Conservative conspiracy du jour

Rush Limbaugh says Rick Santorum is the victim of a liberal conspiracy merely because Democrats are using the fundamentalist Christian’s words against him.

“The whole point of this contraception stuff [that] started last week is to make sure that if Santorum get this Republican nomination, that’s what he’s going to be known for, and of course the theme of that is: Santorum hates women, Republicans hate women, Republicans have no respect for women,” the conservative radio host said on his show. “Republicans want women in the kitchen constantly pregnant, blah, blah, whatever it is.”

No one’s saying Santorum hates women, merely that he thinks they should be ruled by his own fundamentalist beliefs.

Face it, conservatives, you may well be nominating a candidate who wants to build a bridge to the 1950s. Deal with the consequences.

Streisand to endorse Romney

Closet liberal

Clint Eastwood is such a passionate fiscal conservative that when he married his second wife, Dina Ruiz, in 1996, he included her finances in his own personal deficit-reduction campaign. “My wedding present to her was paying off her credit cards,” he told me the other day, using his bungalow on the Warner Bros. lot as a staging area for interviews touting “J. Edgar,” his new film about longtime FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. When I asked if he’d made any similar offers as, well, an anniversary gift, Eastwood said with a laugh, “No, I told her it was a one-time deal.”

Now Eastwood, who says he has never voted for a Democrat, is being accused by conservative propagandists like Karl Rove and Michelle Malkin of serving as a pawn in some Chicago-style brainwashing. Because, as you know, EVERYTHING is a political metaphor and/or Obama conspiracy.

Good thing Rove and Malkin weren’t exposed to Sunday’s halftime pep talks. No doubt the respective coaches urged their players to come together for the common good, as Eastwood did in the Chrysler ad.

Just waiting for someone to call Eastwood a commie.

As lies mount, Cain’s hubris grows

Herman Cain plays the victim card — didn’t see that coming.

WEST CHESTER, Ohio (AP) — His campaign rocked anew, a feisty Herman Cain claimed a “groundswell of positive support” from backers on Wednesday and accused critics of trying to derail his White House bid as he worked to stem the fallout from allegations of a 13-year extramarital affair.

“They’re attacking my character, my reputation and my name in order to try to bring me down,” a feisty Cain told a friendly crowd without naming his critics. “But, you see, I don’t believe that America is going to let that happen.”

Wingnut conspiracy du jour

Rush: ‘Barry Soetoro’ elected with ‘no identity documents’

Warns of president’s strategy to avoid defeat at polls by suspending election

1/3 of S.C. GOP voters are ignorant

Ignorant being the most polite way to describe the “30 percent of self-identified S.C. Republicans and Republican-leaning voters [who] say Obama is a Muslim.” Another 36 percent say the president “probably” or “definitely” was born in another country.

Speaking of the president and  the Palmetto state:

Obama Visits South-Carolina-Ravaged South Carolina

What does Jermaine Jackson have on CNN?

And why do they keep putting this greasy opportunist on air? Your meal ticket was a creepy child molester, dude, not a victim.

Glenn Beck spins another moronic conspiracy theory

Apparently Michelle Obama is behind the new bi-racial, possibly gay Spider-man. She’s changing our traditions, warns Beck, just as she promised.

The cult of conservative conspiracy theories

A recent Arbitron ratings report showed the ratings for Rusty Limbo and Helmethead dipped dramatically from the previous year.

The reason, according to an unnamed “industry leader” quoted by WingNutDaily: “Liberals,” working in consort with the Antichrist Administration, “are falsifying numbers … to kill talk radio.”

I thought that was the Fairness Doctrine’s job. It’s easy to confuse all the conspiracy theories coming from the right.

An exception to my rule on conspiracy theories

Ninety nine point nine percent of them are bullshit, but this one has teeth.

Gov. Nathan Deal has taken a page from the political playbook of Sonny Perdue by appointing the spouse of the top federal prosecutor for North Georgia to a seat on a state commission.

Deal’s office last week disclosed that the governor has reappointed J. Comer Yates, the husband of U.S. Attorney Sally Q. Yates, to a seat on the Georgia Commission on Hearing Impaired and Deaf Persons.

Because of that gubernatorial appointment of her spouse, Sally Yates, who has extensive experience prosecuting political corruption cases, will be required by Justice Department rules to recuse herself from any future investigations that her office may undertake involving Deal’s activities.

Deal has put himself in a similar position regarding potential federal investigations as his predecessor as governor, Perdue.

In August 2006, as Perdue was in the middle of his reelection campaign, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a series of articles that detailed Perdue’s real estate investments in Houston County and in Florida. …

About six weeks after the Salzer article detailing Perdue’s secret tax break appeared in the AJC, Perdue appointed Atlanta lawyer Catherine M. O’Neil to a seat on the state’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. The O’Neil appointment was announced by the governor’s office on Sept. 28, 2006.

O’Neil, then as now, is the wife of David Nahmias, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia in 2006. Nahmias’ office would have been responsible for carrying out federal investigations, if any had occurred, into Perdue’s real estate dealings.

Coincidence? I doubt it, considering the track records of Deal and Perdue.

Related articles

• Deal rakes in cash from healthcare, lobbyists (ajc.com)
• Deal ditches hiring rules in appointing spokesman’s girlfriend (ajc.com)