Guilford GOP chairman Marcus Kindley wants to chair the state Republican party.

The N&R reports, "Locally, he may be best-known as the author of 'The Chairman’s Corner,' an online political diary. He has drawn some criticism for his writings there, most recently for one in which he wrote being gay was 'as natural as pedophilia.'"

But The Chairman's Corner is gone. Rather suddenly, too  -- Kindley was still posting there earlier this week.

It's easy to see why Kindley might want the blog to disappear. Its rambling style and casual approach to spelling and punctuation do not exactly scream "state-level leader."

Beyond that, the actual content might prove truly embarassing. It consists in great part of sweeping attacks on Democrats for all manner of alleged wrongs, with surprisingly little actual articulation of any positive message whatsoever for the GOP. Comparing gays to pedophiles, shading toward  race-baiting, portraying a chairman possessed of both an acid tongue and a thin skin...not necessarily stuff that would serve him well in his quest for the job, or on the job itself.

I've saved several of Kindley's most interesting posts, and anyone who knows anything about web search can still find the blog and save their faves, too.

The question is, should Democrats publicize the site...or root for Kindley to get the job he seeks?

Comments

[Gate]

Brickthrowers serve their purpose but are not meant to be party leaders.

[Britt Whitmire]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(little girl laugh)

thanks, ed

the endorphins are flowing like mad now

[PotatoStew]

"Democrats" should probably hope for him to succeed, and only then pull out select blog posts to clobber him (and the state Republicans) with.

People who are interested in reasonable, rational, effective government should probably pull those posts out now to try to keep him out of such an important leadership position.

The question is, are we better served by having the state GOP trend towards being a joke - radical and irrational - or are we better served by having reasonable, non-kneejerk political organizations on both sides of the spectrum?

[Ryan R.]

I don't think he pulled it, it looks like it got hacked

[PotatoStew]

That would be some coincidence.

[Matt Hill Comer]

Hey Ed... I have the gays=pedophile post saved on my desktop. Maybe I should put it up? lol

[Cara Michele]

When you visit the url of a Blogger blog that has been deleted by the blog owner, you should not get a spam site. What you should see is a Blogger 404 page, with Blogger header and this text:

Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.

The fact that the The Chairman's url now leads to a spam search page indicates that something nefarious is afoot. Why don't we give Mr. Kindley the benefit of the doubt here, as it seems he's been the victim of blog malfeasance.

[beth]

I doubt that Cara... alot of people think when they hit the delete button it's gone... but if you have PageRank like his site does, someone comes along and re-registers it and throws up a meta redirect to get the traffic.

He deleted it. Someone stole it. Now his name is attached to some spammy page. Furthermore Google still has all his pages cached, and I wouldn't be suprised if Archive.org doesn't have a copy.

He needs to email blogger back, and wrestle back his account if he wants to save face at this point.

[Roch101]

"The question is, should Democrats publicize the site...or root for Kindley to get the job he seeks?"

I'm a "left-leaning" independent with streaks of conservatism and libertarianism. I'm torn. If Kindley gets the job he seeks, the GOP in NC will be handicapped. That's good to the extent that the most objectionable of right wing ideologues will be victims of his leadership. It's bad in that our democracy functions best when people have real choices from among qualified candidates and Kindley's leadership would likely stymie that as well.

[PotatoStew]

Beth - so you are saying that he deleted the blog, and then a spammer registered a new blog with his old blog name (guilfordchairman.blogspot.com) and put in the redirect? Is that right? That makes sense, since there's *something* there, but the blog itself is totally missing from Marcus' blogger profile.

Michele - normally, I'd say give the benefit of the doubt too, but Marcus has a history of exactly this sort of thing.

[Roch101]

Cara Michelle, the redirect to the spam site is a new development. Yesterday, a visitor was indeed getting the message one would expect at a deleted blog. Still, no need to jump to conclusions. I've emailed Kindley and asked him what happened.

[Cara Michele]

"He deleted it. Someone stole it. Now his name is attached to some spammy page."

Beth, Roch, PS: Thanks for the info. And wow, it never even occured to me that someone could re-register your Blogger blog name. (Shows what I know, huh?)

So, if he really did delete it, why? I only went on his blog a couple of times, to read posts that others linked to, but I assume that he meant what he posted. So why delete it now? Has he changed his views?

[PotatoStew]

I seriously doubt he's changed his views. As for other potential reasons he may have deleted it, as Ed said, 'It's easy to see why Kindley might want the blog to disappear. Its rambling style and casual approach to spelling and punctuation do not exactly scream "state-level leader."' Difficulties in arguing a point logically instead of emotionally may have had something to do with it as well. Hopefully he'll reply to Roch and let us know.

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

Cara, yesterday (after being pestered for days) I changed to a "newer-better" version of Blogger (i.e. "Beta"). Mine appears to have made the switch without incident, but bloggers are warned about potential problems before they make the switch. I am not a technowizard, and have not had any time (or the courage) to play with it. I dunno what happened with "The Chairman's" blog or post . . . but I'm throwing this in the pot for consideration.

[PotatoStew]

Here's the profile that the blog is registered to now, for what it's worth (not much).

[Matt Hill Comer]

Yeah... I think Beth is right... Someone stole it. On the part about him deleting it, though... We can't know the answer to that yet.

[The CA]

"portraying a chairman possessed of both an acid tongue and a thin skin." Sounds like someone very familiar to the author of that passage. VERY familiar.

[Anglico]

The Party of Greed will have a rough time choosing between Vermin Robinson and Chairman Marcusssssss. Maybe they should join forces and co-chair! Either one would ensure Democratic control for the foreseeable future, but both together would put us all permanently out of the the NCGOP misery.

[Ed Cone]

Anglico, Robinson deserves the criticism he gets for his name-calling style...why stoop to the same level by calling him "vermin"?

[Bubba]

"The Party of Greed will have a rough time choosing between Vermin Robinson and Chairman Marcusssssss."

"Anglico, Robinson deserves the criticism he gets for his name-calling style...why stoop to the same level by calling him "vermin"?"

I am SO going to enjoy the next two years.

With attitudes like Anglico's to fuel the fire, Republicans won't be out of power long.

[The CA]

Marcus will not be the state chairman.

[The CA]

And in fairness to Marcus, if I recall correctly, his "being gay is as natural as pedophilia" comment was made in sarcasm.

[Ishmael]

The president is still in the white house, but the republicans are out of power?

I don't think so.

The bully pulpit still works and will as long as there is a desire for unlimited power. The Christian right is also regrouping as we speak and hopes to sweep the '08 elections. Can you say "stranglehold on civil liberties"?

My question is this: do the rest of us have the cojones to make sure this doesn't happen? Democrats be damned - please remember that old phrase: "don't tread on me", because it belongs to all of us.

[Bubba]

"The Christian right is also regrouping as we speak and hopes to sweep the '08 elections. Can you say 'stranglehold on civil liberties'?"

Lots of paranoia still out there.

The "Christian Right" is not nearly as powerful as the Paranoids believe. The "power" nonsense is mostly a figment of the Paranoids' minds.

Isn't funny how you never hear of the "Atheist/Agnostic/Secular Left"?

It's as much (or more) a force as the "Christian Right". And I think we have much more to fear from them regarding civil liberties as we do from the "Christian Right".

These next two years may well bear that out.

[Ed Cone]

CA: You recall incorrectly. The "natural as pedophilia" remark was in the midst of an earnest essay, and was not presented or defended as sarcasm.

[Matt Hill Comer]

Yeah Sam... Marcus didn't even use the sarcasm excuse when defending himself and the comment. He simply said it was "taken out of context," which is also false.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

I recall that Mr. Kindley's essay was thoughtful and considered many issues. He made one reference to the absurdity of homosexuality being considered normal, and in the next sentence said that it was as natural as pedophelia.

Any rational person sans an agenda to push would have read that as many did and concluded he was saying that neither is normal. It was a rhetorical construction, probably written on the fly, much like I am writing this post.

I recall commenting several times amidst the fuss over Mr. Kindley's comment that he had the right to have an opinion and the right to state his opinion.

But once, aw shucks Matt had a hissy over it, it became a cause celebre among the left leaning bloggers.

Homosexuality is not natural, it is unnatural.

[Matt Hill Comer]

"Homosexuality is not natural, it is unnatural."

Tell that to all the animal species in the natural world - including humanity - where homosexual behavior occurs.

If it weren't natural, it wouldn't occur naturally in natural species.

[Matt Hill Comer]

And let me add... Kindley has the right to his opinion and he can compare gay people to pedophiles all day long, but that does not mean that other people don't have the right to call him on his prejudiced and bigoted statements meant to do nothing but instill fear into people.

In his "essay" Kindley talked about how it was no longer safe for kids to walk around by themselves anymore. Later he connects gay people to pedophilia. Really... the purpose and intent was clear.

[Ed Cone]

Red herring alert!

Jeff, of course Marcus has the right to state his opinions. And people have the right to state their disagreement, or agreement, with those opinions.

He has chosen to play a role in public life, and now seeks a higher position; certainly his views deserve scrutiny.

As for "natural" behavior, you are confusing cultural norms with nature.

[Matt Hill Comer]

"As for "natural" behavior, you are confusing cultural norms with nature."

And let me add that our entire social connotation of what is a "cultural norm" is based entirely off of late 19th and early 20th century psychoanalysis and pathological studies - studies and experiments that, at a whim, made up diseases which didn't exist and helped to cause the eugenics movement.

Thoughts of what is the "norm" and what isn't the "norm" are a waste of time and highly over-rated.

[Anglico]

Lots of people have asked me why I get in the name-calling business and I've thought about the question a great deal. It hasn't always been my style - I used to be profoundly reasonable - but then the neocon cabal came into power. It started with the Hunting of the President (Clinton) and culminated in the Swiftboating of John Kerry and worse.

And all the while the reasonable people on the left steered clear of hitting back hard. They zipped their lips and tried to make logical arguments that would persuade the muddled middle to think things through. It didn't work. The muddled middle slid farther and farther to the right and the atmosphere of political correctness emasculated the left. Without the right wing "killer instinct," the left languished, the right flourished. And the mainstream media ignored the intellectual progressives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I started blogging earlier this year, it became clear that the mainsteram media in North Carolina were firmly under the spell of the free-market fundamentalists like Art Pope. Ted Vaden that the N&O described his John Locke Foundation as a "multi-million-dollare opinion manufacturer" and all that money was buying a lot of influence. Almost no one except for Chris Fitzsimons at NC Policy Watch was calling bullshit on JLF.

I decided to join the fight and found I was armed with a pea shooter in the middle of lots of heavy artillery. Nobody paid attention to my criticism of Pope and Company. And then I got pissed.

My first naming opportunity emerged spontaneously. Following the trail of Art Pope's money in the run up to the primaries, it became clear that Pope was pulling lots of strings. And thus the Puppetmaster was born. John Hood soon became the Stagemanager, and all the little flunkies generating opinions for JLF became known as Puppets. The nicknames came in handy as I dissected their organization, and soon caught on. Why? Because they were accurate descriptors of the individuals involved.

From there, the trend toward accuracy in naming continued. Up Chuck Taylor. Flipper Hayes. Vermin Robinson. AWOL George. Chairman Marcussssssss. Names chosen to evoke negative reactions to people who shill for the Party of Greed.

Some have called this practice childish, others say it just alienates independents. Neither of those criticisms bothers me one bit. I don't pretend to represent the mainstream anymore. My job is to attack and ridicule, to stir up the base, to make thoughtful people on the left seem all the more reasonable by comparison.

I hope I don't have to keep this up forever, because I don't much like it. But keep it up I will until I feel that balance has been restored. I am not prepared to "play nice" with criminals and profiteers who have quite nearly destroyed the reputation of this country. My name calling is nothing compared to their obscene abrogation of responsibility and integrity.

Didn't mean to go on so long, but you asked.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

Ed:

Is there a list somewhere of what people can say on this blog without being accused of employing some sort of methodical tactic?

Matt:

Two questions for you:

A dog naturally licks its own balls and anus. Should man?

For centuries, natural law dictates that yellow and blue make green. A certain group comes along and says, no, yellow and yellow make green. Society determines to agree that yellow and yellow make green. Does the natural law change? Do the physics of light change? Or have certain people only made a conscious decision to see yellow as green?

[Jeffrey Sykes]

And let me add that our entire social connotation of what is a "cultural norm" is based entirely off of late 19th and early 20th century psychoanalysis and pathological studies - studies and experiments that, at a whim, made up diseases which didn't exist and helped to cause the eugenics movement. MHC

No, Matt, unfortunately our cultural norms are more based on what mass media we allow to control our view of the world. My world is dominated by books and words that are as old as man and that lead me to believe that day is light and night is dark, up is up and down is down, that marriage is for a man and a woman and homosexuality is aberrant behavior.

Only is some worthless pop, me for me, moral relativist culture could one possibly find otherwise rational people attempting to convince others that the enite gamut of morality as developed by man since the dawn of logic is to be thrown out the window.

[Percy Walker]

If a man could like his own balls and anus, why wouldn't he? I don't understand your other questions.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

that does not mean that other people don't have the right to call him on his prejudiced and bigoted statements...MHC

Continuing, what he said was "homosexuality is as natural as pedophelia."

Pedopehlia is not natural/normal/moral/socially acceptable behavior
Homosexuality is not natural/normal/moral/socially acceptable behavior

Therefore, saying "homosexuality is as natural as pedophelia" is actually a true statement.

It follows that one cannot call a true statement "prejudiced and bigoted."

[Jeffrey Sykes]

Percy:

Go ask your portfolio manager. He does all your thinking for you.

I enjoy how you and Mr. Sun like to butt in to otherwise substantitive debates with your one line, hubris induced humor. I think Ed has a name for that tactic, but I can't recall it right now. Let me call my thought manager.

[The CA]

"The Christian right is also regrouping as we speak and hopes to sweep the '08 elections."

Yes, let's kill them all. How dare people with religious beliefs exercise their right to vote and participate in the political process. Only people without religion are supposed to do that.

Ed, I read the essay. It was clear the Marcus was saying neither homosexuality or pedophilia are natural. He wasn't saying they were the same, and he explained exactly what he meant when he chose those words after the story blew up. It was a "yeah right, and I'm the Pope" type of comment- sarcasm.

Matt says: "Tell that to all the animal species in the natural world - including humanity - where homosexual behavior occurs." I understand what he's trying to say, but that is a bad analogy. A lot of animals interbreed, too, so is incest natural? You are heading down the same road as Marcus was going if you want to play that card, Matt.

Then he says "Thoughts of what is the "norm" and what isn't the "norm" are a waste of time and highly over-rated" Careful again, Matt. It looks like you are carving out a nice exception for yourself that others could just as easily carve out for theirselves. Not the road you want to go down.

A little more thought, a little less vodka...

Then Anglico chimes in with this: "My job is to attack and ridicule, to stir up the base, to make thoughtful people on the left seem all the more reasonable by comparison." Careful, statements like that will cause you to be called out by most of the posters here and even stir up discussions of banning you- but only if you are on the Right, so you may be safe. The silence is deafening. Could it be Ol' Spag was right about the double standard?

I think Matt was drinking too much Vodka when he read the post.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

"My job is to attack and ridicule, to stir up the base, to make thoughtful people on the left seem all the more reasonable by comparison." Anglico

Isn't that exactly what Senator Helms did so efficiently for so long?

[Alan Cone Bulluck]

Kindley has done wonders for the Republican Party in Guilford County. Look at all the fresh Republican faces in the NC State Senate & House. Job well done? Not so much. No matter who becomes chairman, and God forbid it's Kindley, North Carolina will continue to remain a state where the voters send Democrats to Raleigh and the governor's mansion, and Republicans to Washington. Not all the time, but on average, at least for now.

[The CA]

Premptive strike- it was a cheap shot, admittedly.

[Percy Walker]

OK, Jeff. Let me ask you a serious question. What do we do about the unnatural act of men having anal or oral sex with women? And, what if a group declared 2+2=5, does that mean 2+2 really equals 5 or are some people just deluding themselves into thinking that?

[Anglico]

Jeffrey . . . I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Whoddathunk ol' Jesse would be my role model!

[The CA]

Well, Percy, I think some people are claiming that 2+2=5. It's called gay marriage. And I spent the retainer already. Need more.

[Percy Walker]

Of course, CA, my hubris wouldn't allow me to pay you anything less than $1 million.

[PotatoStew]

"Careful, statements like that will cause you to be called out by most of the posters here and even stir up discussions of banning you- but only if you are on the Right, so you may be safe. The silence is deafening."

Sam, did you miss the part where in the post immediately following Angelico's, Ed said "Anglico, Robinson deserves the criticism he gets for his name-calling style...why stoop to the same level by calling him "vermin"?" ... I would say that is "calling out".

[The CA]

Yes, but after that Anglico made the statement that he was going to deliberately engage in a course of conduct which would have brought all of you down on a person from the Right. I guess we'll just have to monitor the situation and remember where Anglico is coming from in the future, won't we?

[Jeffrey Sykes]

OK, Jeff. Let me ask you a serious question. What do we do about the unnatural act of men having anal or oral sex with women? Anonymous Stairical Blogger

I'm not concerned with what people do in the privacy of their own domicile. I am concerned with attempts to redefine the history of morality in a Bolshevik-style push to destroy the old and create anew in their own image.

And, what if a group declared 2+2=5, does that mean 2+2 really equals 5 or are some people just deluding themselves into thinking that?

Since your are an anonymous satirical blogger, I'll assume you have nothing of substance to offer. But I'll answer anyway.

In my understanding, the concept of two added to another concept of two produces the concept of four. So, in the case posed, the people would be deluding themselves in to thinking that 2+2 equaled anything other than four.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

My keyboard skills are awful this evening. I do apologize.

[Percy Walker]

Jeff, your the one who posed the question about a man tonguing his own balls. If you don't care what people do in privacy, why ask? The discussion wasn't about the history of morality, it was about whether homosexuality is "natural." Is any kind of anal or oral sex natural in your book?

I'm not being satirical.