How Could This Happen?

I mentioned yesterday that a guy went public to the Las Vegas Sun claiming that he had made up a baseless rumor/conspiracy theory and tried to peddle it to a rightwing site to see just how credulous or irresponsible they would be. Turned out, pretty credulous and irresponsible! The story was that Harry Reid didn’t get those injuries in an accident. It was his drunken brother beating him up. And John Hinderaker of Powerline Blog ran with it based on no evidence at all. This afternoon Brendan James talked to Hinderaker to understand how this could happen. You’ve really got to read this.