FRAGGINGS

So the creator of the "Hillary 1984" ad is Phil De Vellis, a Democrat who worked for the tech firm Blue State Digital, which designed the Obama campaign's Web site. (AP story here.)

De Vellis tries to defend what he did at the Huffington Post:

The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton's "conversation" is disingenuous....

Let me be clear: I am a proud Democrat, and I always have been. I support Senator Obama. I hope he wins the primary. (I recognize that this ad is not his style of politics.) I also believe that Senator Clinton is a great public servant, and if she should win the nomination, I would support her and wish her all the best.

Oh, that's swell: You sucker-punched her, but you really wish her well.

Look, I have problems with Hillary Clinton, but just as David Geffen should have known he was repeating (and reinforcing) right-wing memes when he talked to Maureen Dowd, Phil De Vellis should have known that with this ad he was reinforcing the right-wing message that Hillary is a monster who seeks to accrue excessive amounts of power, which she craves because she has totalitarian impulses and can't wait to crush America under her jackboot.

Curiously, I learned from a few minutes' Googling that back in February of last year some Ohio Democrats were angry at De Vellis for another attack on a fellow Democrat. De Vellis was then working for Sherrod Brown's Senate campaign, and, according to Buckeye Senate Blog and Psychobilly Democrat, he e-mailed a negative Cleveland Plain Dealer article about Paul Hackett to a number of right-wing blogs. I don't get it -- I would never hand those bastards a gotcha.