The Media Is Not Buying It
Ouch, This is going to be a very harsh lesson, indeed. The Associated Press is resoundingly not buying the explanation that the "1984" anti-Hillary! YouTube video was not associated with the Obama campaign. This is very, very bad for Obama. And the funniest part: Arianna Huffington, in her zeal to publicize and lionize the creator of the ad, may have been the undoing of the Obama media love-fest.
Heralded by many as the embodiment of Web-driven citizen activism, the mysterious YouTube ad now stands revealed as the work of a Democratic operative employed by a consulting firm with Obama links.
"It's true … yeah, it's me," said Philip de Vellis, a 33-year-old strategist with Blue State Digital, a Washington company that advises Democratic candidates and liberal groups.
Blue State designed Obama's Web site, and one of the firm's founding members, Joe Rospars, took a leave from the company to work as Obama's director of new media.
Obama, Blue State and de Vellis all say de Vellis acted on his own. De Vellis left the company on Wednesday. He said he resigned; Thomas Gensemer, the firm's managing director, said he was fired.
The entire episode hangs a cloud over the Obama camp.
Since he arrived on the national political scene, Obama has won convert after convert with a vow to rise above the bare-knuckle fray of politics.
However tenuous, any link to the ad, with its Orwellian image of Clinton as Big Brother, raises questions the Obama camp would rather not face.
In a statement, the Obama campaign said it "had no knowledge and had nothing to do with the creation of the ad."
Make no mistake about this, either. It is about more than Obama. This gives the AP a vehicle to bash the heck out of the internet as a news source. They are playing up not only the connection to Obama but also that this so-called "Citizen Ad" was the work of a professional political operator. And they are using that to undermine the credibility of all internet news and opinion sources.
UPDATE: This may not be over with yet. One Ohio blogger has an interesting history of Philip de Vellis and his background of political dirty tricks. The speculation is that de Vellis may not actually be the person who produced the video. And at least one person at the Politico is very interested in this development. Pull up a chair. This might get interesting.
By Rustmeister, Thursday, 22 March , 2007 @ 7:53 am
It kills me how one reporter can say this and the readers just nod their heads and buy it.
Just like when Dean did his “yeaaagh!” thing. No big deal. The media made a big deal, said his run was over at that time, and it was.
Not like that was a bad thing….
By David L, Thursday, 22 March , 2007 @ 8:45 am
The credibility of, or lack thereof, the “1984″ is obvious. The ad uses the old Apple ad pastedd over with her image and dubbed witgh the audio of campaign ads.
I have labled Mrs. Clinton’s campaign theme of having a “conversation” with the voters cynical. De Ville called it disingenous.
If you feel that Mrs. Clinton’s continued droning on about having a conversation is honest, then the de Ville parody will not work for you. On the other hand, if you harbor the same doubts about Mrz. Clinton’s credibility as does de Ville, then his ad does work.
Mrs. Clinton’s operative can atteck the Obama campaign’s connection to the ad and they can question the Obaam campaign’s crediblity. If the Clinton canpaign had any crediblity, the attacks would be pointess. Mrs. Clinton’s attacks on the Obama campaign can not give her campaign crediblity, which what it needs.