Santelli rant a planned propaganda operation?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

“Within hours of Santelli’s rant, a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com sprang to life. Essentially inactive until that day, it now featured a YouTube video of Santelli’s “tea party” rant and billed itself as the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain was registered in August, 2008 by Zack Christenson, a dweeby Twitter Republican and producer for a popular Chicago rightwing radio host Milt Rosenberg—a familiar name to Obama campaign people. Last August, Rosenberg, who looks like Martin Short’s Irving Cohen character, caused an outcry when he interviewed Stanley Kurtz, the conservative writer who first “exposed” a personal link between Obama and former Weather Undergound leader Bill Ayers. As a result of Rosenberg’s radio interview, the Ayers story was given a major push through the Republican media echo chamber, culminating in Sarah Palin’s accusation that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” That Rosenberg’s producer owns the “chicagoteaparty.com” site is already weird—but what’s even stranger is that he first bought the domain last August, right around the time of Rosenburg’s launch of the “Obama is a terrorist” campaign. It’s as if they held this “Chicago tea party” campaign in reserve, like a sleeper-site. Which is exactly what it was."

Lots more at link. I didn't see anything to absolutely preclude spontaneous wing-nut rallying around bullshit (a la Joe the Plumber) versus more conspiracy-oriented alternatives, but it's an interesting topic.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/rick-santellis-faux-rant/

[Cirque du So-What]

1. The question mark is gratuitous

Of course it was a planned propaganda operation! And CNBC is in it up to their eyeballs.

[vaberella]

2. I couldn't agree more. It was totally staged. n/t

[ellie]

3. I was on Balloon Juice

and I found this link about it:

http://www.playboy.com/blog/2009/02/backstabber.html