Only Being Analytical, My Allies
Just thinking out loud here:
- Dozens of unsubstantiated rumors about Sarah Palin and her family have been blasted out onto the Internet over the last 10 days, seemingly starting within hours of her introduction.
- These slurs start on left-wing blogs (and left-wing blogs that insist they're right-wing), and soon fill up blog comments everywhere.
- The smears are then read by "journalists," who spread them to their audience.
- They're almost instantly debunked.
- This keeps happening over and over, even though it's not working.
- It seems unlikely that so many independent bloggers and blog commenters would suddenly and simultaneously become self-described experts on somebody who most people hadn't heard of two weeks ago.
- It's more probable that these lies and half-truths are coming from a single source and are being made to look like the work of a grassroots movement. A netroots movement, if you will.
With all that in mind:
Who would have the means, motive, and opportunity to launch such a wide-ranging smear campaign so quickly?
More importantly: Who would have enough at stake to be so obviously panicky about it?
I can't think of anybody either.
Posted by Jim Treacher at September 7, 2008 11:46 PM