MORE ON THAT DAMN HILLARY AD

I keep talking about the amateur-geek-in-a-bedroom creation myth surrounding the Hillary ad because I think it's wrong, and because the myth reinforces the message of the ad, which is that Hillary is the enemy of our human essence -- which is a Republican message and which, if she's the nominee, is going to help give the GOP four more years to control the White House.

Debunking the creation myth is Zack Exley at techPresident; what he says is persuasive even if you don't buy the Obama part:

"Vote Different" Was Funded

Why is the "Vote Different" creator still in hiding? There can only be one reason: the project was funded by a well known Obama supporter, or someone with very close and public connections to the Obama campaign.

... so far most of the discussion of the ad has put up a picture of an independent video person working at home on their Mac in their spare time. But that's just not plausible. Such a character would be claiming his or her reward right now, boosting his or her career and having a great time doing the media rounds. And, also telling: the ad maker knew exactly what election law lines not to cross, stopping just short of express advocacy. Why didn't the ad say, "Vote Obama"? So, when did independent YouTube video hackers get access to their own election law attorneys?

This was a funded project, involving lawyers and an ad agency or at the very least a professional video person who's time is worth hundreds of dollars an hour....

The bit about not crossing the campaign-law line is utterly convincing to me.

As for who backed the creator, maybe I've been wrong all along -- maybe it really is an Obama supporter and not a GOP dirty trickster. Has anybody thought of asking David Geffen what he knows about this?

David All, a GOP media consultant, argues on his blog that the creator of the ad can't be a Republican. Most of his evidence is circumstantial, but he does quote an e-mail between a right-winger named Marcus Pittman and "ParkRidge47," who put the ad up on YouTube. Pittman wanted ParkRidge to endorse his video response, and Park Ridge replied by invoking two righty blogs: "If I wanted to promote your mindless right-wing talking points I’d go throw little green footballs at redstate." ParkRidge turned Pittman down. So maybe the ad is the work of a Democrat -- unless (donning tinfoil) the whole e-mail exchange and the rejection of the response video are phony or a smokescreen.

Meanwhile, Zack Exley's first commenter has an interesting story to relate:

The chair of the Democratic Central Committee the next county over sent me an email last night from the local Republicans. It urges all Republicans to watch the Hillary 1984 video. He and I believe the Republicans want the video to vilify both Clinton and Obama. They claim it "aggressively points out the weaknesses and hypocrisy of the Clintons." It also puts Obama in a bad light as tolerant of political sleeze. It pits the two Democratic frontrunnres against each other. And paints the Democrats as dangerously divided--perhaps too much so to govern. What Republican wouldn't have been happy to finance that?

I'll say this: It's either a GOP attack ad or an Obama video that's functioning as a GOP attack ad.

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UPDATE: News Hounds points out that someone named "parkridge47" wrote a comment in response to a post titled "Lying Democrats Detour From Colorado Promise, Let Anti-war Kooks Spend Hours Debating Meaningless, Offensive Resolution" at ToTheRight.org ("Colorado's Top Conservative News Outlet"); here's the comment:

Why don’t they focus on running the state like they’re supposed to? If they want to pass meaningless anti-war resolutions they should run for U.S. Congress like everyone else.

It's not clear whether ParkRidge47 and parkridge47 are the same person, but that latter sure doesn't sound like an anti-Hillary Democrat.