Chris Lehane, the Clintonista recently outed as the author of the infamous “vast right-wing conspiracy” (VRWC) memo, took to the pages of the left-wing Politico to do what every leftist does when discovered as an extremist: He doubled down. Lehane says the VRWC is even worse today than it was twenty years ago.
It’s not just a few people on the Web spewing Vince Foster-sightings anymore. Today, thanks to this opt in/opt out dynamic, ever-larger segments of the population can believe in completely ungrounded conspiracy theories–such as that President Obama was not born in the United States–despite a massive trove of assiduously documented evidence to the contrary. Take, for example, Fox News’s non-stop coverage of the supposed cover-up surrounding the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, which at times has veered into self-parody–segments hyping shoddy reports produced by the very same people who believe Obama was born in Kenya. Or its coverage of IRS-gate, Solyndra or any other number of fever-swamp-driven pseudo-scandals that mainstream outlets have looked into and found rather less scandalous. And all of these nothingburger stories get duly hyped on zillions of right-wing websites, on conservative talk radio and on the Drudge Report, which boasts more traffic than ever, though it looks pretty much the same as it did during the Clinton years.
Apparently, the VRWC is now made up of people who don’t agree with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, and who have no faith in the mainstream media to hold big government and those who enlarge it accountable.
Damn that First Amendment and the tools that give people who don’t break bread with Andrea Mitchell or honor Dear Leader at the White House Correspondents Dinner the power to have their voices heard.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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