Traitors all?

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editor's Note

Barbara Ehrenreich e-mailed me one day in May to say that she was on some so-called traitors' list on a website called ProBush.com. Turns out, I'm on the list, too. And we're in good company. There are 142 names on it, including Democratic politicians, as well as actors, entertainers, writers, journalists, academics, and activists. From Susan Sarandon to Aaron McGruder, Jimmy Carter to Noam Chomsky, Madonna to Cornel West, and Whoopi Goldberg to Tony Kushner, the gang's all here.

The traitor list begins with the word "Treason" underlined, and the following definition: "Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies."

The next line is: "Traitor: If you do not support our President's decisions, you are a traitor."

Photographs accompany most of the names, and the website invites people to "have a traitor added to this page." If you click there to send an e-mail and tattle, you are warned that "all e-mails sent to ProBush.com are monitored by the U.S. government."

On the "About Us" page is the slogan "We hate Bush haters!"

ProBush.com is registered to Michael Marino of West Point, Pennsylvania. His brother Ben is a spokesperson for the site.

"We don't like to think of it as blacklisting," says Ben Marino. "We just saw it as an opportunity to list people who didn't support the President, and the public is into boycotting."

Marino calls himself a "domain speculator," and that's how he got started on ProBush.com. "We saw ProBush.com was available," he says, so the brothers purchased it for $8 and decided to develop it. "We figured there was kind of a niche for it," he says.

ProBush.com does have a "disclaimer" that says the list is a "parody" and is "not to be taken seriously. These 'traitors' are not legal 'traitors' of the...