When Glenn Beck retired from real tee vee, it didn’t take very long to learn who would replace him as the Fox “News” Conspiracy Theorist.  Step right up Eric Bolling, who apparently never met a conspiracy he didn’t like, except those about 9/11.  How wacky is this?  He promoted the crazy Birther Conspiracy, even after President Obama released his long form birth certificate!!!  As far as he is concerned this whole Fluke-Limbaugh-Contraception Controversy is nothing more than a White House plot to make the GOP look intolerant among women, as if they needed the help.  Yesterday on The Five, after an intro in which he called Sandra Fluke President Obama’s “foot soldier,” Bolling promised to “connect the dots.”  OMG!!!  That’s what Beck always said!!!  It must be true!!!

EB: Alright Bob, follow me here: President Obama on the ropes with the economy, and specifically with women voters; Mrs. Fluke to create a controversy; and the Liberal Mainstream Media puppets play along as scripted.

Bob Beckel tries the only thing that works with bug-eyed crazy: ridicule.  “You still think there’s an extra shooter at Dallas. Don’t you?”  However Beckel’s the only one of The Five who is not picking up what Bolling is laying down.  Andrea Tantaros runs with the theme:

AT: Why pick her [Fluke to address the hearing]?  Why not pick a woman who works at the university who can’t afford to have a baby?  Or, a woman who, yannow, shouldn’t be getting pregnant for health reasons?  Why pick someone who is supremely radical and part of this fringe gender mania sect of the university class to testify?  I mean to me it just doesn’t make any sense if that’s the person that you pick.”  

Wait?  What?  “Gender mania sect of the university class?”  What the hell does that even mean?  Who is she trying to smear with that whacked out generalization?  Every woman at every university who wants access to birth control?  The transgendered and people who fight discrimination against the transgendered?  It’s classic Spiro Agnew, tarring with a wide brush the “nattering nabobs of negativism” in an effort to change the topic quickly. 

To her credit Dana Perino doesn’t quite echo Bolling’s conspiracy theory, but she doesn’t shoot it down either.  She just advances one of her own.  After describing the various contraceptive-related controversies since January, when President Obama decided that all women should have access to contraception, Perino made the astonishing claim the White House doesn’t know how to rein in what it started: 

DP: All of a sudden it’s like, “Whoa!” It’s like throwing a lit cigarette out the window in Wyoming in the dry season and then you realize, “Holy cow, I have started a brushfire!!!”  And now they don’t know how to get control of it.  [Now Perino accidentally reveals something important.]  And Conservatives: It takes them a while to get their arguments to match up—to meet up with their mouth.  But finally, I think today, now you look—people are starting to realize, “Well, wait a second.  Why should this be free?  Why can’t she pay?  I don’t understand—Why should the university be forced?”  And so it’s caught up with them and they don’t have enough buckets to put the fires out.

Wait?  What?  However this all happened (and isn’t it interesting how no one on The Five is discussing how Rush Limbaugh had something to do with how this forest fire blew out of control?  His name barely came up.), every Liberal and Progressive I know is rubbing their hands with glee over the predicament the GOP currently finds itself in, as women all across the land question whether their values match up with the values of the Republican Party.  The buckets they envision are filled with gasoline and they hope the GOP keeps throwing it on Limbaugh’s fire.

However, Dana Perino clearly states the wording of the new memo from RWNJ Central that I assume was sent out yesterday.  The new Right Wing Talking Point: Sandra Fluke is a card-carrying member of the “entitlement society,” the connotations of which are far less corrosive than “slut” or “prostitute” or even “promiscuous,” which was the previous RWNJ gambit.  As no less an authority than Dana Perino tells us, “It takes them a while to get their arguments to match up—to meet up with their mouth,” hence the change of tack.  And, no conspiracy theory is needed to know Fox “News” would echo this new Right Wing Meme as soon as the memo was issued.  It came up on the supposedly objective America Live, when it was parroted by the supposedly objective Megyn Kelly yesterday.  Bill O’Reilly turned the RWNJ memo into last night’s Talking Points Memo and it was also the topic of his segment with Bernard Goldberg later in the show. 

Do you need any more evidence that this whole thing is a Liberal conspiracy?  When Sandra Fluke was on The View she slipped up and revealed the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—doncha know?—when she told viewers to go to Media Matters (possibly for this article) to see why she was unwilling to accept Rush Limbaugh’s apology.  Former prosecutor Kimberly Guilfoyle seized upon that slip-of-the-tongue:

KG: This was very purposeful and specific.  She does have ties—she even said, “Go on Media Matters.”  She’s directing people to their site because they are engaging in propaganda.  This isn’t about women’s health issues.  This is about trying to put some pressure, and put the Republicans, in the position of being labeled as anti-women, unfriendly to women, unfriendly to women’s health issues and, in fact, directly against them. 

After Beckel tried to inject logic and common sense into the discussion (not for the first or last time, mind you), Bolling cranked up the crazy conspiracy machine to 11:

EB: Well, let me ask Dana.  So, so, should we [OOPS! Eric, “we” is Fox “News.” Better rephrase that quick, Eric.]—uh, should the Conservatives—should we [You’re right, Eric. What’s the point of hiding it anymore? We all know the truth.]—reframe this argument and, and, and, should we talk about this—whether or not this was a plan—whether or not Sandra Fluke tells us to go to Media Matters or not—and point out that maybe this is, a, a concerted effort between the left and maybe even the White House.  

There is more to this segment and you can watch it for yourself below the fold.  However, I wonder how much of what Eric Bolling spews he truly believes.  I am reminded of an interview with Terry Baker, a former Fox Business executive producer, who claimed he was fired due to his objections about Bolling.  Having worked with Bolling, he’s in a position to know a few insider facts.  Baker characterized Bolling as a “fame whore” who “just says stuff to be inflammatory and I don't believe that he has any real knowledge of any of it. He's just saying whatever he can say to get attention.”  However, since that interview appeared on the Media Matters website, Baker must be part of the same vast Left Wing Conspiracy to make Eric Bolling look like a stark-raving mad lunatic.  You’ll have to admit it’s working rather well.