{"id":13226,"date":"2009-08-05T06:06:35","date_gmt":"2009-08-05T11:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=13226"},"modified":"2009-08-05T08:30:05","modified_gmt":"2009-08-05T13:30:05","slug":"white-house-charges-astroturf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=13226","title":{"rendered":"White House charges “astroturf”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve written over the last few days about how the Democrats aren’t very happy with folks using the same tactics that they used against Republicans<\/a> for eight years in regards to the healthcare debate. The White House jumped into the fight yesterday when Naked Emperor released a video<\/a> which had the President in his own words describing this healthcare as the impetus for single-payer, government-run healthcare. Somehow, the White House got away with calling the President a liar.<\/p>\n

The Washington Times writes this morning that now the White House is accusing Republicans of “astroturfing” the discussion with organized groups of professional protesters funded by well-heeled lobbyists. Really? Have they seen the RNC’s website lately? here’s a screen shot for you;
\n
\n\"gop-blog\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The RNC couldn’t organize online activism if it wanted to – there’s a four month old note updated three months ago about a new website that’s right around the next corner. On the other hand, here’s the DNC’s website;<\/p>\n

\"under-attack\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It says the healthcare plan is under attack, but it looks like they’re portraying it as an attack on Obama, doesn’t it? The Washington Times quotes Democrats;<\/p>\n

The Democratic National Committee called the protesters a “mob” and said they believed people were being bused to events by “well-funded, highly organized groups run by Republican operatives and funded by the special interests.”<\/p>\n

“I hope people will take a jaundiced eye to what is clearly the astroturf nature of so-called grass-roots lobbying,” Mr. Gibbs said. “This is manufactured anger.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Gibbs did not rule out speculation that the conservative groups were tapping into some public distress with the president’s plan, but Democratic Party activists said protests at town hall events across the country were more likely a charade organized entirely by vested interests in Washington.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then they quote a lobbyist;<\/p>\n

John Goodman, president of the conservative-leaning National Center for Policy Analysis, said he thinks the protests are real.<\/p>\n

“There is no organized Republican resistance to what the Democrats in Congress are doing,” he said. “The Republicans are in disarray.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exactly. At this point, the RNC couldn’t organize a child’s tea party let alone a grown up one. The White House is trying to make this look like something it’s not – judging by my bulging email inbox, these protests are exactly how they appear – a bunch of pissed off people who tired of being steamrollered into something they don’t like.<\/p>\n

More from SondraK<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written over the last few days about how the Democrats aren’t very happy with folks … White House charges “astroturf”<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-bloggers-and-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}