Conspiracies

Maybe you can help me with this. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (to which I do not link) believes he has discovered a plot by the Obama campaign to smear Sarah Palin with this web site.

You can read about why LGF suspected the Obama campaign was behind the site at Gateway Pundit. As I understand it, the Sarah Palin smear site is traced to the IP address 74.208.74.232. This same IP address also hosts other anti-McCain sites, plus a site that redirects to Obama’s “Fight the Smears” site. “Fight the Smears” itself has a different IP address.

If you do a Whois for the IP address, it takes you to a company called 1&1 Internet Inc., of Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania. It’s a web hosting service. A cheap one, with disgruntled former customers who have set up complaint sites, presumably with another web host. This doesn’t tell us who actually created the sites.

The only connection to the Obama campaign is the site Obamadefense.com, hosted at 1&1 Internet, that redirects to the “Fight the Smears” site. I did a Whois for Obamadefense.com and didn’t find anything that told me anything more.

Is there a there, there? I don’t understand how any of this proves a connection to the Obama campaign.

14 thoughts on “Conspiracies

  1. I think if the Obama campaign were behind it, it would be to point out that she only vetoed that bill because she was told it was unconstitutional (in fact, apparently almost the same language that the Alaska Supreme Court had already declared unconstitutional). So the attempt to spin this veto as meaing she’s a tolerant person (as any number of Rethug pundits are declaring) is nonsense.

    She’s made plenty of enemies on both sides in Alaska.

  2. It’s a lame site. I’m just asking if the “evidence” actually points to the Obama campaign. Anybody can buy web hosting services from that company, including whoever set up the redirect site.

  3. And I think you need a night off if you’re distrusting your own reasoning :-).

    No, there is no evidence there.

  4. Gordon — this “story” has been at or near the top of Memeorandum since early this afternoon. I think most of the Right Blogosphere is linking to it, certain they have found a sinister plot. It took technically challenged me a few seconds to figure out the IP of Evil was connected to a web hosting service company. I’ve been asking myself, “am I missing something here? How does this prove a connection to the Obama campaign?” I couldn’t see it.

    So, basically, they’re just being ridiculous, yes?

  5. That link redirects to the Wikipedia entry for Palin. I never saw the “sarahpalingayrights.com website.

  6. Whoever was behind the site, it’s down now. Gateway Pundit updated his post to say that the person behind it is an Obama supporter without any connection to the campaign.

  7. OK. Let me get this straight. We spent today sorting thru the pile of bones that came tumbling out of the Sarah Palin closet– the closet John McCain opened– and McCain’s supporters spent today asserting with no evidence that the Obama campaign is behind a new anti-Palin “smear” site?

    I suppose both sides could have used our Labor Day Saturday a bit better.

    So, what will the intrepid Conspiracy Killers’ next claim be? That Obama created Wasilla AK’s $20 million debt? That, months ago, the Obama campaign wrote in Palin’s Wikipedia entry that “she has gay friends,” thus forcing some loyal Palinite to massively amend the entry? (Apparently a user called “YoungTrigg” did just that on Thursday.) Wow, that would mean Barack Obama can predict the future! He’s even cooler than I thought!

    Seems to me, Sarah Palin is behind most of the “smears” of Sarah Palin. All the ones that are true, anyway.

    I have an idea. Let’s all go outside the next couple of days, and get some fresh air. (Well, not if you live in the path of Gustav. You’ll be in our prayers and meditations.)

  8. So, i realize that ‘reasoning’ as we know it doesn’t actually happen with those guys, but just how would this make sense? In what universe would it be to the Obama campaign’s benefit to convince people that his opponent supports gay rights? Doesn’t Obama want to attract people who support gay rights to vote for him, not the opponents? Remember, silly wingers, Obama thinks gays are OK! So, to him, saying Palin supports gay rights would be saying something GOOD about her! Why would he do that?

    By the way, the internet sleuthing demonstrated in that post at Gateway Pundit was truly pathetic. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time with internet professionals, but they demonstrate a stunning ignorance of how the Internet, and particularly the commercial Internet, works.

    And, no, there is no there, there.

  9. 1 and 1 is not just a cheap web hosting service, it’s a RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP web hosting service. Everyone is probably using it, and their service IS terrible but it basically works. Therefore the connection between the sites is that they inhabit the same physical (literally) universe.

  10. If the Republican Convention comes off as scheduled it will begin on Labor Day (an insult to organized labor – but that is to be expected from Republicans); it will begin while a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast (and that could change the schedule – and has probably kept President Bush away… we know how he likes to take care of hurricane situations); and it will end with the beginning of the NFL season on TV (and that will probably get a bigger demographic.)

    Is this luck, or what?

    I take it Dobson is praying for good weather for the week (just like he prayed for rain on Obama’s outdoor stadium speech on Thursday)!

    Under The LobsterScope

  11. re: joanr16

    Your post reminds me of Rick Hertzberg’s ‘content summary’ of the recent Corsi book, “The Obama Nation,” Obama”…is a corrupt, enraged, anti-American, drug-dealing, anti-Israel, pseudo-Christian radical leftist, black-militant, plagerist, and liar, trained as a Muslim and mentored by a menagerie of Marxists, Communists, cryto-Communists and terrorists.”

    I suspect that from now until November we can expect all that shit and more to be splashed out all over the Internet, Fox, and any other news outlet willing to propagate it. Heads up, everybody.

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