by flory
By sacred tradition, everytime Breitbart or Drudge has instigated one of wingnuttia's patented flying monkey flashmobs, the story arc has followed a well trod path:
Early morning, Day 1: Completely made up "scandal" is posted to Drudge or Breitbart.
Late morning, Day 1: Faux News reports on "breaking news" of the scandal.
Evening, Day 1: CNN et al inform us that "there are reports" of the breaking scandal.
Morning, Day 2: Reports of the reports allow entire media universe to obsess over scandal.
Afternoon, Day 2: Democratic administration (because these attacks, curiously, never happen to Republican administrations) issues explanation/apology/retraction regarding scandal.
Following 2 weeks: Media and administration dance the dance. 24/7 back and forth on scandal until the entire spiral arm of the milky way galaxy is sick of the subject.
Week 4: Enterprising reporter (Clinton administration) or blogger (Obama administration) discovers that scandal is complete bullshit. CNN et al have long since moved on to the latest runaway white woman story and nobody pays attention. Scandal is fixed in the public mind as gospel truth.
Something curious happened on the way to the Shirley Sherrod tarantella. The enterprising blogger (or somebody, I'm not really sure who broke the story of the edited video) moved the timeline way the hell forward. What normally isn't discovered until people have long since moved on -- the video was complete edited bullshit -- was discovered the next day. People were still paying attention. The administration was still paying attention. The administration overreacted, was called on their overreaction and had to do something about it. Yes, Breitbart got what he wanted, a Democratic administration looking about as inept as humanly possible, but he also got called on his bullshit and has been making excuses ever since.
Those "real americans" we're always hearing about have been told that Breitbart made the whole fucking thing up. And they're still paying attention. I don't think this has ever happened before. Equally important, the administration was forced to face the fact that they got played, and played badly, and played publicly. And it all happened when people were still paying attention. Do you think even this slow learner white house is inept enough that they'll let the flying monkeys get away with this again? I'm cautiously optimistic that they won't.
The wingnut noise machine may've finally jumped the shark. Or a girl can dream anyway......