The Intertoobz have been on fire,The corporate media has been actually reporting (some) actual news, and Todd Akin (R-Fantasyland) is in a world of hurt because he got human vaginas confused with duck vaginas.Why? Because doctors and other believers in "science" have been pranking the Rethuglians for years! But Jon Bershad had to go and spill the beans over at Mediaite.
But, yes, it’s true. We doctors have been giving Republican Congressmen false information as a joke. We’ve been doing it for years and it’s been hilarious.
I knew we’d gone too far with that Akin guy. It’s just, you’ve got to keep heightening the joke, y’know? See what you can get away with.
At least, according to Jon, the doctors weren't the ones who started it.
It all started like a decade ago or something when this Republican kept going up to all these scientists and being like, “At least one of you has to think that Global Warming isn’t manmade!” And all the scientists kept having to say, “No, dude! We’ve all done tests!” But this guy just kept coming back (usually with his like oil company friends who, let me tell you, are just the worst) so, eventually, one of the scientists just goes, “You know what, I don’t believe in Global Warming. It’s inconclusive and stuff.”
Where Jon gets it wrong, IMHO is that pulling pranks on gullible Rethugs ("It’s not just us though! We didn’t even do it first! Scientists have been lying to Republicans as a prank for even longer!" ibid) The people who first started lying to gullible Republicans weren't scientists, they were social-scientists, or more precisely, economists. More below the branding-iron pattern.
I mean, really, it was the economists that started pranking the dumbest members of what was once a reasonable political party. How else can you explain the Laffer Curve, except as a drunk "economist" thinking, "Wow, these guys are dumb! I'm going to write an economic blueprint on the back of a cocktail napkin and see if they actually believe this *&^#!"
Then the next economist said, "Holy Crap, they bought it! How far can we push this? Lets see if we can convince them that "trickle down economics" can work! I mean, an economic theory proposed by Will Rogers as a joke? No one in their right mind would go for that one!"
The rest is history.
P.S. It's amazing what you find when you Google "duck vagina".
*Yes, I'm paraphrasing from Atlas Shrugged. It's important to get Oppo-research. If we're going to "debate" them (mostly, they just yell at you) we need to be able to make an argument for them, as well as against them. Abe Lincoln did this with some success, and the National Forensic Association's debates should be something all D's are experienced in, or at least have seen. The NFA's Lincoln-Douglass debate rules should be required reading for all of our candidates.