"Astroturfing": A New Political Phenomenon

Nope, we're not talking football today. We're talking about another sneaky political tactic primarily employeed by the left-wing "Netroots." Check out this definition from Wikipedia and see if you recognize anything:

In politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations (PR) campaigns which seek to create the impression of being a spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to the "AstroTurf" (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate "fake grassroots" support.

The goal of such campaign is to disguise the agenda of a political client as an independent public reaction to some political entity —a politician, political group, product, service, event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach," "awareness," etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anything from an individual pushing their own personal agenda through to highly organised professional groups with financial backing from large corporations.

...The term, said to have been used first in this context by former U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen (Democrat-Texas), is wordplay based on "grassroots democracy" efforts, which are truly spontaneous undertakings largely sustained by private persons (not politicians, governments, corporations, or public relations firms). "AstroTurf" refers to the bright green artificial grass used in some sports stadiums, so "astroturfing" refers to artificial grassroots efforts.

Fast forward now to this piece from the New York Sun, now, thankfully available online without subscription:

Yesterday, a company that does public relations for the liberal activist political action committee MoveOn.org, Fenton Communications, organized a conference call for reporters and three active-duty soldiers to unveil the soldiers' anti-war group Appeal for Redress.

According to its Web site, Appeal for Redress is seeking signatures of active-duty soldiers for a petition that reads in part, "As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq."

The Sun reports that the group now has 213 members, hardly even remotely representative of the military. But does this smell a little like something the left orchestrated to help out our effort in Vietnam a few years back? Thought you might remember. The Sun, being the Sun, next asked for comments from retired military on Fenton Communications' latest astroturfing event. And one brass hat patriot spoke right up:

"I think it is shameful because the timing is so close to the election. They ought to be ashamed of themselves," a retired Air Force lieutenant general, Thomas McInerney, told The New York Sun yesterday by phone from Israel. "The soldiers should be ashamed of themselves for being duped into this. It is to be expected from a MoveOn.org-type group. They have no standards."

A retired Army major general, Robert Scales, told the Sun he supports the right of enlisted soldiers to petition Congress about the Iraq war. But he said, "It is a little suspicious that something like this would appear 12 days before an election."

Umm, yeah. But then, nothing surprises us these days. The left is just as organized in its pursuit of disinformation and bogus information as it was during Vietnam, again happily organizing treason and sedition to undermine our war efforts. (And political efforts: For a belated Republican riposte to the political liars of the left, see Luther's excellent post concerning Gov. Allen's counter-attack [finally] on his despicable opponent here. Truth hurts, doesn't it, Mr. Webb?)

Even Bin Laden understands that our military will never be defeated on the ground. But everyone has learned how they CAN be defeated, right Jane Fonda? And they're only happy to do so with the full cooperation of the Hate America Left and its interlocking front groups like Daily Kos and Fenton Communications that increasingly run the Democratic Party.

The use of distorting or altered language, disinformation, and bogus "fake but accurate" stories to influence the outcome of wars and elections is currently the favored tool of a despicable Gramscian left that seeks the utter destruction of our culture and our way of life. These people and others like them constitute the grassroots support of today's Democratic Party. Remember that if you're an undecided voter heading into the polls next week. Yep, the Repubs didn't particularly distinguish themselves in the current Congress. But remember, they were opposed on every front by left-wing front groups supporting political hacks with no ideas and no love of this country. Think long and hard before you pull the "D" lever and vote to slice your own throat.

Hat tips to the Mudville Gazette and Instapundit for putting us on to this very HazZzMat kind of story, exposing once again the ceaseless evil of the left and their full participation as Al Qaeda's willing stooges in this year's Congressional elections.