No, a Democratic Candidate Didn’t Wish Ebola on the NRA

So, here’s a headline out of the right-leaning news site
Rare today:
This Awful Democrat Just Wished Ebola on NRA Members. Fox News’
Greta Van Susteren tweeted
about the incident, which also got picked up by a bunch of smaller
conservative blogs.

I cannot emphasize this enough: It’s a totally
bogus story.

Here’s the tweet:

The “awful Democrat” in question is Mike
Dickinson. Rare‘s Douglas Barclay informs us that
Dickinson is a “political lightweight and Virginia candidate for
Congress” in the 7th district. That he is a lightweight is
true: Dickinson has no political experience whatsoever. But he
isn’t a Democratic candidate for anything, either. The local
Democratic Party has emphatically
denied any association with the troll. He almost
certainly has no intention of actually running for any office.

Shortly after the above tweet, Dickinson claimed Ben Franklin
was a “well known pervert” with herpes, and insisted that “George
Washington had several well known mistresses and was known to hit
the brothel in many towns.”  But thse weren’t the first
blaring signs of bullshit that he ever put up.

You may recall the man’s last
headline-making stunt a few months ago. A 19-year-old Texas
cheerleader was
getting flak for lion hunting in Africa, and Dickinson offered
$100,000 bounty for anyone who could find
nude pictures of her. Conservatives went berzerk.

Before that he appeared on Greta Van Susteren’s show and
declared war on Fox News. Outrage, again.

Conservatives from Sean Hannity to S.E. Cupp continue to fall
for his act, but the irony is that all of Dickinson’s publicity
comes from appearances on conservative media. Folks like Barclay
and Susteren have no one but themselves to blame for 1) not
researching this goober first 2) diverting attention from real
candidates and issues 3) helping him make a cool couple grand off
his fake campaign.

Kudos to Dickinson, though. He actually does a service to our
political system by satirizing it. The fact that someone with zero
credentials can put on a suit, say a few provocative things, and
let the opposite side’s media do the rest is alarming. Dickinson
puts up a mirror into which people from both major parties might
want to look long and hard.