August 28, 2008 4:36 PM PDT

In YouTube age, political criticisms can (and will) be used against you

by Declan McCullagh
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DENVER--If you're a candidate for president during the 2012 primaries, you may want to watch how sharply you criticize your rivals. Your critiques may come back to haunt you on the Web.

http://notready08.com/

Notready08.com features a video board of clips of former candidates criticizing Barack Obama.

(Credit: Notready08.com)

That's what the Republicans, at least, are hoping to demonstrate with their notready08.com site, which features clips of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and John Edwards slamming Barack Obama last year and earlier this year for being inexperienced or over his voting record in Illinois.

Other sections include a YouTube video listed as the "Temple of Obama" that shows the makings of Obama's stage tonight at the Invesco stadium here, where he's scheduled to accept the Democratic nomination on Thursday. Another features press conferences from Republicans--held, intentionally, right in the middle of the Democratic convention.

For his part, Obama has replied to Republican attacks with his "Fight the Smears" Web page. And you can probably expect clips to surface of John McCain's rivals attacking him in the primaries in the not-so-distant future.

Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan.

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