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

[DJ13]

1. Corporations never make mistakes in their (small) minds

It cant be anything but sabotage, otherwise their corporate religion has to be questioned.

[Bitwit1234]

2. Anybody that can believe that environmentalist

could find a way to go 5000 feet or more down into the ocean and blow the well has got to have screw loose and the people listening that accept that are worst. That's the problem with capping the well, getting down to the problem. And these people have sophisticated equipment made for such problems.

[Brother Buzz]

7. I heard one bombastic meme: The environmentalist hooked up with the North Koreans

and fired a torpedo from a North Korean submarine. :rofl:

[Qutzupalotl]

10. or that an environmentalist would destroy the ocean to save it.

This is an epic disaster, nothing more.

We need to call these speculations "CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORIES" because that's what they are.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. There was a caller on the Diane Rehm show, who presented just such a theory.

I had a feeling I knew where she was coming from, but this confirms it. The rightwing has received their latest Frank Luntz marching orders, and they're spreading the word.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Gawd! These people are too stupid to live!!!!

[Supersedeas]

9. Politics is blood and guts win at any cost WAR to these low lifes--nothing is beneath them

[Cha]

17. They're too stupid to

feed themselves..that's for sure.

[elehhhhna]

5. sounds like they 're saying "they" let it leak awhile..

sorta like GWB during Katrina, I guess. NOT. Yeah we're gonna get someone to destroy our Gulf to prove a point. FOX IS terror terror terror alla time, still, btw. They make money by scaring the hell out of their viewers.

[political_Dem]

6. The RW is using their propaganda arm of their party to build the case

of Mr. Obama's ineffectuality as a leader--especially when they go out on a ledge and blame BP's massive blunder on the man.

What is worse is that people who already are taken in by the talking points of the POTUS' "illegitimacy in terms of birth or election" or his "socialist/communist" leanings will now harp on his lack of "leadership" ability due to the constant repetition of the meme, "Obama's Katrina".

So, it's not really a stretch for the easily led army of cynical Republicans, angry faux-independents and boorish Tea baggers to believe and continue to perpetuate this lie as well. Like preparing a field for planting, these true believers of the GOP will use word of mouth in order to spread the manure their handlers will give them.

In short, this type of slander is the Republican way of playing telephone--except the message becomes more and more corrosive each time it passes from person to person.

[glitch]

8. What's the big deal, Halliburton has always been eco-terrorist.

Terrorism on our ecology is part of their business model. They are very successful at it too (well, as long as they hold positions in government and the contracts are no-bid).

(IOW If they want to go there turn it back on them.)

[bobburgster]

11. What a joke!

There's a few of them going around...not to mention the ever present bombastic idiot, King Rush Limbaugh

[damntexdem]

12. Yeah, sure, sabotage by Haliburton maybe.

And why are they defending that foreign oil company, BP? Don't they realized that the BP originally stood for British Petroleum? Hey, maybe this is a European plot to undermine the American South!

;-)

[Phx_Dem]

13. And the stupid train choogles along . . . So, riddle me this Batman

why would Obama or anyone in his administration sabotage an off-shore oil well just weeks after deciding to allow more off-shore oil drilling? Anyone? Bueller?

This "theory" is laughably stupid on so many levels, but this is the most obvious question/problem with it.

[babylonsister]

14. They don't 'have' to make sense, and this is just more proof.

Remember who they're 'talking' to, low-info people who believe whatever they say is gospel.

[Born_A_Truman]

15. Yeah, Bill Maher mentioned it Friday night ...

a band of underwater (dirty) hippies would be blamed for taking out the oil rig.

[Jennicut]

16. Yeah, us tree huggers spilled the oil! That makes no sense.

Why would environmentalists want to kill wildlife and pollute the oceans and shorelines?