Republicans Learning to Hack?

This morning, I am told, both Twitter and Facebook were, for the most part, inoperable.When I heard this news, I was immediately sure, on a gut level, that it was a hack attack from the same people who’ve been disrupting health care reform discussions.

Yesterday, Democracy for America asked progressives to sign a “Public Option Action Pledge” as a response to the conservatives’ staged protests–dubbed “astroturfing” to differentiate them from real grassroots activism. Republican operatives are behind these protests, not, as they claim,  ordinary individual citizens.  DFA asked us to post their URL on both Twitter and Facebook, sending people over to sign the pledge.

I don’t know how many other people did it besides me, but I’m guessing there were enough posts on Twitter and Facebook to catch the attention of the astroturfers–who, I submit, manufactured this morning’s snafu to interfere with the progressive campaign.

It’s all very Spy vs. Spy, isn’t it? It’s almost as if we’re recreating the Cold War, only instead of it being between Americans and Russians, it’s now Red State versus Blue. If it weren’t so scary it’d be funny.

Update Friday, August 7th:Lots of jokes all over the Net today, mocking all the “networkers” who couldn’t report the minutiae of our lives yesterday morning. Nobody, as far as I can tell, suspects dirty politics. But the more I read about the attack, the more convinced I am that this was an organized conservative / Republican move meant to prevent progressives / Democrats from spreading the word on how to deal with astroturfers at town hall discussions of health care reform. I feel like Cassandra–or was it Clytemnestra?–who ranted and raved uselessly, sending out warnings nobody would listen to. Very frustrating.