Neal Gabler, who for decades has claimed that the press is consistently biased — against the left! — typed up a 1,000-word screed which appeared at Reuters Tuesday afternoon decrying what he described as "sub-news," and how it has been irresponsibly "driving the (Hillary) Clinton health rumors."
Gabler describes "sub-news" as "a pipeline of effluvium that flows beneath the mainstream news and occasionally leeches into it, causing 'information pollution.'" A particularly pernicious addition to that pipeline and the related pollution was indeed published on Monday, perhaps after Gabler submitted his column to Reuters. This conspiracy theory claims that "Hillary Clinton may have been poisoned" — by Vladimir Putin and/or Donald Trump. That's about as "out there" as you can you get. Oh, wait a minute. That conspiracy theory appeared courtesy of the tinfoil hat crew at the Washington Post, in an item by sportsblogger and sportstweeter Cindy Boren.
Boren's excuse for attempting to mainstream this claim (the Washington Post is part of the mainstream media, after all) is that its proponent is "Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who has made the NFL so uncomfortable with his discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of deceased players." How Omalu's background qualifies him as an expert in presidential or international intrigue is quite a mystery. But at the risk of adding to the "pollution" Neal Gabler so despises, here goes:
The man who discovered CTE thinks Hillary Clinton may have been poisoned
Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who has made the NFL so uncomfortable with his discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of deceased players, suggests that Hillary Clinton’s campaign be checked for possible poisons after her collapse Sunday in New York.
Omalu, whose story was famously told in the movie “Concussion,” made the suggestion on Twitter, writing that he advised campaign officials to “perform toxicologic analysis of Ms. Clinton’s blood.”
Well, all right. Poison can come from a number of sources, not all of them deliberate.
But then things went completely off the rails:
... But this is Omalu, whose credentials and tenacity are well known. He wasn’t giving up on Twitter, adding that his reasoning is that he does not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee who has expressed admiration for Putin.
... Omalu, famously played by Will Smith in “Concussion,” has studied and obtained a number of degrees. Born in Nigeria, he became a U.S. citizen in 2015. He became known for the tenacity with which he pursued the deaths of several former Pittsburgh Steelers during his time in the city’s medical examiner’s office.
... He wasn’t stopping with just one tweet about Clinton and poison.
Boren's "support" for the plausibility of Putin's involvement is that he allegedly (actually, likely) ordered the poisoning of a former KGB operative in London ten years ago. Even granting Omalu's medical expertise, it doesn't extend to security, and, at least based on what Boren presented, it doesn't extend to how one would go about administering poison to a presidential candidate guarded and watched over by many Secret Service agents, staff and friends.
I certainly hope that someone has had the presence of mind to order a special delivery of crow to Neal Gabler's place Tuesday evening. The Post made Gabler, last seen at NewsBusters equating the supposedly horrid media treatment Mrs. Clinton receives with that experienced by football quarterback Tom Brady, look like a fool virtually in real time.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
