Who Made "Dear Mr. Obama"? A Pro-Am, It Appears

[darrels joy]

Who Made "Dear Mr. Obama"? A Pro-Am, It Appears
By Micah L. Sifry

Michael Brown, the man who made "

Dear Mr. Obama" target="_blank">Dear Mr. Obama

," the viral video that is currently exploding on YouTube among supporters of John McCain and the Iraq War, is a professional film-maker with about a dozen years of experience under his belt running a company called Testimony Pictures.

He's made one full-length feature, and lots of shorter videos, mostly for the Christian market. (You can find some samples of his work

here" target="_blank">here

and here.) But, he says, "I've never done anything like this before," and he is completely overwhelmed by the reaction to the video.

Over the course of a half hour phone call, he told me that he is independent of any political operation. "I don't know anybody in the McCain campaign, and they probably want to stay away from me at this point," he said. He said he made the video with his own money and equipment, and that the flood of attention it has garnered has been taking him away from "paying work." He's hoping to work on more political videos--including one that would tell more of Joe Cook's story, and says he wouldn't mind "some help" funding them, but worries if he might run afoul of rules governing independent groups like 527s that make ads mentioning candidates in the last 60 days before an election. I think this makes Brown a professional amateur, or pro-am, a guy who took his professional video making skills and applied them to a world that he's an amateur in, called politics. Welcome to the national stage, Michael!
Why did he make the video? "I was tired of hearing that the war was a mistake," he said. While he noted that President Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had certainly made mistakes, mentioning Abu Ghraib as one example, he said, "Nevertheless, Congress approved the war, and once that happens you stand together, make adjustments as needed, but stand together until the last boots come home." He told me he had drafted the script for "Dear Mr. Obama" before meeting Joe Cook, showed him a copy, and then the two of them worked together to put it more in Cook's voice.

Even though he has made a powerful and very partisan statement, Brown says he wishes there could be more dialogue across the partisan divide in America. He seemed genuinely rueful about having to turn off comments on the two YouTube videos he has posted to his "weneedmccain" channel. Seventy-five percent, he said, were supportive of Cook, ten percent were critical but respectful, but the last fifteen percent were so "rude, crude and nasty" that he felt he had no choice but to shut comments down.

Noting that he has many liberal friends, he said, "We need to be civil...I like dialogue."

Well, it remains to be seen whether Michael Brown's work with Joe Cook will lead to more dialogue or not. But, judging from Brown's comments, it looks like his video is yet another example of how voter-generated content is the wild-card of Election 2008. When I first wrote about his video, it had 4.8 million views. In just a few hours, it's climbed to more than 5 million.
http://www.techpresident.com/blog/en..._am_it_appears

Warning: Sandstorms watch to the end.

YouTube - Dear Mr. Obama

__________________________________________________ _________________

Lots of copies and responses on youtube now.
Joy

[darrels joy]

THE Most Popular Election Video On Youtube...



11 million views.

Awesome.







Why is it Democrats can never express these kinds of sentiments?

Why is it Democrats don't get that if good men don't fight, bad men will rule?

Why is it Democrats don't understand that if someone knows how to build a nuclear weapon, they can build one after the inspectors leave?

Why is it the Democrats have never counted up all of the dead resulting from peace movements, appeasement, and cowardice?

Why is it Democrats demand tons of experience from a state governor - but only when they're from Alaska, not Arkansas?

Why is it Democrats demand more experience from the bottom half of one ticket - more than even the top half of their own ticket?

Why is it Democrats cannot name one single thing that qualifies as presidential experience for Barack Obama? No, running a presidential campaign does not count.

Why is it Democrats think this country is so putrid and awful, when literally billions of others would gladly trade countries with them?

Yes, of course, some Democrats can do these things. But those exceptions only prove my point.

http://pantheonjournal.blogspot.com/...n-youtube.html