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This saddens me. Anyone who has ever blogged knows that there are the occasional commenters who post things that embarrass us. If a blog in question has a commenting policy that forbids racist, abusive, violent, or otherwise inappropriate comments, we at Crooks and Liars don't make an issue of it if, on a blog we disagree with, some commenter slips through their gate with a comment that violates those policies.

We also know that some right-wing blogs, namely Michelle Malkin and her Hot Air brigade, run through our comment threads regularly looking for comments that might embarrass us. That's not the reason for our policy, we simply have standards.

When this Free Republic "spokesman" is given an opportunity to distance himself and the blog from some ridiculous comments that he and the blog were not initially responsible for, he instead uses his fifteen seconds of fame to exclaim that the left wing blogs "have no standards." Really.

And it's not like we can't prove him wrong. Crooks and Liars has a comment policy, and sitemonitors checking the threads regularly, as well as technology in place that specifically bans use of certain highly offensive words.

Daily Kos has policies in place and their readership and front-pagers take responsibility for removing comments that are offensive. I laughed when I saw that the Kos comment policy singles out certain individuals:

The exception to the normal troll rating golden rule of "rate the comment, not who makes it" is for people so disruptive to the community that they need to be quickly autobanned. This is a very difficult threshold to reach, and is reserved almost entirely for freepers or other trolls here only to disrupt.

Heck, sorry to give them a link, but even RedState has a comment policy. And Free Republic posts this disclaimer: "Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management." Okay then. Why not point that out to David Schuster, distance yourself from the racist slurs that appeared (and according to Schuster, re-appeared?) at your site, and take advantage of the free publicity to show your blog is represented by a classy, intelligent, and responsible Net Citizen?

Nevermind.

David N.: Free Republic has had this problem many times in the past, and it has generally been good about taking the most hateful material down promptly. However, according to Raw Story, these comments were kept live on the site for more than a day.

The Freeper spokesman in the video heatedly denied that the comments went back up, but it's worth noting the exchange reported by Chris Parry of the Vancouver Sun, whose reportage on this has been the subject of the ensuing side controversy/red herring about whether he acted as an agent provocateur. Whether true or not, if his reportage on Robinson's initial response is accurate, it's fairly damning:

After attention from other blogs, the thread was suppressed and placed under review, but before long it was returned to the site intact, and attracted a new series of racial slurs when the original complaint email was posted publicly to the site, with the sender's email address intact.

"The writer has a point," wrote site owner Jim Thompson sarcastically. "We should steer clear of Obama's children. They can't help it if their old man is an American-hating Marxist pig."

"I agree Jim," wrote commenter, by the nickname NoobRep. "The kids didn't pick their commie pinko pansy of a father. Nor did they choose to be put into the spotlight. But Obama/Soetoro is fair game and so is his witch of a wife."

"Poor kids. I hope they're not 'punished with a baby'," wrote another. "Hopefully they won't deal cocaine like the Kenyan."

"DIRTBAGS! All of them. Our [White House] is now a joke to the rest of the world. We have no respect and this is not going to turn out well, mark my words. We will be hit, and much worse than last time. We are now seen as weak and vulnerable. Ghetto and Chicago thugs have taken over."

Only after significant negative attention from a host of left wing political blogs did the maintainers of the Free Republic site place the thread under review for a second time, before finally pulling it.

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Tucker Carlson, appearing on Fox News today, drooled all over Newt Gingrich as the guy who's grabbed the Golden Ring of the leaderless Republican Party:

Carlson: Yeah, this is about who's going to lead the Republican Party, not simply who's going to be the chosen presidential candidate in '12. But who's gonna be the soul of the party?

And there are a bunch of different elements here. I think Sarah Palin's presence, as always, brings a lot of excitement, also a lot of drama. And so a lot of stories going into this were about whether she will arrive in the first place, or whether she'll show up, whether she'll talk. Probably not a good storyline for the GOP.

Newt Gingrich, looks to me, is emerging as, certainly the intellectual center of the Republican Party -- the smartest, most energetic guy, and I think last night, kind of, is -- part of the process is solidifying that. Newt Gingrich is, I believe, running for president, and he's certainly the guy people are looking to for ideas in the Republican Party.

The deisgnated Fox liberal, Peter Mirijanian, manages to sound a note of skepticism:

I have some issues with Gingrich. It's kind of like 'Back to the Future' with him. I don't know if he necessarily is the face they want to put forward.

Yeah, you could say that, since a large chunk of the country sees him as a lying, bomb-chucking little troll.

But the best part of the whole exchange comes when Martha MacCallum, the Fox host, compares Gingrich to Ronald Reagan:

MacCallum: You know, Tucker, you think back to Ronald Reagan, who sort of, you know, entertained the idea of running for president for some time, and then kind of, you know, made a comeback later on. Do you see Newt Gingrich having sort of a similar path? Do you think he wants to run?

Carlson: I think Gingrich does want to run. I think Reagan was a little bit differently positioned, perhaps, coming from having served as governor of California than Newt is.

Well, Reagan, never exactly made a "comeback" -- he just was forced to hold off on his presidential aspirations during Nixon's presidency, and immediately continued his ascension up GOP ranks thereafter.

But if you're talking about Republican political comebacks, why not mention the most famous of these: The Tricky One himself? After all, Gingrich's planned comeback from defeat and disgrace is much more reminiscent of that than anything Reagan achieved.

Hmmmm, maybe that isn't the image wants to be projecting.