GOP HOTSPOT
He doesn't have a think tank or a syndicated talk show, but as the creator of the not-for-profit Free Republic Web site, Jim Robinson has become the newest darling of America's far right. Rush Limbaugh lurks at freerepublic.com/ from time to time, as does archconservative Phyllis Schlafly. And server logs reveal that congressional staffers regularly peruse the forums to track the GOP faithful.
The site's format is simple - copy an article from the Web, post it at Free Republic, opine. Each day, in threaded discussions, 12,000 users vent their vitriol before an audience of 50,000 lurkers. "We pick up news in the mainstream press" says Robinson, a Web designer from Fresno, California. "Then everyone jumps on them to expose the lies."
But the site's grown too big to go unnoticed by outsiders. Last fall, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times sued Robinson for copyright infringement. The argument: that by reposting articles, Free Republic "diminishes the value" of their dead-tree editions and Web sites. Robinson's convinced the White House is orchestrating the suit behind the scenes. And "if there's a conspiracy," he vows, "we'll find it."
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