Who really doesn’t understand what “astroturfing” means.

Reid, armed with a patch of Astroturf, slammed Republicans for sponsoring town hall attacks on Democrats and accused the party of waging a barricade on Democratic efforts to pass health care reform legislation.

“I just want to show you what Astroturf really is,” Reid said to laughter. “They’re taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor mongers, and insurance rackets.”…

A senior Republican Senate aide shot back: “Harry Reid will be surprised to learn that not only do the people he routinely insults have opinions, they also vote. Right now the ‘astroturf’ is out-polling Harry Reid 60-40 in Nevada.”

But Democrats seemed to be on a roll with their pushback Thursday.

“These guys don’t care about you,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said of the town hall protesters. “They care about YouTube.”

“We can spot a ringer,” Durbin said.

Wow, er, no. According to the definition from SourceWatch:

Astroturf refers to apparently grassroots-based citizen groups or coalitions that are primarily conceived, created and/or funded by corporations, industry trade associations, political interests or public relations firms.

People reading things on the internet from fellow Americans or hearing things on the radio from political pundits and deciding to respond isn’t “astroturfing”. It’s average Americans responding to statements from other private citizens who agree with them. That’s grassroots. Grassroots doesn’t require that private Americans had a vision and didn’t hear about the issue from other Americans.

What would Harry Reid call the anti-war protesters who learned about issues and rallies from groups such as MoveOn.org? Are they astroturfers, too? Of course, they’re members of the far-left, so they must just be protesters engaging in the “highest form of patriotism”: dissent.

Allahpundit asks:

Seriously, am I missing something here or have we now reached the point where conservative opinion is per se illegitimate and tantamount to a political dirty trick?

Of course it is. As far as the left is concerned, no one who’s really just a private American with no sneaky agenda can oppose one of Barack Obama’s liberal policies. If someone, namely conservatives, come out against ObamaCare, they simply must be illegitimate mobs lead by special interest groups.