The Gullibility of Blogs

There have been a couple of news stories in the last week or so that show just how gullible and how willing to believe any smear that some blogers are. This happens on both the right and left but it appears to me that the majority of the tin-foil hat conspiracy brigade are from the right. These recent event provide more evidence to this view.

Both of these stories originated in right wing press outlets (NY Post and Drunge), and quickly hit talk radio (Rush and others) and moved to the blog pages. This is the echo chamber that right is famous for.

The first story was a supposed receipt for a lavish dinner in NY that Mrs. Obama was said to have ordered. The meal included expensive caviar and other pricey items. Copies of this charge for were splashed across blogs, including at least one here in S.C. It fits into the naritive or elitism, so it must be true.

Unfortunatly for these folks, they were so eager for a story that they never bothered to check it there was any chance that Mrs. Obama was even in New York, she wasn't. The story was exposed for the lie it was.

Well today it happened again. Fox news pimped a story hard, and the Columbia Conservative and many other blogs latched onto the story of a poor little white girl who claimed she was mugged by a big scary black man, then assaulted for having a McCain bumper sticker on her car. Those who ran with this story said it confirmed their belief that Obama's followers where just waiting for the opportunity to attack. It is race baiting of the highest order, something the McCain camp has been doingfor weeks, but this time it was done so poorly that it has exposed something very ugly in the way so many of them think.

Such foolishness is disturbing to watch and I must admit that a number of right wing blogers refused to get sucked into this lie. Those were the wise ones. Mnay others embraced this story, including the McCain camp, with both candidates apparently calling the girl to commensurate with her.

But, the plain truth is she lied, and has been caught.

I wonder if the blogs who ran with this have the courage to publish corrections, rather than delete the post.




Tags
Attacks, Election 2008