Is Voice On Anti-Palin Ad the Same as on Official Obama Ad?

This was sent to me by Special Guests, which is a somewhat right-of-center news source. Interesting piece though if you take the time to follow it all the way through...

The infamous ‘independent’ anti-Palin ad falsely claiming Sarah Palin was a member of a political party calling for Alaska to secede from the Union, may have used the same female narrator’s voice as the one in official Obama campaign ads. Ad producer Ethan Winner vehemently denies they are the same voice.

So, what’s the big deal if it is the same voice? If it is determined that the voices are the same, Obama campaign manager David Axelrod could be on the legal hot seat since it is illegal for an ‘independent’ 527 group to coordinate efforts with the official campaigns they are attempting to advance.

Investigative reporter Ben Barrack is conducting a national talk show, encouraging all parties involved with both ads to provide the identity of their female voice-over talent and for Ethan Winner and others associated with the outright lies in the ad to issue a formal apology to Sarah Palin.

The smear ad went viral on the Internet before it was pulled from YouTube but a blog site known as the Jawa Report recorded it and both ads are featured together on Ben Barrack’s home page where anyone can compare the female voices to come to their own conclusions as to whether or not they are the same person. Listen to it now here.

“What’s important here,” says Barrack, “is that Ethan Winner was caught posting this video on the Internet and when caught, had to finally admit he produced it as well. When you compare his public assertion that the voice in the ad belongs to someone who has never been heard on any official Obama campaign ad, my antennae went up. Based on what’s been presented to me, this matter warrants a closer look.”

Barrack says a trusted source put together a two minute audio montage that consists of excerpts from an official Obama ad, the fallacious anti-Sarah Palin ad, and a demo of a person who seems to have a voice identical to the voices in both, and passed it onto him. “Ethan Winner’s firm is in Los Angeles and the voice in the ad appears to be that of a talent in Chicago that may have done voice-over work for official Obama campaign ads. When you put these things together, questions should be asked and answered relative to FEC laws,” Barrack said.

Barrack wants to be very clear that he is not levying allegations at anyone. He simply wants the issue brought to light, debated, and investigated if necessary. “I’m not a voice expert. Nor am I an FEC law attorney. I’m just raising questions based on some extremely intriguing facts and possible realities,” he said.

You can read Ethan Winner’s statement in response to the Jawa Report’s probing about the ad below (part about the voice in the ad is underlined) and can compare voices in the ads on Barrack’s site.

“If the voice-over artist is the same in both videos, the mainstream media needs to look into whether David Axelrod’s fingerprints are attached to it,” Barrack said.

Statement from Ethan Winner to the Jawa Report...

The following is in response to questions I have received regarding the post on the Jawa Report website.

I produced and posted on the Internet the video entitled "Sarah Palin: A Heartbeat Away."

The idea for the video was mine. No one paid me to produce it. The only out-of-pocket cost will be the fee for the voice-over narrator, which I will pay personally when I receive an invoice. Contrary to the allegation in the Jawa Report, the voice-over artist has never done any work for the Obama campaign. I retained her through a talent agency based solely on the quality of her voice.

Neither the Obama campaign nor any independent political action committee has had a connection with the making and/or posting of this video. Just like the thousands of Americans who have posted videos on the Internet regarding the current Presidential campaign, I produced this video as an expression of my right to free speech, which is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

I believe the American people have a right and a need to know information about candidates for political office and their views. I made this video because I think it is important for the public to be aware of the association between Sarah and Todd Palin and the Alaskan Independence Party. The New York Times has reported that the Alaskan Independence Party website describes the party as seeking, in the words of the party, "a range of solutions to the conflicts between federal and local authority," including "advocacy for state's rights, through a return to territorial status, all the way to complete independence and nationhood status for Alaska."

While a number of media outlets have said that reports that Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party may have been erroneous, her attendance at the party's 1994 convention, her video speech to the 2008 convention and her husband's membership in the Alaskan Independence Party have not been called into question.

Some people have asked why I have pulled the video from the Internet. The reason is simple. Following the posting of personal information about me by the Jawa Report, my family began to receive threatening and abusive phone calls and emails.

About Ban Barrack...

Ben Barrack is an Investigative Radio Host who broadcasts on 1400 KTEM from Temple, TX, honing his investigative skills there for nearly three years.

On more than one occasion he has cultivated sources with important political information and insight generally not reported in the mainstream media. He provides listeners with accurate, timely, and shocking news not heard anywhere else.

Barrack is a strong critic of the mainstream media who supports patriotic and reliable bloggers who do much of the mainstream media’s work at no charge, with little recognition, while earning their living via other means. Ben maintains a website at www.benbarrack.com.

How Obama Applies Alinsky's Rules

A number of people have passed this Investor's Business Daily editorial on to me. I believe it's worth sharing. Find the entire text and a lot more online here:

How Obama Applies Alinsky's Rules

Election '08: Barack Obama's mocking of John McCain, while urging his followers to "get in their face," are tactics right out of his radical hero Saul Alinsky's playbook: ridicule and agitation.

At a recent Las Vegas rally, Obama poked fun at Sen. McCain for what he described as bragging about "how as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, he had oversight of every part of the economy."

"Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, 'Nice job. Nice job,' " Obama said in a sarcastic tone. "Where is he getting these lines? It's like a 'Saturday Night Live' routine."

Then he belittled the 72-year-old McCain for vowing to take on the old boys network. "In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting," he sneered.

The late Alinsky, a trench-warfare socialist who despised American capitalism, advised community organizers like Obama to "laugh at the enemy" to provoke "irrational anger."

"Ridicule," he said, "is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."

At another rally in Nevada, Obama called on the crowd of about 1,500 to join him in sharpening their elbows against McCain and his supporters. "I want you argue with them and get in their face," he said, in a naked attempt to "fan hostilities" in the tightening race, something Alinsky also advised from his bag of agitation tricks.

Obama doesn't look or talk like an angry radical. He speaks in measured tones and is rarely seen out of business attire. That, too, is borrowed from Alinsky's playbook. "Don't scare" the middle class, he guides urban revolutionaries in his 1970s manual, "Rules for Radicals" (which he dedicated to mankind's "first radical, Lucifer").

Instead, look like them, talk like them, act like them.

And work for radical change from the inside — "like a spy behind enemy lines," as Obama said in his first memoir. He wrote it before entering politics, while still working with hard-left Alinsky groups and training street agitators known as "community organizers."

As he wrote, he became a community organizer in 1983 because of "The need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds."

That's when he set out to "organize black folks" for social revolution, first in Harlem, then the South Side of Chicago. Now he wants to do it on a "large scale." Though most average voters wouldn't know it, he's applying Alinsky's radical rules to achieve his goal.

Alinksy stressed that his rules be translated into real-life tactics responsive to the situation at hand — which right now happens to be something he never could have dreamed of: a disciple who would find himself in a viable battle for the most powerful job in the world.

Obama has already translated several of Alinsky's rules into battle tactics, including:

• Rule: "Rub raw the resentments of the people; search out controversy and issues." In the mortgage meltdown, for instance, Obama vows to prosecute "predatory lenders" for "abusing" minority borrowers. He's also stoking class resentment by painting Wall Street and other executives as villains.

• Rule: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." In an ad to woo Hispanic voters, Obama demonized Rush Limbaugh by falsely claiming he made racist statements against immigrants.

• Rule: "A mass impression can be lasting and intimidating." This explains why Obama moved his acceptance speech to a football stadium and bussed in 85,000 supporters. Alinsky's son was so impressed, he praised Obama for learning his father's "lesson well."

• Rule: "Multiple issues mean constant action and life" for the cause. This is why Obama never harps on one issue, as Hillary did with health care. His platform is packed with grievances from "economic justice" to "reproductive justice" to "environmental justice."

Obama is following almost to the letter the blueprint for socialist revolution drafted by the father of community organizing.

While Alinsky may help him behind the scenes, however, he becomes a liability when brought out of the shadows. Sarah Palin proved this in St. Paul when she ridiculed his community organizing. Within hours, Obama surrogates whined about how just bringing up the phrase was racist code for "black."

No, it's code for communist. And McCain should make that point instead of legitimizing such radicalism, as he did recently when he said, "I respect community organizers; and Sen. Obama's record there is outstanding" — which contradicted his running mate.

There's nothing to respect about such anti-American radicals, even if they have traded their tie-dye for business ties.

RULES FOR RADICALS has become the guidebook for left-wing organizations such as the ACLU, NEA and other labor unions, environmentalist groups and the Democrat Party. Here is his list of the 13 "power tactics" necessary to manipulate the public to adopt a radical's goal, whatever it may be:
(1) Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
(2) Never go outside the experience of your people.
(3) Whenever possible, go outside of the experience of the enemy.
(4) Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
(5) Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
(6) A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
(7) A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
(8) Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purposes.
(9) The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
(10) The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
(11) If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.
(12) The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
(13) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

For excerpts from Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals and more, click here:

Some Thoughts On Sarah Palin

Although I'm a registered Democrat, I view myself as a "Radical Centrist" and proudly vote as an independent. I make no apologies for supporting the best and most qualified candidates for any particular office. That's why I strongly support Dino Rossi for governor. Considering the complete and total mess Christine Gregoire has made of our state — including blowing a $2.5 billion surplus and turning it into a $2.7 billion deficit — not to mention letting the unions and tribes run amok, how any thinking person could support her just totally escapes me. As the person cleaning up the mess Kim Abel left in Port Orchard, I support Jan Angel for the 26th District House, for the very same reason.

The bottom line for me is not about partisan politics. It's about competence.

Which brings us to why, although I originally was an early supporter of Barack Obama, I'll be voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin. The liberal mainstream media (MSM), coupled with the Democratic Party (a branch of the MSM — or is it the other way around?), had a field day vilifying McCain for choosing Palin, carping about his "lack of judgment" for selecting someone so "inexperienced." Yet they continually fail to mention that Barack Obama has exactly 143 days of Senate experience — and absolutely none balancing a budget or running any kind of government organization. They also conveniently neglect to mention Obama has zero foreign policy experience, and that his VP is suspect at best in that realm as well.

Considering how Palin has successfully run both a city and a state government, she actually has MORE "experience" in dealing with the actual nuts and bolts of government than either Obama or Joe Biden. Meanwhile, the Democrats whine about her hairstyle, the fact she wore a skirt when she gave that killer speech at the convention, her pregnant, unmarried daughter, and what a bad decision she made to have a Down Syndrome baby rather than abort it.

When that didn't work, things took a more vicious turn, as rumors began circulating that she had an affair, that she cut funding for special needs kids, that she insisted books be banned from Alaska libraries, and worse. And then there's that whole red herring "Bridge to Nowhere" issue. None of that has worked either. Go figure.

But my question is this: Could Sarah Palin actually be the next Ronald Reagan? I think that possibility scares the crap out of the Democrats more than any other single thing about her. Palin immediately connected with voters in much the same way Reagan did. She is an everyday Mom and voters identify with her — perhaps the same way they identified with a certain "Mom in tennis shoes." She believes in Reagan's ideals, and she has the courage of her convictions. Palin has the charisma of both Reagan and Bill Clinton, combined with the toughness of Harry Truman and/or Dick Cheney, and is much more likable — not to mention feminine — than Hillary. In the South where I grew up, she's what we call a "Steel Magnolia."

This should have been the Democrats' year. But in my view they've made two critical mistakes.

• NOT nominating Hillary for President.

• NOT nominating Hillary for Vice President.

The Democrats could be kicking themselves for the next decade or longer, after the possibility of at least one McCain-Palin term, and possibly two, followed by two Palin-Jindall or Palin-Pawlenty terms.

Obama was a MSM-driven juggernaut until his insecurities began surfacing when he chose marginally effective Washington insider Joe Biden as his VP, instead of boldly stepping up to select Hillary. That, coupled with his treatment of Palin in the days since her selection, has clearly demonstrated a major weakness in Obama's confidence — a weakness that hasn't escaped American voters. And Americans have no patience for weakness in their leaders — as witnessed by Obama's declining poll numbers.

Conversely, McCain chose Palin not to steal Obama's thunder by the timing of the announcement (which it clearly did) but because he believes she can lead.

Palin has already demonstrated courage, strength, and grace under pressure. One example the MSM won't report because it illustrates just how strong, smart, and quick on her feet she is, is that during her kick-ass speech at the convention, the teleprompter went blank less than halfway through it. Palin didn't even blink, much less stumble. She winged it — with stunning results.

What I find extremely ironic about all this, is that by becoming the first woman vice president in America's history, Sarah Palin will be the one to shatter the glass ceiling. It almost makes you feel sorry for Hillary. Almost...

Matthes Resigns as VP of KAPO

Tim Matthes, a candidate for County Commissioner from South Kitsap, has resigned as vice president of the Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners, (KAPO) so he can focus all his energies on getting elected. Matthes was the top vote-getter in the Aug. 19 primary, and will face former commissioner Charlotte Garrido in the Nov. 4 general election. Both are attempting to capture the seat being vacated by Jan Angel, who is running for the state House of Representatives from the 26th District.

In a prepared statement, Matthes stated, “I’m clearing the decks so I can do the best job possible as a candidate. My schedule has gotten very busy, and I have to give my campaign my full attention.”

KAPO has been a lightening rod for controversy in the area of local land-use issues, and is known for its strong support of property rights. It challenged Kitsap County in court over the Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO), and while losing in Superior Court, a recent Washington State Supreme Court decision has upheld its position while ruling on King County's CAO. While Matthes resigned his KAPO office, he will remain a member.

Matthes is also a member of the Kitsap County Board of Equalization, which hears challenges to the assessed value of local property. He has requested that his alternate take over that responsibility until the election is decided. Matthes said he would resign if elected because of the obvious conflict of interest.

He is also a member of the City of Port Orchard Planning Commission, and will continue to serve in that capacity until the election is over. If he wins, he will resign, and if not, he'll remain a member of the Commission.