A Joke? It Was a Joke?

Should we be surprised that Republican senator Rand Paul fell heavy and fell hard over what amounted to a joke? A joke that he took absolutely seriously?

 

The story is here at Gawker.

It seems that New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman called up a Republican staffer to get what they had on Chuck Hagel, asking them about whether they had something like Hagel’s unacknowledged campaign contribution from Friends of Hamas, a totally factitious group that doesn’t exist.  The staffer must have had the hair on the back of his neck raise as he had no idea about that one.

It quickly got conveyed to blogger Ben Shapiro who writes dirt on Breitbart’s website where it was developed into a story.

A story that was then conveyed to Rand Paul who believed it and admitted he was concerned about it.

But really, I think the problem is that Republicans are listening to these rightwing nutjobs on uber-rightwing websites as well as Limbaugh and Fox News, and they just make stuff up all the time.

So to them, this was nothing new. And it was the kind of made-up news that is grist for their mill. So when Friedman came out and admitted that he was the originator of this myth, egg went on the collective faces of the GOP, and especially Rand “Gullible Me” Paul.

Maybe now these wacky TEApublicans will start to check on their facts before making complete fools of themselves.

Or maybe not. It hasn’t worked up to now.