Corsi's Emanuel/Greenberg/BP conspiracy doesn't make sense

[ProSense]

Corsi's Emanuel/Greenberg/BP conspiracy doesn't make sense

WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi has proposed a harebrained conspiracy theory purporting to detail a sinister web of "financial ties" between White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, and BP led to the Obama administration being "compromised" in efforts to regulate the oil giant. The conspiracy goes as follows:

• "Emanuel lived for five years rent-free in an apartment owned by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and her husband, Stanley Greenberg." (Corsi later notes that DeLauro has stated that they don't have a "separate apartment," just a spare bedroom where friends sometimes stay.)
  
  
• Greenberg's firm, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, did consulting work for BP's "Beyond Petroleum" theme.
  
  
• Therefore, as payback for the rent-free room, Emanuel decided not to regulate BP

There's also a side-conspiracy in which Emanuel, as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, "paid Greenberg's firm $239,996 in 2006 and $317,775 in 2008" for consulting work, also as payback for the rent-free room. (This part of the conspiracy comes from Dick Morris, so you know it's good.)

It's difficult to say who should be more insulted by this ludicrous crap: Emanuel, Greenberg, or Corsi's readers. Incidentally, the theory's blistering stupidity hasn't stopped Andrew Malcolm or Jonah Goldberg from running with it.

So basically, Corsi is alleging that in exchange for living rent-free in Greenberg's house, Emanuel gave Greenberg $500,000 in polling contracts and decided not to regulate one of Greenberg's clients. The theory crumbles for the same reason most conspiracies do -- there are far simpler, more rational explanations for what happened. For example:

more

The author of the LATimes blog piece is Laura Bush's former press secretary.

[NYC_SKP]

1. An awful lot of people bought into the story. I read the full article and did some extra checking.

And concluded that this was just another in a series of ridiculous attempts to smear the administration and it's members.

Pure crap.

Recommended.

:patriot:

[Ozymanithrax]

2. And many people here will believe anything bad anyone says about Rahm.

It is mind boggling that anyone on the left would take the word of WorldNutDaily, Morris, and Johan Goldberg, but they will.

[ProSense]

5. It's embarrassing.

Still, it's good to know where people's heads are.

[blogslut]

3. And magically, the previous administration gets nary a mention

Deflect and distract. Corsi is a scumbag.

[noamnety]

4. gray area

I have a hard time with the original source.

But I have an equally hard time with a statement that begins: which is the simpler explanation, that a multimillionaire decided to crash in his married friend's basement for five years ..."

See, they lose me right there.

[ProSense]

6. World Nut Daily's lunacy is the same as

Rahm crashing in his friend's basement?

[noamnety]

9. I haven't seen anything refuting that he lived there 5 years for free.

That part of the story doesn't seem to be in dispute, no matter who's reporting it.

You don't think it's just a little odd that a wife would let her husband's old buddy move into their house - for free - for five years, when he's a multimillionaire who could easily afford his own apartment?

[ProSense]

12. So what?

Greenberg is a Democratic pollster, Rahm is his friend.

As Media Matters point out, the BP claim made by Corsi is beyond lame:

No evidence, undefined motive on BP suggestions. It should go without saying that Corsi provides no evidence whatsoever for his suggestion that Emanuel directed the administration not to regulate BP as a favor to Greenberg. For that matter, Greenberg's purported motive for wanting such a thing to happen is pretty sketchy. Greenberg runs a strategic research firm, not a lobbying shop -- according to the case study detailed on the firm's website, they "helped BP plan and evaluate its successful re-branding campaign, focusing the company's branding on energy solutions, including the development of solar and other renewable energy sources." Corsi offers no evidence -- or even speculation -- that suggests that Greenberg would benefit in any way from less-than-stringent regulation of BP.

[The Straight Story]

7. I remember when bush was in office. We linked him to a lot. If someone on FR posted the story, and

it linked to a 'lefty' site then that was the end of that, just could not be true.

Seems to me I posted about Helen Thomas, threw out several sources, but there were those which claimed they all came from RW sites (even linked to a google search of news).

Just because one does not like the source does not make something false.

I would hope we would keep Obama and crews' feet to the fire with the same fervent passion we did with bush - because there are a lot of the same players in DC.

If it is wrong, great. But dismissing something because we like the person in power, or we don't like a source, seems silly.

[ProSense]

8. We linked to Corsi?

Corsi is a Swift Boat lying scum.

[The Straight Story]

10. No.....

Point was people will dismiss information out of hand if they don't like the source (like, um, the national enquirer and Edwards).

With the post I made I didn't go looking all over, found it via fark which is pretty in the middle of things politically. If it is all bogus, cool and I hope it gets pointed out and we move on.

[ProSense]

11. The story doesn't make sense. It's a leap of logic. n/t