This post originally appeared on Smoking Politics.
I have an uncle I love dearly, but to say he is a Republican is an understatement. But one thing he has taught me politically is how email has become such an effective tool of transmitting political commentary.
This might be happening on both sides, but it appears to me, biased as I am, that the Right, and its supporters, have turned this strategy into a communications vehicle on steroids. It's like the old shampoo commercial, and they email ten friends and they email ten friends and then, I have had the personal experience of having an email thrust in my face, printed out in ripe indignation as if it was a page of the Bible.
"How can you say that when Michelle Obama's European Trip cost $100 million?" Uh, well, I see your point Uncle Ken.
Today, I was forwarded an email with the headline
Amazing that the Wash. Post would actually print this. Amazing! The Washington Post August 18, 2011 Obama: The Affirmative Action President by Matt Patterson (columnist - Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner)
Well, yes it would have been amazing. And let's forget the rest of the entire email, let's ignore the commentary in the email because clearly the commentary has value because this was printed in The Washington Post! A liberal paper in Washington DC printed this! You see how it works!
And clearly this Matt Patterson knows his stuff, look where he is a columnist for!
Well, google Matt Patterson and here is his site. Seriously, go see it.
And here is his contribution as a 'columnist' to The Washington Post. A single online letter to the editor from 2009
Now, Google Matt Patterson Washington Post August 18, 2011 and guess what you get? Hundreds of conservative sites linking to this remarkable article. But what you won't get is any evidence that the article every actually ran in The Washington Post.
In fact, if you go to www.washingtonpost.com and search for Matt Patterson, you get nothing.
This is an example of what is remarkable about the Right's echo chamber.
Here it echoed with a million plus links on Google, something that never was actually fired in the first place.