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Ben Smith startled to find out he got hit by astroturf job.

To be fair, they apparently hit him first before they went to stage two (local papers). As the latter reports:

In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.

Ace is unsurprised:

As has been endlessly documented, David Axelrod was the “gold standard of astroturf campaigns” for his many PR clients. Astroturf, in case you don’t know, is “artificial grassroots” — a paid consultant attempting to create the illusion of grassroots support.

Readers of this site know we had a lot of “Concerned Christian Conservatives” who showed up in the months before an election to write the same script ten times a week…

…and then Ace goes on to explain what happened on his site, which is pretty much what happened on every right-wing site whose structure would permit it: a blizzard of virtually-identical arguments and missives that wouldn’t fool regular site readers but might persuade casual visitors that there was actually something to whatever it was that the Democrats were trying to push that week.  If RedState didn’t have as many as some, it’s because we weren’t in a mood to let the Online Left take advantage of our hospitality*.

I bring this up because some people – God help us all – actually take me seriously on some issues, and I want to give some advice to conservative political website administrators: think about why you have a comments section in the first place.  If it’s to add value to the Online Right, then aggressively monitor your comments section.  If it’s to ‘foster a debate’ or some other nice-sounding rhetoric, accept that ‘fostering a debate’ to the Online Left means ‘sh*tting on your floor.’

Moe Lane

*Frankly, by and large they don’t deserve it.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

  • renny

    since Christmas because Obamanationcare “support” tanking and the oh-I-have-to-interrupt-my-golf-game-for-this response to the Detroit terrorist attack pulled the rug out from under them.

    Unemployment numbers are worse, real stats out of this admin. would be unbelievable anyway, the “stimulus” is more and more a joke, the war on terror is hot, and Scott Brown turned DC and the nation upside down.

    You have to think: and what if the Scott heard round the world had never fired?

  • saintgeorgegentile

    A variation of the letter turned up in ‘The Spectrum’ a paper covering Saint George & Cedar City in southwest Utah on January 12th. The paper’s website says that they call each writer before publishing. I might normally consider that this step went missing in the process except for the fact that the editor of Local News at the paper is a hard-core lefty.

  • Finrod

    I’m hardly surprised that it’s going on elsewhere, the moderators and site admins here are just better at catching them.

  • Richard Mullins

    Sometimes I’m nice but most of the time I hold on before approving it or trashing it. I know what kind of person I am, and too often I’m really too nice. I need to get somewhat of a backbone. Hint, never ever say that your a leftist, because I’ll delete it quickly.

  • Jeff Weimer

    That’s why I rarely comment at PJM anymore. I’m even beginning to avoid the articles in order to not have to put up with the garbage the regular trolls spew.

    It’s like wrestling with pigs: you only get dirty, and they enjoy it.

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  • Richard Mullins

    but at least it’s funny.