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Find out more about Ray: Ray Robison is a former army officer who now works as a military analyst and freelance investigative journalist. He is the author of the book Both In On Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents (www.bothinonetrench.com). This column will discuss issues important to the military and veterans from a political and media watchdog angle. |
Ethan Winner, an executive with a Public Relations firm connected to a senior Obama campaign advisor has admitted to distributing a video designed to smear Republican Vice Presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin. An investigation has shown that David Axelrod, chief media advisor to Obama had previously worked with the PR firm chief Chuck Winner on another campaign.
In 1996, a group of investors penned Proposal E in Detroit which allowed for casinos. The investors hired the firm Winner/Wagner & Mandabach to study the chances of passing that proposal. As told in an article written by Laurence B. Deitch, an attorney for the proposal supporters, the Winner firm later led the media effort to help pass the measure. It brought in several outside media and communications groups.
A video from the Detroit Mayor's office produced by Mayor Archer's political consultant David Axelrod was noted as a key part of the Winner directed effort. This revelation places Axelrod in a direct working relationship with the Chuck Winner PR firm in a past campaign.
Axelrod is considered by many to be a master of planting campaign messages on the internet to look like they did not originate from an organized campaign, a practice know as “astroturfing” (because of the fake grass-roots nature of the message). The joint effort on the Prop E campaign is the first public indication of a direct tie between the Obama campaign team and the Winner PR firm.
Bloggers at the website “The Jawa Report” have used their collective investigative talent to expose the originators of the video. Normally, the blog specializes in tracking down and stopping sources of internet-based Islamic extremism, also known as jihadist propaganda. The bloggers recently turned their abilities to finding the source of the Palin smear video. After their discloser, Ethan Winner admitted to orchestrating the smear video but denied that it came from the Obama campaign. The connection between Winner and Axelrod calls into question the matter of the Obama campaign's culpability in the smear video tactic.
Ray Robison is the author of Both In One Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents
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