The Washington Post's moderator bot didn't like my comment about Lindsey Graham

Occasionally I comment on pieces that appear in the New York Times and the Washington Post. (This, for example.) Recently I attempted to comment on a Kathleen Parker column in the Post. Parker was somewhat laudatory of Lindsey Graham.

The Post's moderator bot rejected my comment as violating its comment guidelines. Was I too harsh? Was there a requirement that one not speak ill of the dead? The bot said nothing specific about what it found objectionable, which was quite unhelpful. All it said was to revise my comment and try again.

No comment of mine has ever before failed moderation at the Post. The bot's rejection of this one was instantaneous. There was no human judgement at all. You would think an "intelligent" agent could provide some useful feedback, but no.

By contrast, the Times seems to use a good bit of human moderation (although still no feedback), at least if the sometimes very long moderation delays (sometimes hours) are an indication.

I wanted to have a record of my comment which the Post refused to accept, so I'm posting it here:

Lindsey Graham was a power grubber who effortlessly rationalized the abominable. In 2017 he justified the loathsome 2016 blocking of Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland by slandering Democrats, basically saying they were just as despicable as Republicans.

"I have no doubt in my mind," said Graham, "if the shoe were on the other foot, the other side would have delayed the confirmation process until the next president were elected."

No, they wouldn't have. It was Republicans, and only Republicans, who did the deed. They have a particular affinity for playing dirty. Graham should have been ashamed, but wasn't. At least he was in the party that suited his character.

In rationalizing the vile deed, Graham pompously proclaimed that a new rule was going into effect: "We're setting a precedent here today, Republicans are, that in the last year, at least of a lame duck eight-year term, I would say it's gonna be a four-year term, that you're not gonna fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court based on what we're doing here today. That's gonna be the new rule."

Graham wagged his finger for emphasis. "Use my words against me" should he violate it, he said.

And then he did violate it. Of course he did. Ever the rationalizing opportunist, and despite what he had previously proclaimed, Graham fully supported ramming through Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barret in the fall of 2020, shortly before the presidential election that Trump lost.

And he did it byonce again slandering Democrats. Lindsey wrote this to Judiciary Committee Democrats: "I am certain if the shoe were on the other foot, you would do the same."

Amazingly, as George Will wrote, Graham excused his reversal by blaming Democrats for ending filibusters for circuit-court nominees. In 2013!!!

So much for his phony highfalutin precedent. So much for the "new rule." So much for "use my words against me." Graham showed what he was made of in those two incidents.

Interestingly (to me), a revised comment did get through. It was accepted instantaneously by the Post's moderator bot. Here's how I did it:

Kathleen Parker had some laudatory things to say about Lindsey Graham, but I thought it necessary to take a critical look at how he'd become an unprincipled partisan operator. I thus produced a carefully considered comment that the Post's moderator bot rejected instantaneously. I said that Graham was a "power grubber."

The moderator bot said I should consult the Post's guidelines for writing appropriate comments and revise mine. Perhaps to make it more civil? It said nothing whatsoever about what it found objectionable, which was quite unhelpful, but it refused to post my comment.

Perhaps the bot didn't like that I said Graham "slandered" Democrats, which he did in fact do in 2017 when he said, regarding Republicans' blocking the Merrick Garland nomination, "I have no doubt in my mind if the shoe were on the other foot, the other side would have delayed the confirmation process until the next president were elected."

Thus did Graham ascribe to Democrats the very "despicable" behavior, which I also called "vile," that Republicans in fact committed. Maybe the bot didn't like those words. It might also have not liked my saying that Republicans "have a particular affinity for playing dirty." Can anybody deny that they do?

Back then Graham said "We're setting a precedent here today, Republicans are, that in the last year, at least of a lame duck eight-year term, I would say it's gonna be a four-year term, that you're not gonna fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court based on what we're doing here today. That's gonna be the new rule."

And then he abandoned that rule, which I said he had delivered "pompously" (another violation?) when he supported ramming through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett just before the 2020 election, which Trump lost.

Again, he blamed Democrats: "I am certain if the shoe were on the other foot, you would do the same."

My original comment contained no obscenity, no misstatement of fact. I have preserved it elsewhere. https://tinyurl.com/8bm8d2xp

By the way, my comments on Lindsey Graham were informed by two previous posts on this blog, in 2017 and in 2020.  

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