Highpockets pwned

No, Harry Reid was not beaten up by his brother, says the man who concocted the false rumor to explain the Senate minority leader’s injuries after an exercise accident months several months ago.

Larry Pfeifer told the Las Vegas Sun that he made up the story after being appalled that conservative blogger John Hinderaker published a rumor that Reid’s injuries occurred as a result of a Mafia enforcer roughing him up.

“It was just so outrageous,” Pfeifer told the Las Vegas Sun. “The fact that someone can say something completely false that can destroy somebody’s life, it’s just wrong. Where’s the moral compass?”

Pfeifer said that he completely fabricated the story in which Reid’s brother, Larry, showed up drunk to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on New Year’s Eve and said he had beaten up a relative.
Pfeifer, whom the Sun describes as a former consultant in the nightclub and entertainment industry, said he thought the episode “would be over in a day and a half.”

Hinderaker said earlier on Laura Ingraham’s show that he had “absolutely no idea” whether the story was factual. “He called me and told me this story. He’s related it consistently. Whether he’s right or not, I don’t know,” he said.

Limbaugh also passed along the story, but stopped short of presenting it as fact. Still, Pfeifer blasted their decision to broadcast it without properly vetting the details or its source.
“They had no problem using a story that had nothing but some guy’s word,” said Pfeifer, who said he used the pseudonym Easton Elliott to spread the tale. “Not one of them knew my real name. I didn’t even give them my phone number.”

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.