Planting The Seeds Of Misinformation

It's a great tactic used by conservatives and their media masters at Fox"News". All you have to do is hint that there "might" be suspicious activity going on within the Obama administration but then offer just enough wiggle room to be able to defend yourself should the time come.

The newest allegation from the drooling, prattle-boxes on the Right is that Barack Obama "bought" Congressman Jim Matheson's vote by offering his brother a judicial seat. Even thogh there is no substantial evidence to back up this claim, it's already being spread by some of the loudest voice within the conservative movement.

From Glenn Beck...



...to Michelle Malkin...

There are no coincidences in Obama world, I’ve joked many times on this blog.

This one looks like a quid pro quo, smells like a quid pro quo, and quacks like a quid pro quo....

But then she also starts to side-step the claim and try and make Obama look stupid - a favored meme of conservatives.

Let us consider the possibility, for a brief moment, that it is merely coincidence.

Is the White House so fantastically blind and tone-deaf that it failed to detect the blood-red flags and blaring alarm bells that Scott Matheson’s judicial nomination would raise coming on the very day President Obama is wooing his brother, Jim?

Incorrigibly corrupt or incorrigibly stupid. Take your pick.

.....and Neil Cavuto and Michelle Bachman....



But as Think Progress has noted, the Weekly Standard writer, John McCormack, that started this new narrative literally backed out of his thesis as soon as he stated it:

Was there an explicit quid pro quo? Probably not...

And that's all the "seed" that is needed. Just give people a taste of what may or may not be and they will run with it like it is canonized Gospel.