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Friday 17 September 2010

Rush To Believe Anything

A judge on the Federal District Court in Pensacola, Florida, has recently allowed a challenge on the new health care law to go to a full hearing. This apparent challenge to the centrepiece legislation of the Obama Administration soon attracted the attention of his opponents in the media, notably the deeply unpleasant Rush Limbaugh.

So when Rushie and his team found the Wikipedia bio of Judge Roger Vinson, they were very happy people. Here, apparently, was a keen hunter who had killed three brown bears, then mounted their heads above his courtroom door in order to “install the fear of God into the accused”.

This would, for sure, be bad news for all those pro-healthcare reform liberals. Or it would if it were true: someone had edited Judge Vinson’s Wiki entry to portray him as a sort of Davy Crockett figure, which he is not. Limbaugh then recycled the hoax as fact, more than likely because it fitted his agenda.

There was a clue in the Wiki edit: the article in The Pensacola News Journal used as a cite for the story was dated June 31, 2003. How many days in June, Rushie?

Judge Vinson has taken it all in his stride, but his wife was not happy, saying “I don’t think you should be able to broadcast something nationally if you can’t verify it”.

Since when has the inconvenience of verification stood in the way of Rush Limbaugh?

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