A fake grass-roots political campaign (aka ‘astroturf’) was hosted by a YouTube account holder “eswinner”, outed as Ethan S. Winneran, an employee of a Democrat public relations firm, Winner and Associates. (http://www.winnerandassociates.com/homepage.htm)
The video propaganda effort was an attempt to connect Sarah Palin with an Anti-American separatist organization, an accusation which has already been soundly debunked. (http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/leftwingnuts-in-a-panic-over-palin/)
Rusty Shackford of The Jawa Report disclosed the smear campaign and subsequent hi-larious coverup.
WHO PRODUCED THE VIDEO?
……[UPDATE: 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.
……We believe the voice can also be heard on these AKP&D Message and Media produced videos. In fact, all of the female voice overs showcased on the AKP&D website seem to belong to the same woman. That’s right, all of them. The same voice heard in some Barack Obama ads, and which was used for the “eswinner” slime campaign.
More importantly, though, what is AKP&D? It’s the Chicago based political consulting firm headed by David Axelrod. Yes, that David Axelrod. As in the David Axelrod who is Barack Obama’s chief media strategist.
More from Ace of Spades:
eswinner” is not sitting at the computer watching right-wing blogs post stories.
“eswinner” does not have a staff vigilantly monitoring the internet for damaging stories.
Neither, for that matter, does Winner & Associates.
But the Barack Obama campaign, headed up by David Astroturf, does.
Barack Obama and the DNC watch this blog. And I’ve put them on notice since this afternoon that a story about them was coming.
Within an hour of the story being posted, the videos began coming down. Within 90 minutes they were all down.
That’s a pretty fast response time. I didn’t mention Winner & Associates in my hints. So why would they be on notice?
I only mentioned Axelrod and Obama.
No, I do not believe that a random Winner & Associates employee just happened to be reading the Ace of Spades website and suddenly came across a link to a story about them and then decided to wake the bosses over it.
I believe the Obama campaign and the DNC have been watching since this afternoon. And they put the call into “eswinner” to get those videos down and bury the evidence.
And now “eswinner” has decided to end his short career on YouTube, despite the fact that this was his Best. Day. Eveehhhhh.
……If the media wants to know why this story is important:
1) It’s calculatedly dishonest to attempt to scam the public with videos by “concerned citizens” which are in fact professional electioneering communications put out at the behest of a supposedly new-politics politician. People trust average “neutral” and “independent” citizens more than someone known to be an interested party. It was a scandal when it was revealed that stockbrokers were pimping their own stocks on day-trader sites, pretending to be just average investors with hot tips. Same deal here.
2) Such ads don’t get fact-checked, as they’re supposedly from regular schnooks. No one fact-checks a regular schnook. So Axelrod and Obama can spread lies about Palin, completely refuted and debunked 11 days before the ad was posted, and not worry about media busy-bodies calling foul.
The plan in this case was to tap into the massive traffic of the Daily Kos and have each reader send the video, under the radar, to ten friends, and have them send it to ten friends, etc. The post in question was likely written by a Winner & Associates employee. Just as Winner & Associates employee tapped into Democratic Underground, linking it there. YouTube ads are big business — and this one was so stinking of outdated lies it had to be done under the table, in the shadows. Where no one would take much notice of it; certainly not the media’s fact-checkers. But, if successful, it would go viral and a huge number of people would end up seeing it.
And no one would know where this ad came from.
The plan didn’t quite work — the lies being pushed were already utterly rubbished, and there were new, exciting smears the netroots were more interested in. But it didn’t fail for lack of trying.
3) 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 himself.”
The ‘dirty stuff’ volunteers are of course, the Krazy Kos Kiddies:
Remember all of those viral smears that have been launched against Barack?
Well, two can play that game.
Viral attacks are where it’s at in 2008. Emails, blogs, online news sources. Content flows upstream in today’s media environment.
We can be the gun.
Indeed, if Barack can’t or won’t do the dirty work, then we have to do it for him. No excuses. No more hand-wringing.
Let’s get to work.
How, you ask? Simple.
It’s all about finding really damaging stuff–news stories, YouTubes, informative blog posts. And then circulating those with the intent of having them work their way up the media stream. Email it to your friends. Email it to any journalists whose email you have. Post it in diaries or blog comments.
It’s a cached page saved by ClobberGirl (http://clobbergirl.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/the-daily-kos-tries-to-delete-its-dirty-work-again) before the Kiddies panicked and thought they had deleted it from cyberspace.
The haterade spread by these loons is surpassed only by the comical scrambling for cover every time they get called on their bullshit. I’ll say one thing: Even though Obama’s campaign is going down in flames, his peons sure are entertaining, predictable….and stupid.