There's a lot of talk in the diaries about whether the San Francisco event at which Randi Rhodes, doing her best to unite and uplift the nation, called Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro "whores" was an Obama fundraiser, i.e. a sanctioned Obama campaign event. Those who insist that it was, point to a page on barackobama.com promoting the event as proof; the problem with this argument though is that if you look at the url it's technically on my.barackobama.com. Why is this important? Because the point of my.barackobama.com is to allow supporters to organize and create a community on their own. It's no accident that the Obama campaign uses the same online tools as the Democratic Party website does; this is part of the legacy of the Dean campaign.
This event was created by and for Obama supporters using these tools. That's called user-generated, bottom-up people powered organizing. Saying that Obama should be held responsible for what happens at any event organized and promoted through these online tools is akin to holding me, Jerome or Jonathan accountable for every crazy word written in the diaries, which fundamentally misunderstands the point of a community blog -- that it's a community where people are empowered to create content and a community. Barack Obama likes to say that "change happens from the bottom up" and that "this campaign is not about me, it's about you" and quite frankly, his web tools reflect this philosophy.
Now, I will say the fact that Randi Rhodes said what she said at an event that was organized to raise money for Barack is further evidence of Rhodes's stunningly poor judgment -- as a public figure who has endorsed Barack Obama -- but it has nothing to do with Barack's judgment. To claim otherwise, quite frankly, is disingenuous.
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