There has been a lot of discussion from folks on the Left (see: John and Joe among others) and the Right (see Hawkins) about the RNC's Obamacard Web site - a beta project that was meant to give folks the opportunity to see if they could "spend" $3.4 trillion dollars, just as President Obama already has in his first six months in office.

Some good bloggers from both sides of the aisle have said that it should not have been released because it was too buggy, while others have claimed that the RNC was promoting bigotry through this application.

While the site definitely appears to have had some kinks, most likely dreaded cross-browser issues, it is a bit ridiculous to argue that the RNC was suggesting people buy anti-Latino or anti-Semitic books. The products the Obamacard application searched came exclusively from Amazon.com's entire inventory via its public API. Expecting some grief -- the RNC had a filter in place to prevent searching for some profane words. Obviously, you can't control it all.

In my opinion, while the deployment of the site may not have been perfect, it's important to remember that the RNC was trying to be open and include the grassroots. In fact, the Obamacard Web site was released in beta, and the RNC intended to release the code of the site so that anyone could have the opportunity to improve it and add to it.

Further, the idea of letting folks visually realize and "feel" just how much money $3.4 trillion dollars is makes it a worthwhile effort. Remember just a few weeks ago when Michael Steele promoted Mathias Shapiro of 10,000 Pennies?

In all honesty, I'm a bit more concerned that the Web site was pulled simply because of some pressure from the blogosphere and a Politico piece. We can't always expect that everything will be perfect in a modern political environment and we need to have the ability to take a few punches from the other side.