In February of 2003, operatives for the Republican National Committee used their website to plant identical letters to the editor across the country. The carbon-copy letters were each signed by a different person, creating the impression that "plain folks" came up with the pro-Bush sentiments contained therein. After good investigative work by the Boston Globe, a bunch of bloggers and the exhaustive documentation of Failure Is Impossible, the truth came out: the Republican Party was actively encouraging its members to cut and paste the pre-written text, add their name, call it theirs, and send it in to the papers to be printed.

The Republican party called this an "instant grassroots" campaign. But after catching word, the American public came up with another name for the practice: Astroturf, or fake grassroots. In my university days, the professors called this plagiarism, and you could get kicked out of school for it. In high school, they used a smaller, more direct words for this kind of tactic: lying and cheating. In courts, they call this fraud.

You'd think that, having been caught in their astroturfing, plagiarizing, cheating scheme, the Republican party would have disavowed the practice and promised never to do it again. After all, George W. Bush promised that his party would be the party of Honor and Integrity, right? Right?

Wrong. The Republican Party engaged in the same campaign three months later, and despite considerable efforts to let papers across the country know that this junk was headed their way, a significant number of plagiarized letters to the editor made their way onto newsprint. Then they did it again in the fall of 2004.

Now that the election 2004 season has started, the official campaign of George W. Bush has endorsed plagiarism as an acceptable political tactic, too. Apparently not confident in the ability of Bush supporters to complete their own thoughts, much less their own sentences, the Bush-Cheney campaign offers snippets of text for people to appropriate, then sign their name to as authors. The fabrication technology employed by the Republican ticket then permits the Bush supporter to send the Bush campaign staffers' text to dozens of newspapers and specialty newsletters at a time automatically, with each letter claiming individual authorship and not disclosing the true authorship of the text.

How do I know how this works? I used the system myself to send a letter containing the Bush staffers' text to dozens of newspapers and newsletters near Durham, North Carolina, where I live. Don't fret: I haven't turned to the dark side, and I made sure to let the papers know who really wrote those words. In fact, that's kind of the idea. Read my letter below and you'll see what I mean.

Subject: Look Out! George W. Bush's Astroturf Machine is spewing to you... Dear Editor, It's unfortunate, but George W. Bush has rolled out his plagiarism machine again. At georgewbush.com, from which I'm writing, George W. Bush campaign staffers encourage visitors to cut and paste together to send an unoriginal piece of campaign fluff with their name attached, with the intention of misleading recipients into thinking that someone outside the campaign wrote the letter. This tactic is widely derided as "Astroturf," because it creates the false impression of a grassroots movement. The letters being churned out by the Bush machine are all plastic. And no, not everyone does it. John Kerry's campaign doesn't use technology to automatically insert canned text into fake letters. Instead, John Kerry's campaign sends people to independent websites where they can write their own original letters, with their own original thoughts. I encourage you to be on the lookout for howlers containing the following lines of canned text: "President Bush’s leadership has improved education in America. His No Child Left Behind Act helps kids learn and puts parents back in the drivers' seat when it comes to their childrens' education." (not mentioning that Bush has underfunded his own program to the tune of $9 Billion a year) "Call your local talk radio stations and spread the word about President Bush signing into law a bipartisan plan that modernizes Medicare with a prescription drug benefit that will help make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors and their families." (not mentioning the multibillion dollar sellouts to drug companies) "This issue is just one more example of how our President is providing the courageous leadership America needs." (actually, this sort of tactic is just one more example of how our President is willing to cut moral corners to get what he wants) We should expect better from our president. Where did the values George W. Bush talks so much about go? Where is the honor? Where is the integrity? Where is my vote? Well, with tactics like these it sure isn't with George W. Bush this year.

Get the idea? While it's unfortunate (if not too surprising) that the Bush campaign is willing to sink to such a low level in order to make it look like the American people support him, we can fight such unethical behavior using the very system the Bush-Cheney campaign has erected.

Click here to find out how to WARN NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR AREA about Bush's plagiarism IN SIX EASY STEPS.

The bad news is that the campaign to re-elect George W. Bush has initiated a campaign of Republican-sponsored plagiarism on a scale we've never seen before, backed by a program of unprecedented technological sophistication.

The good news is that we can use Bush's own technology to stop his unethical practice before it gains too much steam. But we have to act fast. As of March 10, 2004, here's what to do.

1. Hold your nose and click here to visit George W. Bush's Campaign Website
2. Click on one of the eight tabs at the top of the page, each with a theme.
3. Look for the box that says "TAKE ACTION ON _________", and click the link that says "Write Editors."
4. You'll again be taken to a new page, one that shows a bunch of local newspapers and newsletters. Click on the box next to each and every one.
5. Scroll down the page a bit and enter the appropriate information in the "Write your Newspaper Editors" section. I suggest that as a subject, you enter a phrase of warning. To be maximally effective in the "Letter" section, let the newsrooms know that plagiarized material is on the way from the Bush campaign and include the canned text (which is in the window to the right) so the editors of these papers know what to look out for. I've included the letter I wrote to newspapers in my area over to the left, but FOR PETE'S SAKE write your own letter -- nothing would be worse that astroturfing in an effort to stop astroturf.
6. Enter your contact information, make sure "email letter" is selected, then click the "Send It!" button.

And that's it! Now you've done your part to shut the Bush Plagiarism Machine down and restore integrity to the journalistic enterprise in your neck of the woods. Doesn't that make you feel good?

If we can catch these messages early in the Bush's campaign of dirty tricks, we won't have to see them in print. If everyone does their part, together we can stop George W. Bush's effort to encourage the values of cheating and deception, and we can help return the Letters to the Editor sections of newspapers to everyday people who actually write something down themselves.

Let your friends know not just about the new low that George W. Bush has sunk to, but also about how to stop such unethical practices in their neck of the woods. If we work together, we can do it!