Posted on 01/24/2010 1:15:04 PM PST by Painesright
...Who is Mark Spivey? I know only this: that he is the author of this pro-Obama letter that has appeared in numerous publications:
A recent Associated Press article stated that President Barack Obama’s hesitancy on the Afghan war buildup implies weakness.
I wish world leaders had more of that kind of weakness. Clearly, Obama does not want to send soldiers into harm’s way without a clear goal, a solid plan and an exit strategy, three aspects sorely missing from former President George W. Bush’s military ventures.
I know that we Americans are used to presidents who play cowboy, who say things like “bring ’em on” and “mission accomplished” without a second thought; presidents who send Americans into battle on falsified weapons reports.
But it seems our current president understands that you don’t send soldiers into battle without first nailing down what they’re supposed to be doing, and why.
So hats off to Obama’s “hesitation.” Soldiers are human beings, not chess pieces. It’s about time we get a president who understands that.
— Mark Spivey
The letter has appeared — at a minimum! — at The Minnesota Daily, at the Baltimore Chronicle (on the same page as Ellie Light’s letter!), at the San Diego Union-Tribune (where he claims to be from San Diego), at the Naples News (where he claims to be from Naples, Florida), and at Buzzflash.com....
...Also: Ed Morrissey forwarded me an e-mail he received from Ellie Light several days ago. The mail appears to have been routed through the IP address 212.24.236.50, which comes back to Saudi Arabia...
...I assume this is some sort of masking or spoofing device and not the actual location of “Ellie Light.” Which makes you wonder: why does a grandma writing letters on behalf of Obama use an IP spoofer?...
(Excerpt) Read more at patterico.com ...
Is the White House conspiring with media outlets all across the nation to publish fictitious pro-Obama letters to the editor?
Has the press really been prostituted that badly?!? (I know, dumb question)
Now that this has been uncovered, what do you want to bet that they double down on net neutrality?
Once they control the Internet, uncovering behavior such as this will be much, much more difficult.
ping
This is why the newspapers are folding, one by one. Lazy editors; useless content; bland repetition.
They are indeed the Dinosaur Media.
I remember that at the time that Zero was “deliberating” about the afghan troop surge I stated the whole thing was a show. He knew exactly what he was going to do all along, but he wanted to wait a month to appease his anti-war/code pink supporters with the tripe that he wasn’t “rushing into war”. Now that we know that he appointed astroturfers to spread that meme about himself to the nation’s newspapers I think I’ve been proven correct.
ping
As others have said, what the leftists accuse their opponents of is a pretty good indicator of what they themselves are doing. Think Madame Pelosi dismissing the tea party participants as astroturfers.
I once wrote a letter and sent it to several papers in my area at the same time. A couple of papers contacted me about printing it. One of those papers did not put it in. When I contacted them, they said they only print original never before published letters and the day they were to print it another newspaper carried the letter.
Check out this and then reconsider if this is just a coincidence or not...
I’ve heard nothing about the newspapers or their editors being in on the deception — please correct me if I’m wrong.
Anyone can submit a letter to the editor. I could do what “Ellie Light” or the other fictitious writer did, right here from my computer, in my pjs. Unless the publications had some way of checking their submitted letters against those of publications all across the country (and they don’t), it would be very difficult to catch.
Also a tactic that’s not very effective. In fact, more people are probably reading these letters now that they’ve been unmasked as a sham than when they were first published.
The novelty of the name “Ellie Light” probably did them in.
No reason whatsoever to accuse editors of collusion. Rather, in this case, they were dupes.
The key to your experience is “in my area.”
Good for the editors for catching the duplication. Publications in close proximity, in competition for readers, truly don’t like to run the same material, unless it’s off the wire services.
But the current case appears to be a nationwide effort, which would be much more difficult to spot.
To Jediah
Nah... read this one... no chance this is just coincidence...
Whoa! This is more than bone chilling.
I am surprised to see MSM newspapers be so lax. Over the years I have sent many letters to the editor of several newspapers and for about 70% of the letters the newspaper has contacted me to verify that I am who I say I am before they print the letter.
Of course it’s not coincidence.
Someone — or some ones — is doing this intentionally, and they need to be found and outed.
My comment was that we should NOT divert attention from the unknown perps who are doing it, probably with malice, and instead start blaming the ones who were duped, namely editors and publications who ran the letters.
There’s no good way for them to check all the letters to the editor nationwide against the many submissions they get. It would be a ridiculously time-consuming and costly job. Better to just quit accepting letters — and that’s really not good for any of us.
We just need to keep our eyes on the ball and not misplace blame.
Oh my. I don’t see it as a coincidence at all. My comment was supposed to show how the papers have to be accomplices. In my experience, if another paper prints the letter the other papers check and refuse to print a letter already printed by another paper. At least that was a policy several years ago.
Papers cannot afford google?
Heck, I once had some phrases on my business internet site. Phrases, not entire paragraphs and I was contacted by the company I used them from. It was used on some handouts I purchased and they let me know I could not use them on the internet. They used google to find it.
A newspaper with a large staff that insures accuracy,that contacts the writer directly can and should easily run a google on a letter or paid search engines at a minimum to insure that are not violating a copyright.
“””Anyone can submit a letter to the editor. I could do what “Ellie Light” or the other fictitious writer did, right here from my computer, in my pjs. Unless the publications had some way of checking their submitted letters against those of publications all across the country (and they don’t), it would be very difficult to catch.”””
Yes, anyone can submit a letter. But the newspaper can respond to an emailed “letter to the editor” by asking the submitter to send their phone number to the newspaper so the newspaper can talk to them about their letter. That small effort is what local newspapers normally do to cull phony letters.
But if MSM is in cahoots with Obama, then this simple step would not be done.
So I suspect that most of the newspapers that published Ellie Light or Mark Spivey letters are in cahoots with Obama.
MSM and Obama are digging a pretty deep hole.
My guess is these letters are being forwarded by a source that the newspapers trust and the newspapers were told that the letters have been properly vetted when they are form letters.
I bet the papers like this source because they give them well written letters that do no need editing, they have catchy phrases and are lively and it reduces the cost for the paper to print letters the old fashioned way.
It was probably a cost effective way to provide content and free up salary costs internally. Only now at the rate this is exploding, these papers will lose even more credibility and readers.
At least I get a lot of hits for the name Mark Spivey on zabasearch.
In contrast there are ZERO hits for Ellie Light on zabasearch.
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