Welcome to the State Department... I mean, the Republican Party.

September 13, 2002 8:46 AM

Welcome to the State Department... I mean, the Republican Party. "For some time, travelers browsing the State Department Web site for helpful tips about Guadalajara, Mexico, found much more than they bargained for when they clicked on a photograph of President Bush. The click transported them to a partisan playground, where they were told how to get involved with the Republican Party and even how to donate money to it." (Why does nytimes.com have all the good stories?- metafilter, metafilter)
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy (11 comments total)

Yes, this seems evil and nefarious.
Come on.. someone in their IT department got lazy and copied and pasted too much code when they were googling around for a good picture to use.
Despite the NYtimes getting all over it, this is a non-story.
Detonating an empty backpack on a desolate stretch of I-75 in Florida based on an overheard conversation in Georgia.. now that's news.
posted by PrinceValium at 9:10 AM on September 13, 2002

From the article "Mr. Reeker, the State Department spokesman, said the link was probably created by people working in the Guadalajara consulate without the knowledge of officials in Washington"

The Guadalajara Republican Recruitment scandal is finally out of the bag. Ugh.
posted by revbrian at 9:20 AM on September 13, 2002

Not completely off-topic shareware: Though my political disagreement couldn't be sharper; here's Mark Fiore's brilliant animation on the reasons behind the current, overwhelming desire to invade Iraq.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:24 AM on September 13, 2002

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said party officials had no idea that a government agency's Web site had a link to the party's site.

So nobody responsible for the site looks to see what the referral links are for visitors? Oh, "party officials" had no idea. Yeah, well, I can buy that.
posted by norm29 at 9:46 AM on September 13, 2002

how come I can't get in? User name metafilter and password metafilter? Argh!
posted by small_ruminant at 10:02 AM on September 13, 2002

how come I can't get in? User name metafilter and password metafilter? Argh!

Has never, ever worked for me, either.
posted by rushmc at 10:13 AM on September 13, 2002

google cache of the guadalajara consulate webpage in question.

google cache is so cool.
posted by captain obvious at 10:15 AM on September 13, 2002

My local Republican party changed my party affiliation on my voter registration from "Decline to state" to Republican in 2000. I have been unable to get it changed. There is always some kind "issue" which prevents the paperwork from being handled correctly.

In addition to this the party keeps calling me on a regular basis telling me what wonderful things they are doing to protect unborn fetuses and no matter how many times I tell them to fuck off they still keep calling.

It surprises me not at all that a State Department website would have links into the Republican National Committee. Just as it doesn't surprise me that they continue to send me weekly spam emails letting me know about the "good work" they are accomplishing in fighting the plague of liberals in this country.
posted by filchyboy at 10:19 AM on September 13, 2002

Yeah, I'm just not buying the mysterous appearance of this link. The RNC knew what was going on and probably has been laughing for years about it. I'm just shocked it was so blatant!
posted by aacheson at 11:21 AM on September 13, 2002

According to the WayBack Machine the link has been pointing the to Republican National Committee site since at least August 5th 2001.
posted by filchyboy at 11:50 AM on September 13, 2002

The first two paragraphs on the new redirect link are exactly the same - except the first paragraph has a typo.

Something tells me that the people doing the website don't speak Spanish - at least not any better than Bush.
posted by tpoh.org at 7:40 PM on September 15, 2002