When wingnuts get punk'd

Hey, remember all that brewhaha last week about some quotes right-wingers claim Rush Limbaugh didn't say?

Well, nobody really came forward with any proof that he did or didn't say a couple racist quotes attributed to him. Evidently, in in 1998, in the days before internet media watchdogs, someone didn't think of recording Boss Hogg's radio show for future prosperity. And because of just a few 'alleged' quotes, the tighty righties got all wound up, cranking the mockrage machine to 11. Never mind that they conveniently 'ignored' the really nasty quotes Limbaugh's critics did have recorded evidence for. Why let the truth get in the way of good spin?

And now, the tables have turned. The Right Wing Noise Machine has now been caught in a similar fiasco. This one emerged from the cesspools of the conservative smear machine. It claimed that Obama, while attending Columbia University, wrote a senior thesis attacking the Constitution. Here's the excerpt they latched on to:

[T]he Constitution allows for many things, but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy.

It took awhile, but this little thesis meme eventually snowballed around to other bloggers, who are always foaming at the mouth for anything to attack the president on. The meme went further up the food chain, to The FAUX Nation, then Lou Dobbs. And even the Grand Pillbaugh himself.

Problem is, the thesis story was all bullshit. A hoax. Please, don't be so surprised.

So, how did it all happen? This bogus meme started out on an obscure blog back in August. The story told about how Time Magazine's Joe Klein had obtained ten pages of the thesis. This past Wednesday, Michael Ledeen, a bottom-feeder at Pajamas Media, found the blog entry via Twitter and wrote about it as if it were the holy gospel.

Here's what Ledeen said about it:

Maybe instead of fuming about words that Rush Limbaugh never uttered, the paladins of the free press might ask the president about words that he did write.  Maybe he’d like to parse “the so-called Founders,” for example.  I’d like to know what he thinks of those words today.  And what about the rest of the thesis?

Yeah, what about the rest of the thesis? And what about the persecution of Limbaugh by all those lefty meanies?

The story went viral. Really fast. Other blogs, The FAUX Nation, then Dobbs, then the Fat Man himself. Limbaugh said about the thesis, "This little boy in college" had "disdain" for Constitution. Yes, he called our black president "little boy." Now, if that ain't racist, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately, nobody on the right could pull their heads out of their asses and actually do a little 'fact-checking' before they went nuclear over the alleged smoking gun thesis.

Finally, Klein himself took Ledeen to the woodshed, claiming the whole thesis story was "nonsense."

"I wonder about what the willingness to take this cheesy crap as gospel says about Ledeen's--and Boss Rush's--sensibility," Klein wrote. "Actually, on second thought, I don't wonder all that much."

Oops!

John Lennon once wrote, "Instant karmas gonna get you, gonna knock you right on the head." And that's what happened next. Yes, the story was bogus. In fact, it was initially labeled as 'satire.' Heck, the same blog had even done it before!

So, an obviously embarrassed Michael Ledeen, tail between legs, issued sheepish apologies all around.

But the fantasy was better than reality for some, as the story spread further. Bad enough that some pissant bloggers were spreading more fertilizer, but Lou Dobbs? Of CNN? Even after Klein stated the story was false? C'mon!

But one has to wonder, will Brent Bozell and the usual gang of idiots go after their own for spreading blatant lies about President Obama? Like he did when we justifiably went after Limbaugh? Of course not. It's nothing new really, since right-wingers spread lies about Obama everyday.

Come to think of it, didn't Dan Rather and his staff get the axe for reporting a story that actually had some truth to it? So, what about Dobbs? What about Fatboy?

Claiming "I have had this happen to me," Limbaugh said he didn't care if thesis quotes are fake, "I know Obama thinks it" Yeah, just like we don't care whether or not you condoned slavery, we just know you think it.

So, after weeks of whining and pissing and moaning about how that 'eeeevil librul meedya' gang-piled him to keep him from buying a football team, he knowingly went on his radio show and proceeded to spread lies about Obama, even after he found out they were fake. Sorry Rush, your credibility, whatever you had of it, is now even lower than a snake's ass.

As for attacking him on the constitution, Obama taught constitutional law in college. Limbaugh was a disc jockey. I'd put more faith in Obama's knowledge of how our country works rather than a guy who buys hillbilly heroin at the Denny's parking lot.

The best reaction on this comes from Gawker.com:

It's not like anyone's behavior here is unexpected or even all that terrible, it's mostly just hilarious. Once again: if you make something up and put it on the internet, Michele Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh will believe it.

So true.