Obama talks change, practices smear campaigns

Image by craynol via Flickr

I am trying to juggle a number of things right now, but on the off chance you are unaware of the work Rusty Shackleford has done into the efforts to smear Sarah Palin I wanted to note this handy summary by Hot Air:

Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.

The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.

Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.

Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.

The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.

This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod’s firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as “astroturfing.”

David Axelrod is Barack Obama’s chief media strategist.

The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

Rusty tracks this down to Winner & Associates, and to Chuck and Ethan Winner, the family that owns it.

Ed Morrissey wonders:

Could this be true?  Normally, one would shrug off such a suggestion by saying that no national campaign would be dumb enough to try this, especially one ahead in the polls.  However, consider what Team Obama did to Stanley Kurtz and David Freddoso.  They don’t seem hesitant in the least to conduct smear campaigns and character assassination to win elections, and they conducted those two attacks openly.  With that kind of track record, it doesn’t seem out of the question for them to have conducted a slimy, unethical attack on a political opponent who threatened to steal all of the oxygen away from their campaign in a way that hid their involvement.

Put aside the question of direct involvement by Obama and his team for a second, think about what these loyal supporters are doing.  Is this Hope and Change? Is this the New Politics?  No, of course not.

It seems to me there are two types of Obama supporters (outside of professional or ardent Democrats who vote the ticket no matter what): naive and idealistic folks who know very little about Obama but desperately want to believe he can change politics; and angry leftists who don’t believe all the BS about Hope and Change but who desperately want to win power.

This is what is behind the increasingly negative and ugly side of the Obama campaign: desperation that what was once seen as a slam dunk win is going to be a hard fought campaign.

Related Reading:

Sarah Palin, Faith Family Country

That Reminds Me --: The Autobiography of the Veep

Sarah Palin (Female Force)