Mote in the eye?

The creator of a controversial YouTube clip that attacked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was an employee of Blue State Digital, an Internet strategy firm on the payroll of the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, writes The Washington Post.

"I made the 'Vote Different' ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process," Phil de Vellis wrote on the liberal blog Huffington Post.

De Vellis resigned from Blue State Digital, an Internet strategy firm, once his identity became known. The Obama campaign had insisted that no one affiliated with the campaign had anything to do with the ad - a position that spokesman Bill Burton reiterated last night.

In a statement by Blue State Digital managing partner Thomas Gensemer, the company sought to distance itself from de Vellis, saying he made the video on his own time and without management's knowledge. By the time de Vellis revealed himself, the clip had been viewed nearly 1.6 million times.