I, too, must bid a friendly goodbye... at least for now.  I honestly believe that we, as a community, are only as good as the worst that we allow here.  We've got homophobes, rabidly anti-Hillary/anti-Obama users, and people flat out campaigning for McCain running wild and the only diaries that seem to get moderator attention are ones that have questionable titles.  Why are we not equally offended by inflammatory content within our diaries?  Sorry, but a diary that says "Bill Clinton: I am a racist" but then debunks that claim throughout the diary is a hell of a lot less offensive than one that uses trans fats to make an argument against gay marriage, then compares homosexuality with violent crimes, pedophilia, bestiality, and incest.  One got censored, and one didn't... guess which one?

It seems the only reasons I come here anymore is to read pieces by people that are cross-posting from another blog, which begs the question: Why do I read them here when every thread turns into a turdfest?  An updated user guide would be incredibly helpful, since it is very unclear as to what rules are supposed to be followed and what aren't.

The only thing I ask is that the next time yellowdem1129 writes a diary about how homosexuals are to blame for high gas prices, disco, Al-Qaeda, and the housing crisis, please think of me.  The next time rankles encourages everyone to abandon Obama or takes over a thread spamming the same picture/video over and over with reckless abandon, please light a candle for thatpurplestuff.  Whenever chancecoke plagiarizes an entire article or posts another cookie-cutter Obama-hating diatribe, please think to yourself "hey, thatpurplestuff sure did make a mean potato salad!"  The next time PUMA comes here and provides useful, positive commentary instead of mindless Obama bashing, please think of... well, nevermind about that last one... you'd never think of me.

Lastly, I've engaged with some really awesome people here, and hopefully they know who they are.  May we meet again under an Obama presidency! :D

Goodbye cruel blog!  Seacrest out!

* Note to Jerome: You and your site were once one of the strongest progressive voices out there.  I'll always respect you for that.

This is my first diary, although I've been a reader of this site off and on since the 2004 election.  While there are still great diaries that come out of this site, there have been some increasingly questionable diaries shooting up the Recommended list.

Here are a few right wing sites that have taken notice of MyDD recently:

http://redstate.com/stories/elections/20 08/i_am_not_going_to_say_thank_you_mydd

http://www.instapundit.com/#017166

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/30/my dd-watch-out-for-the-evil-gop-doing-some thing-like-this/

Honestly guys and gals, is this really where we want to be as a group?  We've got right wing blogs citing OUR WORK and either wholeheartedly agreeing with it (per the comments) or actually condemning it as too radical and tasteless.  Talk about making news for all the wrong reasons.

Here's another diary (http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/20/1420 52/602) that made the Recommended list, and it literally cites a website called "Creeping Sharia" as one of the sources.  The site is incredibly anti-Muslim, and some of the posts on it will make your skin crawl.

"News alert for the Obama's, Reuters, CAIR and all the other Qur'an thumping, hadith reading, paradise seeking, martyr's to be: get used to this crap because until Muslims start embracing a civilized way of life that does not include killing non-believers, beheading, wife beating, multiple wives, inbreeding, destruction of Israel, suicide bombings, and intifada - until then, the resistance to Islam and Muslims will grow."

Anyway, back to the diary that has received all of the attention from Republicans lately.  I truly never thought that I would see a video here of the most terrible day in America's history (at least the most terrible in my lifetime) being used as political propaganda against a fellow Democrat.  Instead of preparing ourselves for the dirty work of GOP 527's, we've got users who are doing the actual legwork for those 527's and using material that makes partisan right wingers blush.  Not only that, our own users are sending these types diaries to the Recommended list.  It has gotten to the point where right wing blogs are citing US, THIS SPECIFIC BLOG as examples of how nasty Democrats are getting.  Please, this kind of nasty stuff has to stop... for the sake of our party and the sake of this site.  

Supporters of both candidates need to raise the level of discourse here, because if this type of stuff continues to escalate for either Clinton or Obama, we will be handing the White House to the Republicans in November.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and any comments/suggestions are more than welcome.