Well a little bit, but not so much. Chuck Raasch, political editor for Gannett News Service, notes that some Kossacks seem to seriously suspect that Senator Johnson was poisoned (hat tip to Todd Epp). Here is a typical sample:
Remember how somebody sent Daschle anthrax? Some other whack-o joked about sending it to Olbermann?
I just don't like the sounds of this. It seems all to plausible that some nut-job just couldn't tolerate the thought of the dems controlling both houses of Congress for the next two years (at least) and decided that SD needed to sacrifice its senator for the cause.
Get well soon, Senator Johnson. Hopefully it isn't another homegrown "terrorist" who happens to support Bush's agenda.
And this:
Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy were attempted murder victims as standing senators. The perpetrators walk freely to this day. That ain't no Vince Foster bullshit. Dangerous times require cynical imaginations. Show me the facts on Sen. Johnson's illness, and I'll be satisfied. Until then...
The latter suggests a principle: Republicans (but only Republicans) are guilty of high crimes until proven innocent, which of course will never happen. Some of these folks also think that Paul Welstone was murdered.
But all this proves is that there are a lot of lunatics on the left as well as on the right. And in fact these posts hardly characterize the consensus at the Daily Kos. The full mooners were met with more than their share of replies like this one:
it must've been earwigs. [rolls eyes] Cigar=Cigar, that's all.
And this:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Don't try and cover your claim up using a question mark.
These comments make us all look stupid; if you want to blindly speculate, there's plenty of 9/11 conspiracy forums out there.
On the whole, the Kossachs seem to consist of a lot of more or less reasonable folks struggling with a significant but still small minority of wing nuts. That is about as good and bad as things tend to be in American politics, and better than politics goes in most places.
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