To coin a phrase, when Obama said “the gloves were coming off” he clearly meant that the dirty tricks ‘sock puppets’ (people who pretend to be other than they are on blogs and websites in order to post fake and fradulent information) were going on. And he and his campaign just got caught with their hands in the sock puppets. BTW, Clarice Feldman did a great piece in Astroturfing by Axelrod and Co. a couple days ago, check it out.

Major Update: Ace of Spades played team Obama to the hilt. Aces spider web was simple – warn the Obama camp a major story was coming (I believe this came out in the middle of the night) and then watch the action. As Ace notes the middle of the night story caused Winner & Associates people to start cleaning their tracks – all done before 2:00 AM. Clearly the word went out from team Obama, who does watch the blogs on the right, to Winner & Ass. (maybe the new name should be Losers & Ass.) to clean their tracks. Let’s make this clear, 90 minutes to clean up the traces.  That is 30 minutes to review the Jawa Report details, confirm them and wake people up, and 60 minutes to delete videos and close accounts. That is just about right – I think these guys nailed Obama, Axelrod and W&A! – end update

The folks over at Jawa Report have been digging into who has been behind the smears against Sarah Palin and her family, and they have discovered electronic telltales leading back to a major PR firm (which explains why these smears sound like bad TV commercials) with links to the Obama camp. 

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.

It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely:

• Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.

• The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.

• Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.

• Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.

• The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.

• This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod’s firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as “astroturfing.”

• David Axelrod is Barack Obama’s chief media strategist.

• The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe.

In my mind there is a clear indication Jawa Report is on to something, the telltale electronic trail is being cleansed since the post went up:

[UPDATE: Within 1 hour of posting, “eswinner” has removed all videos from YouTube and began removing any traces of his activities. But we have the video and all relevant websites backed up.

If “eswinner” isn’t Ethan Winner of the Publicis Groupe, then why did “eswinner” yank the video so quickly? Or if this was just an innocent homemade ad, then what does he have to hide? You’d think he’d want more attention for it.

Dr. Rusty Shackleford, who runs Jawa Report, seems to be onto something here – though, like the links reader SBD found between Troopergate and a Union in the tank for Obama and against Palin, the media will ignore because it has elevated political agendas over professionalism. But electronic trails cannot just be ‘deleted’. There is always a record of the entire path some where, and these PR fools should have known a tech-savy blogger would back up website images and details before going public with a report.

I truly wonder if there are any professional journalists left in the country to investigate these things?

Update: Ace notes how the smear merchants tried to cover their tracks, proving beyond any doubt what their intentions were. Real grass roots efforts don’t need to delete evidence of their views and opinions. More fun at Riehl World.

Updates: More from Michellle Malkin – this looks like it will catch fire and burn a lot of people.

Tags: Ethan Winner, Jawa Report, Palin, Smears