Is Recent Astroturf Campaign Part of Dept of Justice Propaganda Unit?

I don’t have a flaming skull, like Ace, but if I did, I would be using it, here.

As many of you are aware, an extensive pro-Obama astroturf campaign has been discovered in recent days. Blogger Patterico has been all over it. There are now Facebook pages devoted to discovering who these pro-Obama sock puppets are. We know that Obama’s top adviser, David Axelrod is the “master of astroturfing“…We saw him use it during the ’08 presidential campaign; now we see it in letter writing campaigns and call in radio  talk show campaigns.

Patterico has discovered that Organizing For America actually provides a webpage for people to write letters to the editor. …is it possible that in some cases people are even paid to do this?  Wouldn’t it be grotesque if they were being paid with taxpayer dollars?

Look at this NRO/Corner post by Hans von Spakovsky from last October which WeaselZippers dug up:

Is the Department of Justice engaging in fraud, or is it simply trying to hide its propaganda? Those of you wondering how DOJ uses your tax dollars to enforce our nation’s laws might be interested to learn that Eric Holder has apparently hired former Democratic campaign bloggers to work at the department in what appears to be a secret propaganda unit. According to a story at The Muffled Oar website, the bloggers are housed in the Office of Public Affairs (the press office). Their job is to place “anonymous comments, or comments under pseudonyms, at newspaper websites with stories critical of the Department of Justice, Holder and President Obama.” One of the bloggers is former DNC and John Edwards staffer Tracy Russo, whose name was featured prominently on the department’s introduction of its new website on October 1.

At the same time that DOJ was refusing to answer questions about its outrageous dismissal of the voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and apparently paying government employees to post anonymous or pseudonymous comments or comments under false names attacking critics of the administration, the department declared that it was launching its new website “to increase openness and transparency in government.” In fact, Russo claims it is “just the first step towards creating the most open, accessible, and transparent Justice Department possible.” If that is true, how can DOJ justify these anonymous/pseudonymous postings? The misrepresentation is clearly material or DOJ wouldn’t go to such lengths to engage in it.

Read the whole thing.

See also:

The American Thinker: DoJ hires bloggers as propagandists and sock puppets

Michelle Malkin: The Astroturf Presidency

Little Miss Attila: Ellie Light and Her Brothers-in-Arms

I’m so jealous! Why doesn’t Ellie comment at Nice Deb?

Linked by Michelle’s Buzzworthy, thanks!

About these ads