The Democratic National Committee insists the website wasn’t created by its team, or the Obama campaign apparatus. A DNC official told The Huffington Post that neither entity bought the URL in question, nor do they have a clue -- as of Friday morning, at least -- who did.
The creator of the website, indeed, appears to have cloaked the registration details, making him or her completely anonymous. The server is located in Scottsdale, Arizona (which says little about the website itself) and was purchased from GoDaddy.com.
The misinformation (if, in fact, this isn’t a DNC site) may seem like small potatoes, far overshadowed by the news of bin Laden’s death. But the DNC took the incident seriously enough to push back forcefully on Friday, not only denying any connection to the provenance of the URL but also purchasing a URL of its own -- www.weeklyNOstandards.com -- to redirect to the Weekly Standard’s homepage.
Oooh, burn. With that sort of biting wit, the DNC might have lent its assistance to the DSCC when it was picking a new slogan a few months back. For the record, I first saw this story tweeted by a National Journal editor, who flatly asserted that OFA was the "new owner" of the domain name. Perhaps the DNC should snap up NationaJournalisticmalpractice.com while it's still available.
When I addressed this controversy yesterday, I suggested that it could simply be an instance of an overzealous supporter making a rogue, counterproductive decision:
There is a chance that (a) Wilson was misinformed, and some idiot Obama fanatic decided to buy the domain and redirect the link over to OFA's site, or (b) this is OFA's doing, but the president had no idea what they were up to. The former possibility would be excusable -- no politician can control how some ad hoc supporter behaves. The latter, however, would be inexcusable.
The DNC and OFA now insist that option (a) is correct, and that they had nothing to do with the stunt. Good. It's unseemly, and I'm glad it's been cleared up.
UPDATE: For the record, as I mentioned yesterday, I called Obama for America yesterday afternoon seeking clarification on the matter. They returned HuffPo's call first. Knock me over with a feather.
UPDATE II: As I write this, Vice President Biden is hailing the "bravery" and "gutsiness" of Barack Obama...in a speech to our troops at Fort Campbell.
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