Reply #3: Thanks for this contribution..yes, we have seen these kinds of

[David Sky]

phenomena in American politics ever since the early days. But somewhere between 2000 and 2009, while Bush was in office until Obama took office, the paranoid, anti-intellectual folks figured out how to profit and keep millions of dollars from espousing this Dinosaur with a saddle and religion versus science kind of idiocy, and they learned how to turn the prominent news media, from Time magazine to Fox News, (or ABC CBS NBC, CBN or other living room babysitters of the stupid folks) into their most pervasive spokespersons.

As an aside, I studied Richard Hoffstader in college, while Charles P Pierce was about 11 years old. Just to put Goldwater in perspective with the author of my original selected column. Sometime while Bush was President, the news media got into bed with the crazies, because it boosted ratings, made for sensationalist television news, and ensured that the already half paranoid viewers would not change to the Science Channel's explorations of the life-cycle of butterflies.