RIP Hope And Change

Appalling, if true.

For a while, it's been rumoured that Obama media overlord David Axelrod's key campaign strategy is "astroturfing".

Now the story is breaking that several blatantly anti-Palin videos were astroturfed for the Obama campaign, by a professional Public Relations firm.

Here is the accusation, via Ace of Spades, who got it from the Jawa Report:

An attempt to get a blatantly dishonest anti-Palin ad to go "viral" on YouTube. Gross deception in pumping out fake "amateur grassroots" ads which are really cooked up by a big PR firm connected to a top Obama advisor, David Axelrod, and Obama's officially-acknowledged ads.

Clearly, media will never investigate or delve into this story, so it's up to bloggers to inform them by maximising the volume.

As of this moment, however, there is a DNR on "hope and change", because this is not a new kind of politics: it's just an updated form of dirty tricks as usual.

Coming on the heels of the unrelated email hack, which however was purposely done to destroy Palin by attempting to get incriminating evidence, possibly by the son of a Democratic Tennessee State congressman -- this all smacks like a tech-savvy version of Watergate. In the latter case, instead of directed shenanigans, we now have rogue elements doing the bidding of Senator Obama's factions but for similar results.

This astroturfing is another kettle of fish, though.

If, as Michael Yon says, truth leaks faster than helium, the Obama campaign just became the Hindenburg.