Now we know a bit more about Barack

For this afternoon, the controversial video from the American Issue Project (h/t Michelle Malkin):

When I went to Youtube to embed the video, it had well over 100,000 views already. The Obamanation tried earlier to flood television stations who were airing the spot with thousands of e-mails demanding it be taken off. (My e-mail is up top, let’s see how they do. It won’t work for me either.)

Is this a little over the top? I believe it is, but the spot is definitely effective. (I think it would be better for 30 seconds, perhaps that is too little to make the point though.) Certainly it calls the character issue into play, and Obama has known his share of seedy characters over the years (Tony Rezko, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and probably most of the bit players in the Chicago political machine, for starters). It’s certainly put the heretofore unknown to me American Issues Project on the map – so if that was an aim of theirs they did well.

I know that a number of my readers on the left are going to call me out as a shill to the vast right-wing conspiracy, but this is a legitimate issue in the campaign that’s not being raised. (Yes, I can hear you asking again how many houses John McCain has and screaming “Keating Five!” from here. That will surely come out from the Obama side before all is said and done.) More telling is that Obama hasn’t thrown Ayers under the bus yet because it only took him a few days to shove Jeremiah Wright there. (Maybe Obama is in Baltimore, since the buses there are apparently having problems staying on time.)

Without knowing just how many markets actually showed the ad and the timing involved (whether it aired during prime time or was buried at 3 in the morning), it’s arguable that just taking the number of Youtube views and adding the number of readers Michelle Malkin gets in a day (about 1 – 1.5 million a week, you can check her Site Meter) that the ad got many times more free exposure for the American Issues Project than they have gotten in paying for them to air on television. It was their Holy Grail and definitely scored a bullseye with their target audience.

That, my friends, is the beauty of the internet and why I keep plugging away at this sort of stuff.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.