What constitutes "hate" mail? That's not as easy a question as it may seem. For example, when I first started the site,
I did it as a "serious" campaign (a mentally handicapped man was influenced by his leafy-lefty sister into running for president
on a Marxist, Maoist platform that Dennis Kucinich himself would be proud of). The platform consisted of such trite, predictable
cliches as "Would demand an investigation into the 2000 election in Florida," and "Would apologize to Germany and France."
One guy (a Republican) wrote me a point-by-point rebuttal of the "Ten Points for a Better America." His email was well-written,
thoughtful, polite, and dead-on accurate. I certainly woudn't count that as "hate" mail.
In addition, when I first started the site, I had written in three 'clues' that it was a fake. The first was "Cooper's"
birthdate (March 15, 1971), which would make him too young to run for president this year. Several people (on both sides of
the political aisle) wrote in and pointed this out. I found this a little odd. These people seemed to have no problem believing
that Cooper's father was a thalidomide salesman or that his mom was an "air quality tester" at the Umatilla Chemical
Weapons Depot in Eastern Oregon. Therefore, I couldn't tell if they were "in" on the joke or not. But I left it there for
people to catch, and they caught it.
I've also received email from a couple of people who didn't appreciate the 'tard' humor (although they liked the political
jokes and articles on the site). I tried to make adjustments, but admittedly it just didn't work. I do apologize to anyone
who may be offended by 'tard jokes, but I think most people will understand that I'm not making fun of actually mentally retarded
people. Another reason why I stopped doing this as a 'straight' serious site was that I dreaded the day that I would get an
email from someone who is mentally handicapped (saying how great it is that someone was able to overcome being mentally retarded
and run for president). Needless to say, that would have made me feel worse than Howard Dean does right now (fortunately,
that never happened).
Finally, I've received emails that I can't quite classify. I may include these somewhere on the site in the future (and
let YOU figure it out). By far the most email I've received to date has been from the "
Mars Rover Is a Fake" article written by guest columnist MichaelMooreIsGod (R.I.P.). Several people seemed to "agree" that something was fishy
with the Mars Lander, but stopped short of agreeing with the article itself. A few people wrote joke emails saying how "stupid"
I was to think there's oil on Mars (but they seemed to 'get' that it was a joke article. At least I hope so).
