "over there," it is all too obvious whose misleading statements ignited it. As for claiming that they want to dispel negative rumors and make clear...we have seen little evidence that the O.C. has the slighest idea how to do anything remotely close to this.
I suggest they read above for some good starting points, courtesy of Joe.</P>