I'm constantly surprised by the ability of the right wing media to make up crazy stories out of thin air, and how quickly they can spread across the public consciousness via the conservative Echo Chamber. The most recent wild accusation coming from the right is that the Obama administration is engaging in a $200 million per day trip to India. That link will take you to a Fox News clip where they list a number of fictional allegations against the President.
Snopes.com has quickly put up a response to this nonsense, disputing nearly every point made by Fox and other media outlets. There is also a great dispelling of the points over on Talking Points Memo. The compelling TPM article really makes me wonder how the right is able to come up with such a crazy narrative in such a short period of time.
I won't go into dispelling them here, as it's been done by people smarter than me, but I would like to comment on how these fabrications are even possible. The security of the President has been increasingly amped up over the last few decades, presumably starting with the assassination of JFK and accelerated by the attempt on Regan in '81. Due to these security concerns, the government is unable to reveal specifics on the number of people being sent in the President's entourage, as well as the number of vehicles/rooms/meals, etc. being purchased in the destination. It seems like overkill, if you ask me, but I can understand it; it's just part of our modern times.
Since no clear figures can be provided by the government, it leaves the window open completely for people to speculate and point fingers. Needless to say, commentators such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh who are not beholden to truth can just make stuff up without any clear facts available to refute them. Since this is the only information out there, it is repeated and taken by many as reality.
Most people don't have time to research information for themselves (and who can blame them? It's taken me an hour just to research the links provided in this post) and have no way of instantly debunking this nonsense. For example, I had no idea that the "34 warships" claim represents 10% of the navy. Looking at the information in the TPM article, most of the claims from the right are obviously ridiculous, but difficult to respond to because they are not commonly understood.
Hopefully, the mainstream media will dispute the lies and try to set the record straight. Unfortunately, as is evidenced by the presistent birther and Muslim lies about Obama, I imagine the $2 Billion India trip meme will be repeated endlessly from the far right and take a "Weapons of Mass Destruction" level place in the American consciousness.
No comments:
Post a Comment