Beware of anti-Gore astroturf

August 5, 2006

A remarkably dumb YouTube video is working its way through conservative circles, spoofing Al Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and global warming. It’s pretty weak — the video’s basic pitch is that Gore’s movie is boring and is intended to brainwash viewers. The Wall Street Journal noted that the video “has a home-made, humorous quality,” though “humorous” is hardly the first word that comes to mind.

The video’s maker is listed as “Toutsmith,” but there’s quite a bit more to it than that.

In an email exchange with The Wall Street Journal, Toutsmith didn’t answer when asked who he was or why he made the video, which has just over 59,000 views on YouTube. However, computer routing information contained in an email sent from Toutsmith’s Yahoo account indicate it didn’t come from an amateur working out of his basement.

Instead, the email originated from a computer registered to DCI Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose clients include oil company Exxon Mobil Corp.

A DCI Group spokesman declines to say whether or not DCI made the anti-Gore penguin video, or to explain why Toutsmith appeared to be sending email from DCI’s computers.

Nancy Snow, a communications professor at California State University, Fullerton, called the video a lesson in “Propaganda 101.” It’s an entirely fair description.

[Fred Wertheimer, president of the watchdog group Democracy 21] thinks videos like the Gore spoof, whose sponsorship is vague, can be disingenuous. “They’re coming in under false pretenses — under the guise of being a clever video you might be interested in,” he says. For its part, AT&T says its affiliation with the group is clearly listed on netcompetition.org, just a few clicks away.

DCI is no stranger to the debate over global warming. Partly through Tech Central Station, an opinion Web site it operates, DCI has sought to raise doubts about the science of global warming and about Mr. Gore’s film, placing skeptical scientists on talk-radio shows and paying them to write editorials.

One thing’s for sure: Al Gore has the oil industry in such a panic, it’s resorted to these rather pathetic stunts.

Seen parts of it. About as dumb as the Repubs as Rebels in Star Wars video.

Like when Sov propagandists used heavy handed metaphors to mock us in the Vest. They focus on the fact that Gore is boring forgetting that Gore mocked himself rather well on the great soon to be resurrected animated show Futurama.

Humor takes a sense of timing, mental aglity and sense of context that these particular group of clowns lack.

Similar morons tried with Michael Moore three years ago. Didn’t work so well.

Apparently humor is a concept that is beyond these group of Cons like sane leadership, fiscal responsibility, strategic vision, situational awareness and a general sense beyond their own fat asses.

  • Amazing how transparent the Internet really is to the techno-savvy. It’s harder to hide on there than the propagandist realize.

  • Apparently humor is a concept that is beyond these group of Cons like sane leadership, fiscal responsibility, strategic vision, situational awareness and a general sense beyond their own fat asses.

    As is intelligence, a sense of irony, and any degree of talent.

  • I used to wonder what it must have been like to work in ancient Egypt’s Alexandrian Library — a tiny world of scientific discovery and growth in a vast sea of ignorance and superstition. I was amazed to find out that, as an educated citizen of the United States of America, I already know.

  • A lot of previous skeptics are now admitting that the problem is real. The debate is about over. The earth has warmed at least one degree F. There is another 1 degree warmup that is set to take place by the heat stored in the oceans from global warming. Then?

    The really big debate is going to be over how soon we need to act and how much we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. How soon? Some argue that we need to reduce emissions substantially in the next 10 to 15 years. This “substantially” means much more than the Kyoto protocol would do if fully enacted. Others give us to mid century with much less reductions in emissions. This is where it is going to be really difficult to reach political consensus and shape policy.

    There are some people like techno optimist Greg Easterbrook who think solving this is going to be easy. (see his recent column in the New Yorker). He bases his argument on the success we achieved in reducing air pollution — faster and cheaper and with less or no adverse economic effects than predicted by industry naysayers. CB: is Easterbrook’s column worthy of another entry on global warming? Easterbrook also presented his argument on the News Hour Friday.

  • We’re flucked folks.
    In order to avert this disaster we’d have to bite a political bullet that our “leaders” are unwilling to feed us.

    And it’s not just the “Pubs”.
    Remember folks, Billy Boy new that signing the kyoto accord would casuse major economic hardships.

    Politicos are short-term-gain animals, and haven’t the stomach for true leadership.

  • There is a way to find out who is behind this…that would be the people who pay the bills…. a month ago I Googled the search term Al Gore, and on the first page, at the top…was a sponsored link to that stupid spoof on youtube.com. I was upset enough to write Google the following letter (to which they didn’t respond). But included in this letter is the link to the site that has all the information that Google needs to track down the account that was paying for this bit of slander.

    norman scott
    Los Angeles

    (letter to Google)

    I hope you follow up on this:

    Someone has paid to put a sponsored link at the top of the page to a youtube listing when using the search term “Al Gore”. Unfortunately, the badly produced youtube offering is actually quite slanderous and misleading in characterizing Al Gore and his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”. Now, I have nothing against satire, even in poor taste or judgement, but this link seems misleading and derogatory.

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=L&ai=BYNb9zdmuRLuZFZ22Yd27nN8I5rPZEdKl6PgBkv_NywjQ_y4IABABGAEguVQoAkidOVDHhdXvBKoBAmVuyAEBlQI8ZBgK&q=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DIZSqXUSwHRI

    I should think that Google has some sort of rules regarding the placement and content of it’s paid for sponsorship. If not, let me know, and I’ll pay to direct people who put in the search term “George Bush” to a neo-nazi site……

  • CB: The Gregg Easterbrook column is in the latest issue of The Atlantic instead of the New Yorker as I wrote above.

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