Those Wacky Right-wing Blogs

First, let's give the New York Times, and reporter John Schwartz, credit for noticing that the blogosphere has some legitimate things to say about the tsunami disaster. In fact, when I began reading the story early this morning, I initially thought that, by highlighting some absurd remarks at Democratic Underground, Schwartz was showing the far left of the blogosphere for what it is: irrational and conspiracy-mongering. And when I then saw that Wizbang was mentioned, I was surprised that a conservative blog would be featured in a story that highlighted the silliness of the extreme left.

I should have known better, of course. Read the entire Times piece, and you'll find this thesis: conspiracy theories are always with us, and an innocent questioner posed one at DU. But he was gently corrected by reasonable commentators whose posts helpfully explained that, contrary to the original assertion that the quake was caused by the Iraq war ("All that 'shock and awe' stuff we've just dumped onto the Asian part of this earth . . . ), there was nothing more at work than plate tectonics:

What was lost in the sniping over the Democratic Underground posting was the fact that the follow-up comments were a sober discussion of what actually causes earthquakes. The first response to the posting asked, "Earthquakes have been happening since the beginning of time ... How would you explain them?"

"Not to make fun, as I'm sure it's not a unique misconception ... but the reality is simple plate tectonics," one participant wrote. "The entire Pacific Ocean is slowly but surely closing in on itself. What happened is that the floor of the Indian Ocean slid over part of the Pacific Ocean, releasing massive tension in the Earth's crust.

But at the mad world of Wizbang, the thesis purports to show, they not only dissed the poor thing at DU, but the victims of the earthquake and tsunami! The Times article ends with this sentence: In the tsunami discussion on Democratic Underground, some participants continued to post farfetched theories about what caused the earthquake based on pseudoscience and conspiracy, and on Wizbang, the vituperation continued unabated, spreading even to many victims of the disaster.

Why? Well, while it's not stated explicitly, a good guess is that such a reaction is natural among conservatives, who are heartless, evil types who take pleasure from the misfortune of others. Of course, we already know that, don't we? And those wacky leftists? The blog world works on that side, you see, since more rational souls served as mentors to the kooks by steering them back to reality while taking care "not to make fun" of anyone, since it's "not a unique misconception" (how's that for delicate language?) that the quake was man-made. Some on the left may be irrational, but they'll be corrected; on the right, it's pure "vituperation."

Kevin at Wizbang, in a post titled "The Times Rides to the Rescue of DU," deconstructs the article. So does Paul at the same blog, who notes that the bizarre comments referred to by the Times were deleted.