You can make this stuff up

I tried to stir something up on Facebook the other day, but it didn't work.

A few days before a co-worker propounded the theory that Obama having released his birth certificate in an effort to draw attention away from Ben Bernanke's press conference, the first ever by a sitting Fed chair.

Now the fact that the press conference took place a couple or more days after Obama's announcement would seem to put a bit of a damper on that theory, but this particular person isn't given to thinking that way.

Following that lead, however, I posted something about Obama's announcement of his re-election bid, the release of his birth certificate and the death of Bin Laden. I was hoping someone would pick up on the possibility of a conspiracy on the part of the administration to create events that would aid the re-election bid, but no one bit.

About the same time, a church friend sent me an e-mail that claimed Obama was going to honor Jane Fonda as woman of the century, or some similar nonsense -- I can't quote it because I trashed the e-mail.

The missive recounted all of Fonda's sins from the Vietnam era, real and imagined. In the minds of many those activities made her a traitor who is never to be forgiven.

The e-mail was a hodgepodge of other e-mails and rumor campaigns that date to before the widespread influence of the Internet, with the added twist of throwing Obama under the bus for good measure.

Now, a whole cottage industry has grown up on the Internet centered on the proposition that you can take any kernel of truth, distort it into a lie, add Obama's name to it, and cause a tizzy among a whole group of people who, at best, oppose the president, and at worst despise him pretty much for two reasons: He's a Democrat, and he's Barack Obama.

That is a subject for another post, but I began to wonder, who makes this cra ... er, stuff up? And how to they achieve such widespread success in disseminating it? And I'm not just talking about Obama.

I would include the rumor that won't go away that Madalyn Murray O'Hair is trying to end all religious programming, or the one about the soft drink company that dissed Christians by not putting "In God We Trust" on their can, or any of the other easily refuted lies that run around the Internet on a frequent basis, which has created a whole other cottage industry devoted to exposing the deceptions.

Coincidentally, I now receive e-mails about the sites that debunk this nonsense that claim those sites are the real liars and shouldn't be trusted. Though a natural development, the naysayers rely on the fact that most people who receive and pass along bogus e-mails would rather believe a lie than do a little research on their own.

But again, who are these people who try to convince me that soft drink companies, and coffee companies, and soap companies, and politicians are the essence of evil? And do they really not have anything better to do with their time?

Often, after someone has spun an incredible tale they insist is factually accurate, they will wind up the account the well-worn, "You can't make this stuff up."

But judging from my electronic inbox and the comments of people I know, you can make this stuff up, and someone will believe it.

Unless, apparently, I make it up and post it on my FB wall.