Far-Right Media Push 'Sabotage' Conspiracy Theory

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_05/023626.php

FAR-RIGHT MEDIA PUSH 'SABOTAGE' CONSPIRACY THEORY.... Paul Krugman warned us last week, explaining that conservatives would come up with some creative arguments to blame the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf on President Obama, his allies, or both.

Rush Limbaugh did his part on Thursday, suggesting that explosion aboard the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig may have had something to do with "hardcore environmentalist whackos" and the timing of Senate movement on a cap-and-trade bill.

Fox News, specifically "Fox & Friends," took the crazy ball and ran with it this morning, suggesting that sabotage and politics may have been involved. Based on what, exactly? A combination of blind partisanship, overactive imaginations, and conspicuous unintelligence.

Perino: "{W}as this deliberate?" On the May 3 broadcast of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Dana Perino said of the spill: "I'm not trying to introduce a conspiracy theory, but was this deliberate? You have to wonder...if there was sabotage involved."

Bolling falsely claimed it was "nine days before" the leak "was even addressed" and asked, "Did they let this thing leak? ... if they're going to try and pull drilling, that may be the way they do it." On the same broadcast of Fox & Friends, Fox Business Network host Eric Bolling said: "The question is ... why the delay in the response? You guys were pointing out, nine days before it was even addressed, 12 days before he made a formal comment. The question is, did they let this thing leak? I mean, BP said maybe a thousand barrels a day, it went to five thousand. Did they let it leak a little bit and say, boy I don't know. The conspiracy theorists would say, 'maybe they'd let it leak for a while, and then they addressed the issue.'" Bolling added: "That would be a humongous accusation and probably the net result would be no different, but if they're going to try and pull drilling, that may be the way they do it."

:crazy:

I'm trying to decide which of the two bizarre media personalities was dumber. Bolling seems to have the edge.

Perino's comments were, to be sure, entertaining. In one breath, she's not "trying to introduce a conspiracy theory," and in the next breath, viewers "have to wonder" if her baseless conspiracy theory is true.

But Bolling enjoys the edge because his "analysis" (I use the word loosely) combines several layers of stupidity. Not only was he carelessly throwing around insane speculation about events he doesn't understand, but Bollling tops it off by asking why there was a "delay in the response," when in Grown-Up Land, there was no delay in the response.

Of course, GOP conspiracy theories, no matter how insane, don't have to make sense; they don't have to withstand scrutiny; they don't even have to be persuasive. They just have to be repeated. In this case, we see pure nonsense start on Limbaugh's show, and then work their way to Fox News. One can only assume other Republican outlets, assuming they cover the oil spill at all, will soon start reporting that "some say" politically-motivated sabotage may have been involved.

—Steve Benen