Perhaps some of you have heard of this “Appeal for Redress” website.  Basically, it’s a petition for active duty military personnel to sign urging Congress for a prompt withdrawal from Iraq.

The website has gotten a lot of attention from journalists who have, almost without exception, described it as a “grassroots” movement of concerned citizens.  But it’s not really a “grassroots” movement at all.  It is a coordinated effort by dozens of big-money anti-war groups (many of them front groups themselves for socialist causes and/or communist apologist groups) that has garnered a lot of media buzz thanks to the machinations of a prime time, left-wing public relations company.

You can read all about it here.

The worst part about it all is the way this group’s PR firm has astroturfed the media, and the way the media has willingly ate it all up.  Americans reading mainstream news articles about this website and its cause are led to believe that this is the result of thousands of concerned citizens coming together for a cause.  It isn’t.  This movement is just another bit of theater perpetrated by the usual suspect, far-left anti-war groups.

A honest journalist concerned about things like “facts” and “getting both sides of the story” would have been able to see through this PR blitz to the truth.  Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be too many journalists like that left in the media.