Ellie Light, Now Mark Spivey

It increasingly looks as though there's a fairly sophisticated spamming, or astroturfing campaign going on in support of Obama. It's target seems to be the oped pages, in part, anyway.

I was first alerted to Mark Spivey via a link to the Freepers in a comment. There are also other things popping up in comments on this post of mine. As you can read at link, of the relatively few number of people the Twitter nick Winston44 was following, one of them was a news editor punked by Ellie Light. That seems to take this a bit beyond sheer coincidence.

Patterico is following up on Mark Spivey. Left Coast Rebel on the Ellie Light affair.

A recent Associated Press article stated that President Barack Obama’s hesitancy on the Afghan war buildup implies weakness.

I wish world leaders had more of that kind of weakness. Clearly, Obama does not want to send soldiers into harm’s way without a clear goal, a solid plan and an exit strategy, three aspects sorely missing from former President George W. Bush’s military ventures.

Comments

[Debg]

Someone has started Facebooks to track Ellie and Mark. Dan, your article is linked there.

Who is Ellie Light? http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=261752540668
Who is Mark Spivey? http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=272559025123

[Amy]

I just posted: How to find astroturf letters to the editor
http://amykane.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/how-to-find-astroturf-letters-to-the-editor.html

I found Janet Leigh, next to Mark Spivey in the Baltimore Chronicle, and again in a Santa Barbara paper. I bet it's coming from Organizing for America.

[Jayne on the left coast]

What are the odds of a letter to an editor being published, much less multiples of the same letter? I think the odds would be a million to one.

[w3bgrrl]

"I wish world leaders had more of that kind of weakness."

Proof positive that Mark Spivey is Obama. Isn't that basically the Obama Doctrine?

[Lala]

And these have something to do with the threats to Hillbuzz.

[Gary Maxwell]

Dan what happened to your liberal trolls? Surely one of them could pull out the last dozen or so Townhouse memos and figure who to pin this tail on...

[Andrew X]

I must take issue with these honorable letter writers, if a I may be so humble. I think Mr. Bush did indeed have an exit strategy for Iraq, but as strategy and global political maneuvering is a very sophisticated business, I think it probably eluded all but the most refined of minds.

I have studied and worked for years in this realm, so I acknowledge that my insight and ability to see the subtle contours of this are far superior than most others out there.

Basically, Mr. Bush's strategy was --

-- We fight the war and depose Saddam.

-- We win, and stabilize the country.

-- We leave.

For those who have not noticed...

-- We fought the war and deposed Saddam

-- We largely stabilized the country

-- We are leaving

Hope that helped.

You're welcome.

[Scratcher]

Could this explain it?

http://makesmybrainitch.blogspot.com/2010/01/is-ellie-light-rockin-vote.html

[F U]

The story here is not the letters, it's the complicity of the newspapers in publishing so many of them, time and time again, from people they have evidently not verified, all over the nation. We all know how difficult it is to get a letter published (vice just putting something in a comment), so why has it been so easy for these pseudonyms?

Big journalism, where are you on this?

[Captain Joe]

Plouffters?

[Nikki]

People, why does this surprise you? This is a tactic that has been used for decades or more by both sides. The military even has groups dedicated to just this same thing. Spreading disinformation. They infiltrate message boards and social sites and participate in political discussions. Sometimes they claim to have inside information. They rarely have links to actual documents to back up their "facts". they also like to go into a group and start internal arguments hoping to fracture the group.

No matter how much I would like to see Obama out of office, this is not a novel idea in the least and I can assure you this has gone back as far as at least Clinton if not Bush Sr and even Reagan. Anyone remember th old usent groups? Before the www? Think Wargames and the BBs used then.

We have used the same tactics against our foreign enemies for ages, why would you think it wouldn't be used to influence our own?

They are referred to as many things including: disinformation campaigns, agent provocateurs , shill postings and, psyops postings.

[SarahW]

It was Left Coast Rebel who got the mail from blogger profile Winston44, proclaiming to be Ellie light, correct? Just on a whim I typed in this: http://winston44.blogspot.com/
and an old blog from 2006 popped up! Take a look if interested.

[reader]

Someone named "Mark Spivey" also has an account on a bulletin board system for email marketers. To view the profile you have to sign up, which I didn't want to do, but perhaps another investigative reporter might want to check who this email marketer "Mark Spivey" is. His profile is the first link here:

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=spivey+site:emailmarketersclub.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[crosspatch]

From looking at the state of things over at Patterico, it looks like the wheels are falling off the cart of Obama's astroturf program.

[crosspatch]

"People, why does this surprise you? This is a tactic that has been used for decades or more by both sides."

Actually, Ben Franklin started it.

[urth]

"Why does this surprise you?" Well, it almost doesn't. What i find frightening and reprehensible is that the MSM newsorgans are not only passively colluding, they're clearly intentional and active participants in the "disinformation," "psyops," "shill posting" campaign. THE ODDS AGAINST Ellie Light (et al.) getting serendipitously published in so many different, unrelated venues is so low that the probability that editors were alerted to or asked to select her letters is very high. Probably as reliable as a DNA paternity match. So it is almost impossible that the editors did not know. The editors were conspirators, participants, in on it. A whole new level of betrayal of trust. "Our" "own" newspapers treating us like an enemy population for which psyops and disinformation is a legitimate tactic. How effing effed up is this? "Why does this surprise you?" That's why. Let's not forget, some Dems are calling for a newspaper bailout by conferring non-profit status and in this way subsidizing salaries of propagandists to save "journalism." Nixon on steroids with the press as a complicit partner, not an adversary. The "plumbers" and the "press" switch roles. Looking into this after January 2011 should be part of the long term agenda.

[Amy]

"Ellie Light" left a comment on my blog this morning, explaining who she is and why she did it. For what it's worth.
http://amykane.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/ellie-light-comments-on-my-blog.html

[Linda Seebach]

Many of the papers that printed Ellie Light's letter are very small, and therefore are able to publish nearly every letter they receive. They are also understaffed, and so not all of them have a policy of verifying letters.

And apart from the phony addresses, this sounds like a decent letter. Not obviously astroturf, and (I hear from a friend who works on letters for a small paper) missing the clues that make letters editors suspicious.

[SarahW]

Linda, I have to part ways with your friend. I read the letter over Christmas break - and it reeked of astroturf to me.

[SarahW]

Dan, I sent you a short note via your blog email.

Also wanted to follow up - the journalist Mark Spivey I mentioned upthread wrote back - he is not the author of those letters attributed to a Mark Spivey.