Anti-Hillary Clinton Youtube mashup

With all the hoopla surrounding this anonymous Anti-Hillary/Pro-Obama Youtube mashup of an old Apple Computer Ad, it can be hard to make sense of this so let's go right into some of what the bloggers and alternative press are saying.

Paul at BeyondChron heralds the democratization of online video:

What YouTube does is allow any person who knows how to put up a video online to play the game – and get wide exposure. In the old days, only well-paid political consultants and the campaigns who hired them could do this – and they had to pay ungodly amounts of money to put such commercials on television. YouTube democratizes the political system, by letting grassroots activists drive the debate about how candidates get covered.

Although I don’t like Hillary Clinton and am a big fan of the latest YouTube video, I am very uncomfortable that it is anonymous. But there’s no question that the creator’s anonymity (and the fact that it was obviously not an amateur) has sparked more interest in it. I also believe the Obama campaign when they say that the creator is unaffiliated with their operation, and that they’re as clueless as we are as to who did it.

But anonymous hit-pieces – even if done artfully well – are not a good thing. If the 1984 parody had been displayed on television, campaign finance law would have required the creator to disclose its identity so that they can be held accountable. For now, the clip is probably harmless fun – but will it spawn more attacks on YouTube from sources who refuse to let the world know who they are?

It’s too soon to tell, but there’s one thing that we know for sure. The YouTube election has arrived.

David Boaz at cato-at-liberty.org big-ups the anonymity factor:

It was created by someone who prefers Obama. And it’s a great example of anonymous pamphleteering for the internet age. As Jonathan Wallace pointed out in a Cato study, that’s a tradition that goes back to Cato’s Letters and the Federalist Papers. But our modern election laws have tried to stamp out anonymity. All expressions of political support are supposed to be disclosed, reported, and regulated. But why do we need to know who created this great ad? If you take offense at it, create a better one in response.

Kibitzer at The Pesky Fly says the video was planted by the GOP:

One indication of the declining state of the Republican attack machine is the utter transparency of one of its latest disinformation efforts – namely, the video spot (which has been seen widely on YouTube and elsewhere) based on Apple Computers’ 1984 Super Bowl ad introducing the MacIntosh and (by implication) bashing computer kingpin Bill Gates.

The spot, which purports to be under the auspices of “BarackObama.com,” features what appear to be the same zombies who populated the Apple ad, having entered an auditorium in lockstep to watch, not the Gates stand-in of 1984, but Hillary Clinton as she prattles on dully about the intent of her campaign to be all-inclusive. First clue of something funny right there: That the GOP provocateurs who put this thing together (for it is surely they) would equate such an aim, fuzzily well-meaning as it is, with the oppressive nostrums represented by the original.

The comments and post quoting could go on and on but the last quote is from Clinton herself who has a sense of humor about the clip:

“I haven’t seen it but I’m pleased that it seems to be taking attention away from what used to be on YouTube and getting a lot of hits, namely me singing ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ Everybody in the world now knows I can’t carry a tune,” Clinton told NY1. “I thank heavens for small favors and the attention has shifted, and now maybe people won’t have to tune in and hear me screeching about ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’”

-Dippold

Political Online Reputation