[theknife]

they call this kind of operation astroturfing....as in, it's ostensibly some kind of a grass roots campaign, but in fact it's carefully orchestrated (astroturf=fake grass - get it?)...

Aug. 27 - Karl Rove makes Chuck Colson look like a girly man. Colson didn’t have the audacity to go after John Kerry’s military record when President Nixon was looking for dirt on antiwar leaders. After researching Kerry’s medals, Colson, who now heads a prison ministry program, backed off. “Maybe Chuck knew he was going to find Jesus back then because he had a degree of shame,” says a senior staffer to a Senate Republican.


The Kerry campaign thinks it has succeeded in discrediting the scurrilous attack on Kerry’s military service, but Rove got what he wanted. Instead of talking about a failed war in Iraq and a new report that shows 1.3 million more Americans living in poverty, we’re debating what happened in the Mekong Delta in 1968. The strategy “came straight from the West Wing,” says the GOP staffer. “Nobody should be confused.” Asked to explain, this Republican says Rove is smart enough to keep technical distance. But all it takes is a well-placed wink to activate a web of Bush family hit men, confidantes and deep-pocket donors. “They know what to do—it’s like sleeper cells that get activated,” he says, likening the players to “political terrorists.”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5843033/site/newsweek/