9:41 PM

Astroturf-free Blog

Posted by Skye |

Ace and My Pet Jawa have captured the master astroturfer, David Axelrod and the Obama Campaign with their hands in the cookie jar:

Via Ace:
Obama Connected PR Firm Uploads, Publicizes Lying Anti-Palin Ad on YouTube, Then Pushes it Virally as "Grassroots" Effort; PR Exec Sockpuppets Praise Video for "Getting the Truth Out;" Company Employee Uploads it to Democratic Underground; DKos Diariast Urges Readers to Send it Out to Ten People Each.

What is Astroturfing?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. David Axelrod is known as "the Master of Astroturfing," and this is just his sloppiest and most brazen effort (thusfar detected). You know what also doesn't get fact checked? The tens of thousands of coordinated comments smearing McCain and Palin posted every day on media and blog threads, many of which are being written by "concerned Christian conservative commenters" who are in fact agents of David Axelrod and the DNC -- either directly, as in on-the-payroll sockpuppets, or indirectly, as in big internet groups determined to do "the dirty stuff Obama can't do himsef."

Obama can't cast doubt on Palin's fitness as a mother without risking electoral debacle.

But his legions of busy, busy, busy internet sockpuppets can. He gets the benefit of the smear without having to accept any of the responsibility for it.


My Pet Jawa chimes in:

Within 1 hour of posting, "eswinner" has removed all videos from YouTube and began removing any traces of his activities. But we have the video and all relevant websites backed up.

If "eswinner" isn't Ethan Winner of the Publicis Groupe, then why did "eswinner" yank the video so quickly? Or if this was just an innocent homemade ad, then what does he have to hide? You'd think he'd want more attention for it.

I uploaded it to my YouTube acount from the original unwatermarked Google version (see below for explanation) and that is the version you now see embedded below.

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