From The Washington Post

The Reliable Source

The absence of liberal talk-radio host Randi Rhodes from the airwaves Monday took an ominous turn when Air America colleague Jon Elliott announced that she had been badly injured in a NYC mugging — or something more sinister?

“This does not appear to me to be a standard grab-the-money- and-run,” he told listeners, noting that Rhodes didn’t carry a purse. “Is this an attempt by the right-wing hate machine to silence one of our own?”

The blogs and phone lines caught fire. “This is tin-foil hat stuff here BUT is it possible the powers that be don’t like her talking to the troops in Iraq?” one fan wrote on Rhodes’s Web site. “I would not put it past the government or extreme right wing fascist tools to attack her,” fretted another.

But before they could launch a counterattack, the story changed. Air America yesterday said there was no evidence of a hate crime, just an “unfortunate incident.” Rhodes’s lawyer said all they know for sure is Rhodes (now in a doctor’s care) fell while walking her dog — unclear even if a perp was involved. “It’s all been politicized,” Robert Gaulin told us, pooh-poohing the conspiracy talk: “I think Rush has better things to do.”

Elliott called us with the mea culpa he planned to read on-air last night. “I shouldn’t have speculated based on hearsay,” he said. Still, he added: “Nobody really knows . . . ”

Right-wing hate machine?  Did Elliott actually believe that there was some conservative vigilante group hunting down liberals on the streets in an effort to silence them?  What has he been smoking?  Don’t answer that question.

Or maybe Elliott was actually using Rhodes’ disappearance as a ploy to help stoke the audience and his ratings before the truth came out.

Nothing new for the loony left.

 

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