With Friends Like These...

Remember Thomas Eagleton? It was 1972, Nixon was seeking re-election and the Democratic candidate for the presidency was anti-war George McGovern. He nominated Eagleton as his running mate and shortly thereafter it was revealed that Eagleton had been exposed to electro-shock therapy years earlier, a treatment for severe mental illness that has been vilified for years in dark horror movies about insane asylums. The Eagleton candidacy ended immediately. A few months later McGovern lost 49 out of 50 states and Nixon won by a landslide.

All well and good as a history lesson. That was media reporting on a chosen candidate. This is a different category entirely. This is a conservative web-site  that is dumping this on a conservative candidate for the presidency that is currently running second in horse-race (and meaningless) popularity polls. See if you remain a supporter for her after reading this:

Pill-Popping Prima Donna Put Down Often

Shocking? I read it a couple of hours ago and my first reaction was to find out exactly what sort of background we have on The Daily Caller. It is labeled as a conservative news blog. It certainly seems to focus on right-wing issues and personalities. But I couldn't get past the feeling of Stalinist-era disinformation permeating the site.

I guess I'm not alone because here is what the well-established folks at Hot Air have to say about the item:

One "Confirmed" Others Doubtful. Motivation Questioned

I'm no Bachman fan. She is vocal and she is populist. I don't mind vocal but I intensely dislike populism in all of its forms. Saying what people want to hear is fine, but it isn't truth and it doesn't convince me of integrity or security in the future. We've seen too much of selective messaging tailored to today's audience.

But this smacks of a Russian Roulette Roundtable where someone in the circle has all chambers loaded. I'd almost smell a George Soros if I were the paranoid type.