Since he took office, President Obama has been a bit touchy about people speaking or reporting negatively about him.
How can anyone attack the Second Coming?
Even Obama's most ardent supporters can admit that he has a bit of an ego problem.
In 2009, the White House launched flag@whitehouse.gov, an email providing a way for people who got a negative email or saw something "fishy" on the Web about health care reform to alert the administration.
Now, the administration has launched what conservative blogger Ed Morrissey of Hot Air has dubbed "Snitch Central."
His blog's title could actually be catchier and less ridiculous than the one Obama's re-election campaign came up with for its new website: AttackWatch.com.
Its tag line is "Get the facts. Fight the smears."
By now, everyone should know about Obama's platform, so why waste time making a website talking about his plans for term two?
No, the Obama campaign has bigger fish to fry.
Obama is so self-conscious that he's included "Forwarded Email" and "Rumor" as categories of attacks that he would like to be alerted about by his followers.
That's right. Obama's biggest threat in the 2012 election is not Romney or Perry - it's chain mail.
For those under the age of 50, chain emails are something that people forward to all of their contacts that usually promise good luck if they continue the chain and torture in an everlasting hell if they don't.
Of course, despite the petty nature of this campaign strategy, there are also some creepy, "Big Brother" implications.
Although this snitch service is being conducted on behalf of the campaign, Obama is still an elected official.
Getting his supporters to essentially spy on dissenters and report it to him is reminiscent of the 1918 Sedition Act, which targeted negative speech toward the government's war efforts.
It is unlikely that Obama will be locking up the originators of negative chain emails or reports that do not support the president's policy.
However, dissent is healthy in any free society and should not have to be "reported" to elected officials in some secretive email system.
It is unclear what the president plans to do with all of this information, but it will probably be used to shape a message that will attract the more middle-of-the-road opponents and spin negative reports to favor the president.
Even though there are probably no Orwellian motivations to this "Attack Watch," it is still a silly strategy that makes the president look like an eighth-grader hiding in a locker to see what people are saying about him.
Things will be more interesting when Obama decides to run a grown-up campaign.
