For more than one year, we have been documenting death wishes - and sometimes outright threats - for President Obama posted on Fox Nation. While we understand as well as anyone the difficulty of policing comments, the talk of killing Obama on Fox Nation is so great - and we have to assume that our sporadic reading has not caught it all - that at this point, the onus is on Fox Nation to explain why their moderation is either unable or unwilling to detect and remove so many of them.
Some examples:
In June, 2009, two readers wished the skinheads would "get rid" of Obama.
In August, 2009, a reader wished President Obama a happy birthday by hoping it would be his last.
One death threat was reported to the Secret Service in September, 2009.
That same month another reader urged the CIA to assassinate Obama.
The next month, a reader hoped Obama would get "what Kennedy got."
Later that month, another death wish.
In January, 2010, a reader hoped Obama would be hung.
Last summer, readers discussed shooting Obama.
More recently, Fox Nation instituted a new comments system but the talk of killing not only continues, readers can now vote to "like." On this thread, we caught 14 readers who liked the idea of executing Obama.
Late last month, readers openly chatted about lynching Obama.
By the way, President Obama is not the only person Fox Naion readers wish would die. They have expressed the same sentiment toward former Vice President Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros and "Baboon" James Clyburn.
Fox Nation claims to be a website devoted to "basic rules of civility and mutual respect and, most importantly, strengthening our diverse society by striving for unity" and committed to "the core principles of tolerance, open debate, (and) civil discourse." But given the kinds of comments we regularly find there, you have to wonder what Fox considers "civility and mutual respect" as well as "tolerance" or "civil discourse."
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