Typical.

But then, fast forward to reality……Actually, @Chip, you’re a bore and you have a terrible, permanently scarring name. You also have no hair (except for your back and buttocks) and you constantly reintroduce arguments used in other political discussions that are inappropriate for modern adult conversations (gotcha!).

News flash: there is no such thing as an “Obama supporter”. Supporters are only needed when criminals attempt to pass as executives and vice versa. The majority of the United States recognizes that our current president is not likely a psychopath and is thankful for that. The saddest part is that it took the largest voter mobilization movement in history to elect him.

@Chip, I hate you and all that you stand for. The fact that you stand for nothing is what I hate the most. Go away. Forever.

I have zero knowledge of the law, but if you read item one under Terms and Conditions in GPL 2.0, (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php), it’s seems clear you can’t just strip the copyright notice from a work and re brand it as your private work.

It seems a tad bit unethical, to say the least.

Second, Novak’s website administrators did not “unknowingly” use the theme, as they would have had to replace the obvious Obama imagery, RSS links, etc. Thus, the premise of “unknowing” use is also rather unfounded.

Third, Novak’s website administrators obviously weren’t bothered by the name of the theme, or its original purpose, as they initially made no attempt to hide the theme name. It was only after someone decided to channel his inner Charles Johnson and play “throbbing memo” with Novak’s theme, thereby attempting to cast the use of the Probama theme as a potential “problem” for Novak (“My problem… and now possibly her problem…“), boldly predicting that the campaign would replace the site’s theme, and writing a follow-up titled “The Probama Saga“.

Fourth, Novak’s website administrators clearly only changed the theme name in response to such a specious attempt to gin up her use of the Probama theme into some sort of controversy. While Novak herself commented that she appreciated the publicity the matter brought to her campaign, at some point such nonsense becomes a distraction. Thus, the only reason that changing the theme name and CSS declarations is noteworthy is because someone who apparently had nothing better to do tried to create a controversy where none existed.

So, yes: I stand by my assertion that Obama supporters apparently have nothing better at which to grasp – or else we would be discussing something more substantive, and wouldn’t be subjected to discussing this non-story.

By the way, why is a declaration such as h3#obamablog used to begin with? That’s a rather non-semantic declaration.

See my response to Matt. As for “why not”, I think a better question is, why use the theme at all if Obama-by-association even at the most granular level is so objectionable?

It’s a GPL theme, and well-designed. The candidate’s use of the theme should be taken as a compliment,

This is still odd – we’re saying the same thing. The theme out of context is perfectly fine. It’s the extra lengths to change stuff like CSS names that is noteworthy.

But then, Obama supporters don’t really have much else to grasp at the moment, I suppose.

Whereas this just sounds ad-hominem and unnecessary.

That’s what’s puzzling. The theme is GPL and I have zero problem with it being used out of context. Is this particular context ironic? Sure. But hell, a red white and blue theme is potentially suitable for any political candidate.

Just one example of something that was removed:

h3#obamablog {
margin-bottom:5px;
}

If they felt their site was sullied by mentions of Obama that are only visible to web geeks – why use an Obama theme at all?