Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theories Gather Steam

Despite widespread mockery and fact-checking, the Sandy Hook conspiracy addicts remain undeterred, and  the view counts on the countless YouTube videos continue to soar.  My own mocking post from over a month ago--you know, the site of the mass shootings was foretold in Hollywood movies--gets more popular (even most popular) every day here.  Yeah, I was really into the JFK assassination theories--when I was 16.

Coverage and criticism of the theories--including that it was staged by Obama to gain support for gun control (an issue he had shown no interest in whatsoever),  two shooters escaped,  none of the kids actually died and there were actors playing their grieving parents,  it's all tied to Libor etc.--remained scattered around the web but now have gone mainstream.   Anderson Cooper hit the wackos hard this week.  What better measure of that than this:  That story about the Sandy Hook man who took some kids who had escaped into his home on the day of the shooting is merely an actor and actually part of the plot.  He's now being harassed daily.    It's now featured at the top of the AOL site, via Huff Post.  So: are the "truthers" winning or losing?  And should media ignore rather than spread the false reports?

Greg Mitchell writes daily for The Nation and has written over a dozen books on subjects including influential political campaigns, atomic cover-ups, WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, the death penalty in America, even Beethoven, and more--see books here or on rail at right on this blog.