At the recent New Hampshire town hall meeting, President Obama took a softball question from a young girl. It seemed innocent enough. Almost natural.
The Boston Global article Question by a Malden girl becomes the target of conservative critics contains this: “The critics point to campaign donations and other partisan links of the girl’s mother, Kathleen Manning Hall, who was an early Obama supporter and donated money to his campaign. But a White House spokesman insisted that audience members are selected randomly.”
The girl’s mother denies that her daughter was a plant by the White House.
Astroturf? (Meaning fake political activity, organized from somewhere above, passed off as the genuine action and concern of real, genuine people.)
The Left takes great glee in portraying actions by those on the political right and by libertarians as astroturf. Doing this allows them to ignore the substance of the criticisms. Instead, they can focus on the personal characteristics of the critics and sidestep the issues.