Monday, October 20, 2008

Smoke and mirrors

Remember the whole "African Press International" kerfluffle last week (that long ago?) Remember how McCain supporters were hanging their hopes on the idea that Michelle Obama would call up some obscure web site, unprompted, and unload a series of "blame whitey" comments that seemed tailor-made to discredit the Obamas?

Yeah, I'm sure most of you didn't even hear about it. That's how a big a story it was.

I figured at the time that this was most likely the case of some prankster calling API up and doing an Obama impersonation and them being hapless enough to think they had a big scoop and running with it. But I also wondered if this might not have been more than just a prank and a deliberate attempt to create a scandal. Either by a McCain supporter wanting to embarrass Obama, or an Obama supporter wanting to embarrass those who might actually promote the story. The latter would be a classic Rovian technique of putting out bogus information in order to get an opponent to nibble on it and look bad in the process.

We still don't know the full story on this and probably never will (nor do I really care). But it appears I'm not the only one who had similar conspiratorial thoughts.

1 Comments:

Blogger Brady Bonk said...

"I figured at the time that this was most likely the case of some prankster calling API up and doing an Obama impersonation and them being hapless enough to think they had a big scoop and running with it."

Yep. Never let Armisen get ahold of your cell phone after he's had a few Heinekens.

2:01 PM  

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