The Loony Brigade

THE LOONY BRIGADE....As near as I can tell, the right-wing blogosphere has spent the past three years fantasizing obsessively about uncovering a new Rathergate. It was their great triumph (Blog of the Year from Time magazine!), and now it seems like hardly a month goes by without the hysterical discovery of yet another faked photo, planted note, or lying liberal. Almost without fail, though, they turn out to be.....wrong. Embarrassingly, completely, unquestionably, flat-on-their-faces wrong.

But they don't give up. The latest example is 12-year-old Graeme Frost, whose great sin was to tape a radio address supporting expansion of the SCHIP children's health program. Unsurprisingly, the latest crackpot loony brigade is headed up by the chief crackpot, Michelle Malkin, who has distinguished herself by staking out Graeme's house and grilling his father's friends. Other members of the brigade have dug up property records, scoured wedding announcements, checked out school websites, and when trash day comes will probably be rooting through their garbage barrels.

And the point of all this? To "prove" that the Frosts are secret zillionaires who don't deserve government help with their medical bills. In this, the loon brigade is, as usual, embarrassingly, completely, unquestionably, flat-on-their-faces wrong. I'll give you one guess about whether that's going to stop them.