OIP Derangement Syndrome Not Shut Down

The ongoing House Republican shutdown of the federal government has produced new manifestations of OIP Derangement Syndrome in the form of outlandish accusations about President Barack Obama. Among the choice rumors:

• He ordered the “Amber Alert” system shut down, as repeated on the Drudge Report and by two Republican Congressmen’s Twitter feeds. Politifact rated that “false.”
• He barred people from the ocean off Florida’s coast, as linked from Breitbart. Politifact rated that “false.”
• He personally paid to keep a museum of Muslim culture open. A Fox & Friends host repeated that claim from a satirical website and later apologized.
• He ordered Catholic priests to be arrested for saying mass on military bases. Snopes called that false.
• After a right-wing website created a photoillustration of helicopters blocking Mount Rushmore with a giant tarp as an editorial comment on the NPS shutdown, some people took it as possibly real. Snopes explained it was false.

As laughable as those reports are, we must remember that unfounded rumors have been part of the right-wing arsenal for years. I analyzed Presidential rumors at Snopes here and here, finding that there have been many more false reports about Democratic politicians than Republicans, and far more about President Obama than his predecessor.

In fact, just as the shutdown started, some provocateur went onto Healthcare.gov with a highly detailed false claim about trying to sign up for health insurance and being fined thousands of dollars as a result. Outlandish lies are regular part of the American right wing’s approach to politics today.