(cc: Republican Jewish Coalition, and posted publicly on the Internet)

Dear Mr. Obama,

In 1980, the Ku Klux Klan offered Ronald Reagan its endorsement, perhaps in an attempt to gain publicity for itself. Here is what Ronald Reagan said and did, per his letter to the Chairman of the Commission on Civil Rights Concerning the President’s Views on the Ku Klux Klan.

April 30, 1984

Dear Morris:

While in China, I have been distressed to learn that some individuals back home have questioned whether my views on the Ku Klux Klan have somehow changed since 1980. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1980, I said that I have no tolerance for what the Klan represents, and would have nothing to do with any groups of that type. If anything, my feelings on this subject have only grown stronger. The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry practiced by the Klan and others have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood. Those of us in public life can only resent the use of our names by those who seek political recognition for the repugnant doctrines of hate they espouse.

I firmly believe that there is no room for partisanship on this question. Democrats and Republicans alike must be resolute in disassociating ourselves from any group or individual whose political philosophy consists only of racial or religious intolerance, whose arguments are supported only by intimidation or threats of violence.

We must, and will, continue our unified rejection of such elements of hate in our political life, for while there are many issues which divide us, it is fundamental principles such as this which will always draw us together.

Sincerely,

Ronald Reagan

In August 2006, it was revealed that MoveOn.org knowingly and willfully allowed its now-disgraced Action Forum to serve as a platform for racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, and anti-Evangelical hate speech, along with conspiracy theories to the effect that the U.S. Government perpetrated 9/11. The following editorial appeared in the Washington Times on August 29 2006. I can personally vouch for the hate-filled content of MoveOn’s Action Forum, and I have compiled and posted an archive of the material for public inspection.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060828-101134-7666r.htm

And boy do the Moveon folks hate Jews.
Perhaps hate is too weak a word. William F. Buckley Jr. wrote an article in 1991 exploring the question of whether Pat Buchanan was an anti-Semite (The answer: yes.) Mr. Buchanan called Jewish supporters of Israel its “amen corner” and a fourth (or was it fifth?) column undermining American global interests. But he never called them “Media owning Jewish pigs” or “sneaky Jewish sympathizers!” Both can be found repeatedly on the Moveon.org Action Forum.
…After Sen. Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut, one Moveon member stated: “Jew Lieberman first step. Corporate Clinton will be next. Impeachment of BushCo will be third.” This one came in with 95 percent of Moveon members responding approving the “Jew Lieberman” post. (Moveon helpfully records the percent of people agreeing with each post.)
Many postings creatively connect the need to eliminate Jewish influence with the goal of impeaching President Bush

…Why the Jews? Or as one post quipped, “Why are the Jews so Jew-y?” According to the mind of Moveon, “(I)t’s those GREEDY PIGS who own our mainstream media who are placing RELIGION/POLITICS (ISRAEL) and CORPORATE GREED above the best interests of the American people (peace, democracy, clean air, healthcare, etc.). As we’ve already agreed, most of these GREEDY PIGS are Jewish.” Fifty percent approved of this post.

The MoveOn.org Action Forum community did not confine its hate to Jews, but gave some equal-opportunity contempt, hate, and derison to Catholics, Evangelical Christians, and, in a couple of cases, African Americans. As an example, prominent African-Americans were denounced as “house slaves.” African-American members of our Armed Forces were effectively denounced as potential mutineers who should be disarmed because they might use their service weapons against their “oppressors” (presumably their officers).
Here is what MoveOn’s people have to say about Catholics:

“You want to throw a monkey wrench in both political parties? Call for the arrest and immediate incarceration of the Catholic Pedophiles of America.”

“The vicitm class will expand until you too can be jailed for ridiculously minor offenses while the Catholics are raping your children.”

Anti-Catholic hate speech that could have come from 19th-century Know-Nothings or cartoonist Thomas Nast was not confined to the Action Forum. In 2005, MoveOn itself published a derogatory picture of Pope Benedict waving a gavel in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. It differed from Thomas Nast’s material (which often suggested that Catholics or the Pope were taking over the United States) only in its use of color, whereas Nast had to publish in black and white.

MoveOn.org’s press release of September 2 (http://www.moveon.org/content/pac/pdfs/statement_090206.pdf) claims,

Statement On ActionForum Comments.
Statement from Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Political Action
“MoveOn’s ActionForum is an open forum where members of the public and MoveOn members
can post their thoughts regarding important political issues.
Once in a while—as in any public forum—inappropriate material is posted. Recently, a few of
the thousands of comments that are posted every week contained anti-Semitic language.
The comments that were posted were abhorrent. We were dismayed to see them, and removed
them as soon as they came to our attention 17 days ago.
Many of the comments identified were not, in fact, made by MoveOn members. We are working
to discern whether they were made as a part of a right-wing campaign to target the organization.
Clearly, any attempt to tie MoveOn’s 3.2 million members to the hateful comments of a few nonmembers
on an online public forum is wrong.
We were pleased to see that so many MoveOn members rose to sharply criticize the hate speech
that was posted – even before it was brought to our attention.”

This is an outright lie. First, the hate speech was brought to MoveOn’s attention not 17 days ago (from September 2, 2006), but more than two years ago (1 April 2004), as shown by this E-mail. The relevant parts appear below. Note the date on which it was sent, and the address to which it was sent.

From: Jan Mel Poller [E-mail given to MoveOn.org, deleted for privacy here]
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 10:19 AM
To: ‘info “at” moveon.org’ [@ changed to “at” to block spam software]
Subject: Liberals and the left

I doubt that you will read this or pass it on to your leaders, but it is worth a try.

I am an old time Liberal, dating back to the Truman era. I am deeply disturbed by some of the anti-liberal views espoused in many forums on line, in college campuses and in the news media.

Liberalism always fought for truth and against censorship. I was told by a Muslim woman that she was against terrorism, Saddam, Arafat and the rest of the Jihad leaders. However, her posts were not allowed to appear here. At the same time, Nouris strongly anti-Israel posts, not to mention rod Hutchinson’s anti-Semitic post are allowed to appear.

You tolerated [censored?] my posts, which challenged support for Jihadist terrorism and supported Israel and the spread of democracy throughout the world (including the Arab world), have all been removed. I am no longer allowed to post.

This matches my own experience. Postings critical of the hate speech or of MoveOn were deleted by the moderators while the hate speech was allowed to stand. (In fact, only a few token hate speech postings were deleted as of September 2 2006, so MoveOn’s press release is lying about this as well.) MoveOn’s exercise of editorial control, and “exercise of editorial control” is the key phrase, makes it responsible for the hate speech. In other words, by deleting material with which it did not agree, MoveOn was imposing its judgment on what it felt was appropriate and inappropriate for its Action Forum. Allowing statements that use “Jew” as an epithet while proclaiming, “the Catholics are raping your children” to remain online while deleting far more civil postings with which MoveOn disagreed shows that MoveOn considers the hate speech acceptable and indeed appropriate.

“We were pleased to see that so many MoveOn members rose to sharply criticize the hate speech
that was posted – even before it was brought to our attention.”” is also a lie. The truth is that the hate speech garnered overwhelming support, usually in the 70 to 95 percent range, from the other Action Forum participants. Postings critical of the hate speech, when they were not taken down by the moderators, typically got less than 50 percent approval.

Furthermore, MoveOn’s own FAQ page for the Action Forum says that its moderators read every post, including presumably the hate speech of which MoveOn was “unaware” until mid-August, twice.

http://www.actionforum.com/general/faq.html#1

How can I make sure someone at MoveOn reads my post ? All comments are read at least twice. While there is no single criteria, comments that suggest a possible MoveOn action and are not duplicative are likely to be immediately passed on, or included in a summary to the whole MoveOn team. Ratings, while important, are not definitive and some comments with few or low ratings are included in the summaries. Important issues are sometimes followed up with a survey to a sampling of the membership.

Just what does your moderator do? Our moderators are better described as monitors. They spend the vast majority of their time looking for comments to pass on to the MoveOn team and doing weekly forum summaries. With regard to moderating, their goal is to help create a space to facilitate input. It is not their goal to remove every comment that might be inappropriate. [Our experience is, however, that they were very diligent at removing comments that criticized MoveOn.org.] The first line of moderators are our members, who rate inappropriate comments low.

As shown above, Ronald Reagan immediately rejected the Ku Klux Klan’s endorsement while saying “I have no tolerance for what the Klan represents, and would have nothing to do with any groups of that type.” You, on the other hand, appeared behind a “MoveOn PAC” podium in September 2006, at least a few weeks after the hate speech scandal broke. (http://pol.moveon.org/progressivevision/video2.html for your picture, along with Sherrod Brown’s and Russ Feingold’s, in this context.)

As I see it, there is no room for equivocating, counting potential votes, or otherwise dithering on this matter. You are either with civilized and decent Americans who have no use or tolerance for hatred of anyone because of their race or religious faith, or you are with hate groups like MoveOn.org, Catholic-hating Know-Nothings, and the Ku Klux Klan. It is reasonable to expect you to state publicly where you stand during the next week or so, after you have had a chance to research and verify for yourself the truth of the allegations against MoveOn.org. (MoveOn’s own Action Forum FAQ page, which is still online at http://www.actionforum.com/general/faq.html#1, is a good starting place for proof that its moderators, contrary to its denials, saw the hate speech.)

Barack Obama, I ask you to stand with Ronald Reagan by saying, “Democrats and Republicans alike must be resolute in disassociating ourselves from any group or individual whose political philosophy consists only of racial or religious intolerance, whose arguments are supported only by intimidation or threats of violence. We must, and will, continue our unified rejection of such elements of hate in our political life..” and publicly repudiating and disowning your connection with MoveOn.org. Thank you.

Regards,

William A. Levinson
[phone number and E-mail address given to Obama.com]

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Related: Anti-Semitism, Elections

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