David Corn of Mother Jones magazine tries to understand the relationship between Kentucky’s Senatorial candidate Rand Paul and the popular national radio show host Alex Jones in his article called "Rand Paul and His 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist Friend." I use the word "try" very loosely, because if you read through the piece, you’ll realize very quickly that Corn is not aiming to find out anything informative about the views of either Paul, or Jones, and their dialogues with each other. He’s not writing as an investigative reporter, or as an intelligible commentator. Instead, he demonizes and attacks two political actors whose views he does not share.
Corn presents the views and opinions of Jones with zero context, and then quickly moves on. In Corn’s mind, Alex Jones is a rapid "conspiracy theorist" who has no credibility. For example, he casually highlights a point made by Jones to Paul that the bank bailout of 2008 was a clear symptom of a fascist relationship between Wall St. and Washington D.C. rather than being an example of socialism, and passes over it as though there is no evidence behind the argument, as though it were a political dynamite to avoid at first sight, and not a relevant topic to discuss and expand upon. Corn writes:
During a July 23, 2009 show, Jones, decrying the Wall Street bailout, asked Paul, "This isn’t really socialism….Isn’t this more akin to fascism?" Paul replied, "You’re exactly right." Later on the show,. . ."
Its understandable why Corn would treat that quote in such a hazy manner, because picking up and running with it would take courage and some knowledge of the economic reality that exists in the country. It’s much easier to tackle the relationship between Rand Paul and Alex Jones than it is to tackle the relationship between Wall St. and Washington D.C. The later relationship is by far the one more worth knowing about in a so-called free country, but Corn is not interested in uncovering the odd bedfellows in power, no, because that would make him a "conspiracy theorist," and we all know how much he detests those people.
