KLEIN LOVES AUTHENTICITY, ESPECIALLY THE FAKE KIND

Oh, dear. I see that Joe Klein has fallen for the notion that that "Hillary 1984" ad parody was some sort of grassroots phenomenon -- he calls it a "guerrilla mashup" and links it to Time's cover story about the brave new world of amateur digital content providers collectively known as "You":

You are, apparently, not only the Person of the Year, but also the Political Consultants of the future.

I said it yesterday and Micah Sifry said it before that at techPresident.com: The Hillary ad is surely the work of people with real skills, not some amateur in a bedroom -- it's too well done not to be. (And I assume it's also the work of someone from the right, someone who doesn't like Clinton or Obama and who wants to keep them angry at each other.)

But Klein is dazzled -- and here's his last sentence:

Wonder how Hillary's paid help will respond.

Oooh, snap! Hillary -- alone among politicians throughout history! -- actually pays people to work on her campaigns!

Maybe Klein's too old and out of touch to understand the technology, but as a veteran political observer, shouldn't he be a tad skeptical about the ad's provenance? Alas, no; he desperately wants to believe that some candidate -- anyone who can beat that phony Hillary! -- is motivating The Kids the way JFK and Eugene McCarthy did. This is (to use one of Klein's favorite words) "authenticity" in a brave new political era -- a young, genuine candidate inspires Generation YouTube to rise up and smite the Hildebeast with purity of intent and laptops!

The cynical pro who made this ad must find that very, very amusing.