Time’s blog of the year is back at it:
Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner and Fox News contributor, has some questions about Harry Reid:
Per @jhinderaker, has any journalist looked into the specifics of Harry Reid's exercise equipment accident?
— Byron York (@ByronYork) March 29, 2015
Behind this somewhat enigmatic tweet lies a rather elaborate conspiracy theory. @jhinderaker is John Hinderaker, one of the proprietors of the conservative blog PowerLine, and he’s peddling a theory that the injuries Reid suffered while exercising in January weren’t an accident at all. To Hinderaker the official story is just a cover-up for an incident that involves Mafia violence — likely the fallout of what Hinderaker alleges to be long-running corruption on the part of the Nevada senator and Democratic Senate leader.
“When a guy shows up at a Las Vegas emergency room on New Year’s Day with severe facial injuries and broken ribs and gives as an explanation the functional equivalent of ‘I walked into a doorknob,'” Hinderaker writes, “it isn’t hard to guess that he ran afoul of mobsters.”
This is a wild theory that lacks any evidentiary basis. But its popularity on the right speaks to the fact that conservatives are convinced that Reid — who has grown wealthy enough while in office to make the Ritz-Carlton his DC residence — has used his decades in public office to corruptly enrich himself, and the media has given him a pass on it.
I’ll spare you the details, but Hindrocket claims that Reid’s injuries are the work of brass knuckles. There goes my sex swing theory.
Obligatory reminder of who Hindrocket is:
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
These guys…
Baud
Reid to York: You should see the other guy.
Shana
I gather he was brought in to the emergency room by his security detail. Yet the mafia supposedly got past them. Yeah, that makes sense.
feebog
I for one will be very sorry to see Harry hang em’ up. No one can troll the far right like Harry.
Cervantes
@feebog:
Seconded.
kindness
So that is writing that could make it to TDS except not in the manner for which it was intended. Funny.
the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon will happen. Hindrocket>Red State/Clown Hall>Fox News >CNN. Wow. 4 degrees this time. Suck on that Reid!
When this stuff is read by historians in a thousand years they will know for a fact the modern media was completely incompetent/insane.
RSA
A search of Powerline shows no comment about this incident:
I mean, if we’re talking about fake-sounding explanations…
PhoenixRising
When a guy walks into the ER on NY Day looking like he lost a fight with an inanimate object or two, you have to assume…
that he’s not actually a good Mormon.
Zinsky
I know you should never generalize but reports like this make me think that modern Republicans are the most idiotic, gullible doorknobs since Neandrethals roamed the Earth.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@efgoldman: No one can troll the far right like Harry.
I was thinking the same thing. And with no upcoming election, he’s having lots of fun with it.
mai naem mobile
@Zinsky: what? Seeing the people in the 2012/2016 GOP Klown Kavalcade didn’t make you think that Republicans are a bunch of gullible ignorant neanderthal rubes?
Cervantes
@kindness:
Yes — and people have been saying that for hundreds of years!
J R in WV
Obviously a wound from brass knuckles!
This guy is a thug, probably operated from a small beer joint under a bridge on the edge of town. Tough guy!
Then he got in with a bunch of guys running juke boxes and pinball machines. If you’re too young to know what those are, let Google be your friend…
But now he’s a big time thug. Politics, don’tcha know…
Making a lot of money on the video game racket, then jumped into the sports book in DC… really big money there!
Now he’s between a republican and a hard place – what to do ??
Hold on, and then get smacked in the face with an elastic band?!!
EEeyough!!
I quit – I’m too old for this crap! Me and Obama gonna retire to Hawai’i and lay on the beach!
billb
JC, do not rule out the sex swing theory, when I was an architecture intern in D C a long time ago, we got called to a very fancy Georgetown Townhouse to draw up a renovation, and on our initial visit we went from stately period room to another, til we got to the suite of the master bedroom, and YES in the side room there was a full-on swing set and other gear for the powerful mister and missus.
jl
I think they are inching towards a tie-in with HRC Benghazemailgate!!! somehow. Or tie-in to Obama is trolling birthers by planning a trip to Africa. Or, to the new meme that our precious youth are doing Auschwitz selfies because Obama corrupted all morals and all that is decent by doing selfie at the celebratory, as well as somber, Mandela funeral.
Oh, well, the more time they spend on nonsense, especially nonsense on people on their way out like Obama and Reid is good news. A nice way for them to make themselves appear ridiculous and irrelevant.
It is irritating, but, as far as I am concerned, keep it up, guys. You’re dong great.
SiubhanDuinne
@feebog:
He has a mean far right hook.
pseudonymous in nc
I have no idea what dark and possibly illegal things lurk behind Assrocket’s obsession with beauty pageants, but it seems strange that nobody has investigated them.
Violet
Seriously? That’s the first thing he thinks of? What about…
“it isn’t hard to guess he fell off a swingset”
or
“it isn’t hard to guess a bald eagle attacked his glasses”
or
“it isn’t hard to guess his grandson hit him with a lightsaber”
These people have no imagination.
Violet
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Yeah, President Obama has no more fucks to give. He’s having a great time trolling the wingnuts.
jonas
Wouldn’t Mafia toughs have given him a beatdown using something like a sack of oranges, so it wouldn’t leave bruises?
jonas
Also, Harry Reid is supposed to be super-rich? First I’ve heard about that.
The Ancient Randonneur
Are Harry and Cole are related? It would explain quite a bit.
fuckwit
@Cervantes: Incompetent and insane has been the norm for humanity since at least the dawn of civilization.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
In fairness, Reid has been the target of mob threats and his wife once found a bomb wired to their car. However, that was decades ago when he was the head of the Nevada State Gaming Commission during the era when they were fighting hard to get the mafia out of all of the casinos.
Which brings up the question: why are we supposed to think badly of Reid if the mafia wanted him dead?
Mike in NC
Assrocket + Byron York + Erick Erickson + Tucker Carlson = Awesome wingnut four-way.
Suzanne
This is so dumb that it’s not even funny. Harry Reid beat up by mobsters. This is like imagining Ted & Hellen going on a date with maclaren.
Dexter's New Approach
@jonas:
I understand he’s worth around $6m. Was a big lawyer for 15 years, got to $1m+ before entering congress. I guess he was part of some questionable investments in LV while in congress, but would have seen same return in an index fund.
Cervantes
@fuckwit:
Incompetent the norm? Possible, yes, I see that. But insane? Isn’t that a bit like saying that abnormality has been the norm?
Cervantes
@jonas:
Well, opensecrets.org tries to keep track of such things. Take a look. (Notice the comparison to other senators.)
Mnemosyne (tablet)
I always assumed it was something like when Adam Savage fell off a treadmill:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EOjASbTZKus
In Adam’s defense, he was drunk at the time. For SCIENCE!
danielx
@Mike in NC:
Thanks. I’m going to be afraid to go to sleep tonight for fear of dreams that might include that mental picture.
danielx
@jonas:
As I understand it, Reid is worth between six and seven million. From your perspective or mine that might make him super rich – hey, i’d like to be able to cover my bills! – but realistically that doesn’t mean all that much by today’s standards. Even by comparison with other senators he’s not that wealthy.
LWA (Liberal With Attitude)
I’m not sure who this story is intended to hit- It just makes Reid sound like kind of a badass.
Citizen_X
Yyyeeeahhhh…whatever, Assrocket. As Neil DeGrass Tyson (see the Wonkette links) says about UFOs, “If you don’t know what it is, that’s where your conversation should stop. You don’t then say, ‘It must be’ anything!”
burnspbesq
@Suzanne:
Did you really have to go there?
jonas
@danielx: Ok, so he’s a multimillionaire apparently — but pretty much middle class by the standards of the Senate club. Probably explains why I never heard any discussion about his worth, as opposed to say, John Kerry, who, IIRC was the richest member of the Senate when he was there, having married into the Heinz fortune.
Tree With Water
I heard that Reid has a brother named Fredo who hasn’t been seen since the day of “the accident”.
Felonius Monk
Another launch failure for the AssRocket. Shouldn’t he be running low on fuel by now? But he certainly has run out of rational thinking skills.
Suzanne
@burnspbesq: I did.
If my mind goes there, I’m dragging you all down with me.
Tehanu
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
There’s no slur too stupid for Hindrocket to use, as long as it’s a slur. Come to think of it, there’s no fulsome praise too stupid for him to utter, either.
BruceFromOhio
That’s as far I got, and as far as I’m ever willing to go, because whatever this creature (or similar creatures) is offering is not worth the time it takes to skim, much less actually read.
mm
Go read Harry Reid’s autobiography “The Good Fight”. Lots of stories of his fight against crime and corruption in Nevada. His life was in danger several times. And yes, if the Mafia wants you dead you must be hurting them.
But I think we are missing the bigger problem.
Too much of our progressive news is “OMG!!!!!!! can you believe what the republicans have done now??????”
Maybe it fires up the base, but it doesn’t get our message out.
debbie
I swear to God, York’s picture looks like The Church Lady with a dye job.
KS in MA
@mm:
“Too much of our progressive news is “OMG!!!!!!! can you believe what the republicans have done now??????”
Maybe it fires up the base, but it doesn’t get our message out. ”
THIS.
Jamey
As a journalist, Byron York has great hair.