THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 27, 1994 TAG: 9410270048
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LISE OLSEN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
FOR MONTHS NOW, strangers who live hundreds of miles apart have argued about the Virginia Senate Race. And they're no closer to an agreement:
``I'd rather be able to say, `I did what I could to stop the spread of communism in the world, free hostages and make the world a better place to live than `I hung out with drug users and got nude massages,' '' declares fcclaw(AT)cais2.cais.com a.k.a. as Shaun A. Maher, a D.C.-based lawyer who specializes in communications law.
Shoots back a Robb defender:
``You forgot: `I sold guns to freedom fighters . . . and bribed Iranian terrorists into freeing hostages and in the process pissed off Iraq and probably pulled us into a war which cost American lives. Now compare that to a party where some drug heads sneaked a snort in a back bedroom. . . . It's apples and oranges'' So writes tom.barrett(AT)virginia.edu, a.k.a. Tom Barrett, a Ph.D. candidate in engineering at the University of Virginia.
In separate universes - one in a law firm in Washington, D.C., and another at a campus in Charlottesville - each of these men takes time to continue this running argument several times each day. They stare into a little computer screen, log on to an electronic discussion group, read the latest missives their rivals have left and then tap out a response.
``For somebody like me, a political junkie of sorts, the Internet is like a drug. It keeps your habit going and it feeds you,'' Maher said.
In his excitement, Maher sometimes types so wildly that some of his fellow hackers have accused him of using his toes. (Such insults, known as ``flames,'' are common in the climate of hostile intimacy on the 'net.)
Neither Barrett nor Maher is a politician or spin doctor by trade. Each is a political hobbyist to varying degrees: Barrett, 34, is new to Virginia, having moved here from Texas in August. Maher, 31, was a delegate at the state Republican convention for Jim Miller, the former Reagan administration budget director who lost the party's nomination to North.
But via the Internet, both have become well-known political commentators - Maher for North, Barrett for Robb. (Few hackers seem to mention Marshall Coleman - the third option).
Maher is even thinking of starting his own electronic newsletter on politics.
Yet no one to whom they speak really knows them - or is likely ever to meet them. The anonymity is part of what makes the Internet discussion groups so attractive, both say.
``You're sitting on the other side of a terminal so you feel protected,'' explains Barrett.
Maher, the lawyer, and Barrett, the engineering student, along with several hundred other PC political junkies, are united by just one thing: The Internet. They've never seen each other: just seen each other's words and signatures. Maher adds political quotes, or sometimes a Bible scripture to his cyberspace call sign from Ecclesiastes: ``A wise man's heart inclines him toward the right, but a fool's heart inclines him toward the left.''
Maher and Barrett say this anonymity is what makes the Internet discussion so lively - and at times SOOO NASTY.
No references are required to spew forth your opinion, to publish your views over the Internet - though the audience won't be as large as Dan Rather's.
In fact, Barrett describes the newsgroups as something like a cocktail party: only a small group of people regularly come in for a drink, though others sometimes drift in to check out the action. There's no way of knowing exactly who's in your newsgroup, though from the surveys on Internet users, and the signatures, these are mostly white, computer-literate males from colleges and businesses across Virginia.
For months, hackers like these two have been heaping their political wit, wisdom and wisecracks into newsgroups like va.general and alt.politics.elections.
alt.politics.elections is where hard-core political junkies always hang out, and it attracts commentary from across the country on all the interesting races.
But va.general was once more like a general store. It was stocked mostly with folksy ``for sale'' ads, like one recently from a mother seeking a rocking chair. Now, va.general has been taken over by people who can't stand not to talk about the Virginia Senate Race, a.k.a. Ollie vs. Chuck, the two allegedly immoral ex-Marines about whom everybody seems to have a strong opinion.
Something about this race - the facts, the figures, the money, the funny-business - has prompted complete strangers to launch days-long conversations on any of a hundred spin-off issues.
The topics range from the most low-down gossip to high-brow philosophical queries. For example:
Whether it's better for a military officer to disobey the Constitution and obey his commander-in-chief (Ollie and Reagan)
Whether Chuck has done anything immoral in the past 10 years - because known shenanigans took place during his time as governor of Virginia.
Which kind of immorality is more moral?
At one point in a lively discussion, Barrett was moved to observe: ``To most politicians, the only off-duty time that they have is when they are in the bedroom or in the bathroom.'' Another hacker added: ``And the way people argue around here, apparently not even the former.''
Occasionally, even the insiders have to go cold turkey. When things get too hot or too weird, Maher admits that he simply doesn't check the messages for a day or two.
Things got so weird on va.general recently that one hacker encouraged everyone to declare ``AGNOSTIC JIHAD.''
Now there's an idea. by CNB