Palinistas Invent a New Conspiracy

Jon Kay describes how Conor Friedersdorf inadvertently supplied the raw material for a new Internet conspiracy theory:

Conor described in a post on the Atlantic website attending an empty opening of the new Sarah Palin documentary in Orange County, CA.

Then:

[O]ne William Collier, a pro-Palin blogger and movie marketer ... announced to the blogosphere that the midnight showing of "The Undefeated" in Orange County was unscheduled -- meaning that Friedersdorf might have arranged a "secret showing" that would supply him fodder for anti-Palin ridicule.

You can’t argue with conspiracy theorists. But Friedersdorf tried. He wrote Collier a note, as follows:

Bill, I am going to presume that you’ve made an innocent mistake, but I expect you to correct it. Attached is an image from the Los Angeles Times dated Thursday, July 14, 2011. The movie was advertised there, just as you’d expect, and contrary to the assertion in your post that ‘there has never been any mention of or advertising for any midnight showing.’ The movie was also advertised on Google, where I found it.

Collier's response was that the Times listing merely demonstrated "how elaborate such a setup could be." As students of conspiracism will immediately note, this is the same logic that drives "birther" conspiracy theorists to insist that the Barack Obama birth announcements placed in Honolulu newspapers 50 years ago must also have been part of an equally "elaborate" setup.

In another age, this is where the story might end. But Collier's nonsense was picked up by an obscene right-wing thug named Andrew Breitbart, who tweeted the conspiracy theory to his legions of followers. And so now, the Web is rife with blog headlines such as "Palin Movie Hoax: How Atlantic reporter used unadvertised midnight show to create 'empty theater' debut headlines." Anyone who spends 30 seconds researching the story will find out that it’s nonsense. But that’s 28 seconds more than most Internet users have to spare.