Birth of a Conspiracy Theory

I was stopped in my tracks by a post by Stephen Green at VodkaPundit in response to this piece by Tony Pierce. Stephen can get fired up sometimes but I've never read anything quite like this from him:

I suspect Tony Pierce got caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl

Who can pass up a chance to see what brought that on?

The article by Pierce is an interesting series of conjectures about Pajamas Media, the Bush administration and the uses of propaganda. And it makes several allegations of the corruption of bloggers involved with Pajamas Media. Really serious allegations of being bought and co-opted by Bushco.

Then each allegation is followed by a disclaimer like this: For all I know, and I mean this seriously, Pajamas Media and every single Right Wing Blogger could be totally on the up-and-up. And for all I know the entire Bloggersphere is completely legit, sincere, and in no way the press release for the White House.

But despite all his disclaimers, Tony ends with this: the only question is, when will we find out who those bloggers on the take are, and what will happen to their reputations once they're outted.

developing...

It sounds like Tony finally convinced himself in the course of writing that post.

I think the whole propaganda story is a bunch of hooey. I would be shocked (and angry) if the government wasn't using propaganda during a war. I don't know of any war in which it wasn't.

And I'm not a defender of Pajamas Media. I've been confused by the whole thing since it launched. But I find Tony's "what ifs" to be a bit wingnutty.

But it is fascinating to see a conspiracy theory developed right before your eyes such as this.

ps. I had a civil conversation with Tony in his comments section about several references in his post to Jeff Gannon being gay. We disagree on that point but it didn't get nasty, but Stephen had every reason to react the way he did.