Political 'black ops'

Welcome to the online house of mirrors that is the 2008 campaign: A growing bag of tricks employed by tech-savvy amateur political operatives now includes a collection of spoofed online forums purporting to support top candidates, while damning them with praise for extreme positions they have never voiced. The operating principle: The best way to undermine a candidate's supporters is to pretend to be one of them.

It took less than a month for Jason Francis to realize that he was not among allies at the so-called Fred Thompson Forum, a website purporting to support the candidacy of the Republican presidential contender.

Maybe it was the site's tagline -- "Hope for North America" -- that made him doubtful of the forum's legitimacy. Or, the oddly bombastic tenor of his fellow forum members' posts. While Francis was posting thoughtful missives about his candidate's positions, other purported Fred-heads seemed to hold a sinister view of the former senator. A poster named "Chuck Manson," for example, expressed confidence that a Thompson White House would deploy improvised explosive devices in Iraq. "We've got bigger and better (IEDs), and we need to start using 'em! We will not be defeated! We will rule the Middle East!"