As the 2012 presidential campaign heats up, President Obama’s campaign team has set up a new Web site, AttackWatch.com, to challenge negative statements about the president made by Republican presidential candidates and conservatives. 
 
 Obama for America national field director Jeremy Bird told ABC News that the site’s goal is to offer “resources to fight back” against attacks. Mostly, that means fact checking statements from the likes of GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and conservative commentator Glenn Beck and offering evidence to the contrary. The site is designed in bold red and black colors, and uses statements like “support the truth” and “fight the smears.” 
 
 The response to the site has been less than stellar. 
 
 
 
 (Image via Twitter) 
 
 “There's a new Twitter account making President Obama look like a creepy, authoritarian nutjob,” an Arizonan tweeted. “In less than 24 hours, Attack Watch has become the biggest campaign joke in modern history,” a contributor to conservative blog The Right Sphere wrote. The contributor linked to the following parody commercial for Attack Watch: 
 
 Tommy Christopher of Mediaite noted sarcastically of the site, “Great. Sounds like a terrific content-generating resource for right-wing bloggers, too. Everybody wins!” 
 
 While the initiative is reminiscent of a similar online effort launched during the 2008 campaign, called Fight the Smears, the intimidating design and language of the new site seems to be what’s causing a bigger ruckus. 
 
 Fight the Smears looked and felt far less scary, quoting Obama at the top of its page in a classic hope-change statement: “What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon — that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge but enemies to demonize.” 
 
 Attack Watch, on the other hand, uses the shorter tag­line, “Get the Truth. Fight the Smears.” 
 
 It’s safe to say that in its 24 hours of existence, Attack Watch has already backfired, becoming a tool for conservatives to use against Obama 2012. A tweet by conservative author Brad Thor summed up the critics’s argument: “Wow, not only are Obama & Co. incredibly thin-skinned, they're paranoid.” 
 
 
 
 Update, Wednesday, 5:11 p.m. 
 
 Obama 2012’s press office just returned an earlier request for comment. According to deputy press secretary Katie Hogan, 100,000 people signed up for the site in the first 24 hours. 
 
 “This site is a tool providing our supporters with the facts they need to fight back against lies and distortions about the President’s record,” Hogan said. 
 
 Read responses from readers here. 
 
 Read more on Obama’s reelection prospects: 
 
 Politics: As job growth stagnates, Obama’s reelection hopes may rest on painting opponent as even worse 
 
 Business: Economic news is bad for Obama’s reelection bid 
 
 2Chambers: McConnell: Obama speech ‘isn’t a jobs plan; it’s a reelection plan’ 
 
 Opinion: Why Obama faces an uphill run for reelection 
 
 The Fix: The New York special election: Will Democrats panic? ||||| By Michelle Malkin • September 14, 2011 12:15 PM 
 
 This is simply brilliant. 
 
 Ezra Dulis and Misfit Politics with Brandon Morse cranked out a quick, hilarious rejoinder to Obama’s 4th Brigade of Snitch. 
 
 
 
 Humor is always the best revenge. 
 
 Watch Attaaaaack Waaaaaatch. YouTube gold: 
 
 The Obama 4th BoS will never live this down. 
 
 *** 
 
 More Attaaaack Waaaaatch fail via The Hill: 
 
 A new Twitter hashtag designed to help fight misinformation against President Obama appears to have backfired in early use on Wednesday. …The hashtag was already in heavy rotation by Twitter users by Wednesday morning, but many users are conservatives such as columnist Michelle Malkin, who offered up her own daily column as an example of an Obama “attack.” The website is meant to be “the first line of defense against a barrage of misinformation,” according to an email from Obama’s campaign manager announcing the launch on Tuesday. 
 
 More on Obama’s laaaaaaughingstock: 
 
 Obama for America national field director Jeremy Bird told ABC News that the site’s goal is to offer “resources to fight back” against attacks. Mostly, that means fact checking statements from the likes of GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and conservative commentator Glenn Beck and offering evidence to the contrary. The site is designed in bold red and black colors, and uses statements like “support the truth” and “fight the smears.” The response to the site has been less than stellar. On Twitter, where the Web site has an account to help Obama supporters submit evidence of “attacks” on the president using the hashtag #attackwatch, nearly every tweet about the site has ridiculed it. “There’s a new Twitter account making President Obama look like a creepy, authoritarian nutjob,” an Arizonan tweeted. “In less than 24 hours, Attack Watch has become the biggest campaign joke in modern history,” a contributor to conservative blog The Right Sphere wrote. 
 
 Commenter Fuzzy: “Notice how WAPO’s article on this, “Attack Watch, new Obama campaign site to ‘fight smears,’ becomes laughing stock of the Internet” is NOW called “Attack Watch, new Obama campaign site to ‘fight smears,” becomes laughing stock OF CONSERVATIVES”? Gee, I wonder what happened there? Luckily, we all have the original title screen grabbed, tweeted, and/or in our readers.” 
 
 *** 
 
 Update: Readers and friends are sending their Attack Watch poster designs. Obama can finally claim success — the Hilarity Stimulus is working! 
 
 From reader Mike Peterson: 
 
 From Zombie at PJM: 
 
 Disqus ||||| What’s one of the top-trending Twitter hashtags in the nation today? Its’ #attackwatch, where scores of tweets each minute are lampooning President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign for encouraging supporters to report anti-Obama claims via a new website, AttackWatch.com. 
 
 The site, set up this week by Obama for America, encourages users to report opponents, news outlets, even rumormongers making dubious claims about the president’s positions and policy, so the campaign can debunk them. The president’s own @BarackObama twitter feed calls @attackwatch “a new way to track and respond to attacks against President Obama.” 
 
 The website is rendered in stark red and black, with the tagline “Get the Facts. Fight the Smears.” It currently bears the headlines: “Rick Perry’s massive jobs lie;” “Romney’s job chart shows flawed understanding of the facts;” and “Glenn Beck Twists the Facts on Israel.” A menu allows users to “Report an Attack,” view “Attack Files,” and “Support the Truth,” which means contribute to the campaign. 
 
 The site encourages users to post to Twitter under the hashtag #attackwatch–and that’s where the trouble started. The president’s, or the website’s detractors—including some well-known conservatives—are using the hashtag to ridicule the site as “authoritarian,” “paranoid,” and “#gestapo.” Others have just had a lot of fun with the idea of ratting out fellow citizens for saying or doing silly things. Among the tweets: 
 
 @thorninaz I saw someone purposely squeeze the Charmin in the grocery store 
 
 @gregmcrc…check this=9% unemployment, no green jobs, 49 million uninsured, 1 in 6 Americans in poverty 
 
 @Drill_Thrawl Hey Kids, are mommy and daddy talking bad about Obama? Be sure to report them at #attackwatch #1984 
 
 @jacarterlaw please be advised that I just failed to recycle my sugary drink can, cut down a tree, bought a gun, and recited the pledge’ 
 
 And this: @JLMandl I’m still using REAL LIGHT BULBS. Come get me! ||||| Fox News Channel's morning show on Wednesday twice aired a nearly 4-minute video that contrasted President Barack Obama's words with negative statistics about his administration in a format that looked similar to a campaign advertisement. 
 
 The liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America called the video "essentially a four-minute anti-Obama attack ad." The segment also received criticism from a conservative blogger. 
 
 It was shown on "Fox & Friends" and was credited to a Fox producer. It contains ominous music and some grainy footage of the president, along with some stock images from campaign ads: an American flag fluttering in the breeze, a child running in a baseball game, a bald eagle. 
 
 The segment mixes Obama's words with a litany of statistics, contrasting the national debt, the jobless rate and the number of Americans on food stamps "then" and "now," although the time frame isn't clearly explained. 
 
 A part about rising gasoline prices illustrates the current price per gallon by showing a cartoon car overheating with a puff of steam, with what resembles an Obama campaign graphic on its side. It shows statistics on reduced family savings with a graphic of a piggy bank tumbling down stairs. 
 
 Besides Obama's words, verbal images flash by _ clips of newscasters saying phrases such as "more Americans are out of work," "inflation fears rising" and "fear we'll see the long gas lines of the '70s." 
 
 The video ends with Obama's own words, as he says, "that's the power of hope. That's the change we seek. That's the change we can stand for." 
 
 When it ended, "Fox & Friends" anchor Steve Doocy praised the producer for a "job well done." 
 
 Media Matters spokeswoman Jessica Levin said, "It looked like a very slickly produced Republican ad." 
 
 Ed Morrissey, of the conservative media blog Hot Air, questioned the video even though he wrote, "I don't disagree with much, if anything" that it says. 
 
 "If anyone wanted to look for evidence that the overall Fox News organization intends to campaign against Obama rather than cover the campaign, this video would be difficult to refute as evidence for that claim," Morrissey wrote. 
 
 Fox programming executive vice president Bill Shine said the video was created by an associate producer and was not authorized at the network's senior level. He said senior executives would not have approved it and the matter was addressed with the show's producers. 
 
 Through a spokeswoman, Shine would not address what action, if any, had been taken against the producers or how the video was aired a second time without senior executives being aware. 
 
 The video was posted on the "Fox & Friends" website Wednesday afternoon with the headline "Four years of hope and change" but was taken down. ||||| A portrait of then-Sen. Barack Obama, his gaze tilted upward, rendered in red, white, and blue became the enduring image of his 2008 presidential campaign. The now-iconic poster by Shephard Fairey read simply: "Hope." 
 
 Nine years later, the artist has created a new set of images for this inauguration, none of which feature the incoming president. Under the banner of "We the People," the set of three posters each come with a different message: "defend dignity," “greater than fear,” and “protect each other.” 
 
 Instead of President-elect Donald Trump's squinty glare, Fairey featured Latina, Muslim, and African-American women. 
 
 The Amplifier Foundation, a non-profit group that aims to harness artwork for social change movements, commissioned Fairey's works as well as two other posters by artists Ernesto Yerena and Jessica Sabogal. 
 
 "This moment calls for new images to disrupt the rising tide of hate and fear. We, the people, need to come together under new symbols of hope," the Amplifier Foundation says in a Kickstarter video aimed at raising $60,000 to distribute the images. Contributors have already pledged more than 20 times that amount, at $1.3 million and counting. 
 
 The group plans to publish the images as full page ads in tomorrow's edition of The Washington Post and distribute them at Metro stations and other drop spots. 
 
 Before the election, Fairey released a red, black, and white poster of the lower half of Trump's face under the word "Demagogue." But he told PBS that the time had passed for attacking the now president-elect. 
 
 "We thought it was the right time to make a campaign that’s about diversity and inclusion, about people seeing the common bonds we have, and our connections as human beings," Fairey said. "The idea was to take back a lot of this patriotic language in a way that we see is positive and progressive, and not let it be hijacked by people who want to say that the American flag or American concepts only represent one narrow way of thinking." 
 
 While Fairey's Obama poster led to a lawsuit with the Associated Press over the photograph used as the source material, the artist worked directly with photographers this time. 
 
 "The Muslim woman was shot by Ridwan Adhami, who is an accomplished photographer and proud Muslim, the Latina woman was shot by Arlene Mejorado, a San Antonio- based artist and photographer and proud first-generation American, and the African-American kid was shot by Delphine Diallo, a French and Senegalese photographer based in New York," he told PBS. "We realized that this has got to be a diverse coalition of artists for us to do this, and that while it’s good for us to be allies, this campaign really has to be authentically diverse." 
 
 Fairey, Yerena, and Sabogal's posters are also available for free to print.
– President Obama’s campaign has set up a new take on its old “Fight the Smears” concept… only this time it’s a lot less friendly looking. Gone is the white-and-blue motif, replaced with an ominous red-and-black site called "Attack Watch"—and conservatives appear to find it hilarious. Seemingly every tweet using the suggested #attackwatch tag has been a conservative either mocking the site, or decrying it as a scary Big Brother exercise, the Wall Street Journal reports, offering examples: “@thorninaz I saw someone purposely squeeze the Charmin in the grocery store” “@Drill_Thrawl Hey Kids, are mommy and daddy talking bad about Obama? Be sure to report them at #attackwatch #1984" “@JLMandl I’m still using REAL LIGHT BULBS. Come get me!” The Washington Post even posted an article calling the site a “laughing stock,” to the delight of conservatives like Michelle Malkin, who posted some mock Attack Watch posters on her blog. A parody commercial (see video) is also making the rounds. The sight has also garnered serious criticism from Jack Tapper of ABC, who says it appears to be “seeking to stop criticism,” not smears. Still the site is something of a hit—Obama 2012 boasts that 100,000 people signed up in its first 24 hours.