Just because you are paranoid does not mean everyone is not out to get you, man. I found the link in a post someone made in a FB group started by one of the guys I met at GO who, like me, got tired of posts about "The Constitution" consisting of "This National Review article says Obama is spending too much money; write the president today and tell him he is a bastard." I exaggerate, but only marginally.

For the record, GO DID perm ban me in the end, though I am not sure what for other than refusing to tow the GOP line. I did not use profanity, link porn, become abusive or anything like that. All I did was post a pic of Reagan with the "long form" birth certificate not issued until 2+ years AFTER his presidency ended. Now, I have since learned that pic is disingenuous; Reagans birth was initially registered in 1942, and the 1991 birth certificate in the pic was a COPY requested for display in the Reagan Library (or so the dirty liberals at Snopes WANT us to believe. ) The moral is "always vet sources, especially those online," but if everyone who made that error got perm banned I would not be subjected semi-daily to fake Hitler quotes about gun control and fake Lenin quotes about destabilizing the West with sex.

The guy who started the FB group where I found this article created a new account to get back into "The Constitution by GO[P]" but I will not bother, since it would only make me another tick on a stat sheet they can use to say, "look, journalists and legislators, even an American so liberal he moved to socialist NORWAY supports our policies with active participation in our FB group." Not that that is why I moved to Norway in the first place (Canada was a heckuva lot closer and more language-friendly, and even Mexico has socialized medicine and college) but you get the point.

All that to say, yes, the post resonated very well with me. Call it confirmation bias if you like, but seeing something like that in the e-company of people I met in a FB group created by a GOP astroturfing organization lent it a fair amount of credibility. Generation Opportunity evidently no longer bothers even nominally hiding their origins, else their founder would not have been interviewed at the 2012 Republican National Convention as a "Romney advisor."

In the age of Swift Boat Veterans for Bush, but Not Officially Because It Would Violate McCain-Feingold and Subject Bush to Blowback, it almost does not MATTER if this particular confession is legitimate. Whether or not the author did what he claims, you can bet plenty of other people do. The only thing I would really question is whether any campaigns/lobbies/parties are willing to spend much, if any, money on it, since most have plenty of true believers eager to do it for free. Of course, you may have noticed my post volume has dropped dramatically since I started working last Halloween; the unscrupulous definitely have much reason to pay full time shills. How is it really different than lobbying? Because the targets are voters rather than legislators?