Media Mythbusters Blog

Cross-posted at Confederate Yankee:

Certain progressive bloggers in their natural state of paranoia are amusing to behold, and the conspiracy du jour is no different, as one of the more excitable ones interprets an event during last night’s Republican debate as evidence that candidate Mitt Romney was cheating.

Allahpundit has the video over at Hot Air of NBC’s Tim Russert asking Mitt Romney a vaguely-worded question, and then someone whispering “raise taxes,” to which Romney replied, “I’m not going to raise taxes.”

Romney obviously heard the whisper and responded to it, but the origin of the whisper seems to be found at the network, as an MSNBC blog posted on the subject, and then mysteriously pulled down the blog entry without explanation.

As Allah notes, Dan Riehl is probably correct that the whisper was from an NBC staffer attempting to coach Russert into explaining his poorly worded question, and that Romney, hearing the question as well, responded to it. It is also quite possible that feed simply could have been picked up from another candidate’s mike. Other than being a minor gaffe for NBC’s technical crew, this should be a non-story.

Things, of course, are never quite that simple for those who see a conspiracy behind every, err, bush.

At democrats.com, Bob Fertik wails “Romney cheats with an Earpiece!” despite, of course, having no such evidence of said claim, and the slightly troubling fact that if there was an earpiece, nobody else would have heard it.

Of course, Fertik and fellow conspiracy theorists still insist that President Bush was wearing an earpiece during a 2004 debate because of a bulge in the back of his jacket. They can’t quite seem to grasp that the most logical explanation is that the bulge would been caused by body armor, not an obsolete transmitter the size of a deck of playing cards paired with an earpiece equipped with a futuristic Predator-type cloaking device that leaves the ear canal exposed.

Fun guy, Bob Fertik. You’ll know him when you see him, franticly searching the sky for black helicopters and Denny Kucinich’s UFO.

Update: Rolling Stone seems to be watching the skies as well.