It’s childish, just like Politico’s lying about the entire thing.

And generally that’s a good stance to take, because most conspiracy theories are outlandish and implausible. If you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, the best heuristic is just to assume all conspiracy theories are bogus.
However… there is nothing impossible or unbelievable about certain kinds of behind-the-scenes behavior (which might be labeled as ‘conspiracies’, I suppose). If you don’t think Romney and Clinton (and to a lesser extent others) have cultivated a lot of contacts in the media, and that they can influence what is printed and what’s shown on TV (in some, but of course not all venues), I would say that’s naive.

Roger Simon’s Hit-Job On Fred Thompson At The Politico

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Simon quoted Thompson as stating that “I’ve got a silly hat rule.”

As the CBS video clearly showed, that was only part of Thompson’s statement.

What Thompson actually said was, “I’ve got a silly hat rule that I’m about to violate.”

Thompson then takes the Chief’s helmet and starts to raise it if he is going to put it on, and then says, while laughing, “I ain’t gonna do it… I ain’t gonna do it.”

At this point Jeri Thompson steps in and Fred puts the helmet on her. Throughout the video, you can hear those assembled laughing, including Chief Dan McKenzie, who handed Thompson the helmet to begin with. McKenzie is shown smiling widely at the end of the clip.

We don’t know if the entire Politico article is grossly unfair in the way it characterized Senator Thompson’s swing through Waverly, Iowa, but we do know, thanks to the CBS News video, that not only was Simon’s editorializing of what occurred in the Waverly Fire Department mischaracterized, but that he doctored a quote to make his article appear all the more damning.
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Seems like HotAir and Michelle Malkin got exposed for believing BS shoddy advocacy journalism. And, in my opinion, their ridiculous anti-Fred bias was exposed as well. Or, at the very least, their sensationalist, tabloid journalism that we all accuse the mass media of doing.

Regardless, even if the original false story was true, who the hell cares. For crying out loud, we’re criticizing the man over a stupid hat.

I am right there with you, Curt. I read through the post and the comments over at HotAir yesterday afternoon and the more I read, the more my jaw just hung open and I was flabbergasted that I was reading people supposedly on my side of the ideological aisle demonizing a candidate all because of a hat. Not over any of his policies, but because of a hat.

The only criticisms I even read of Fred Thompson are

(1) He’s “lazy”
(2) He has run a “bad campaign”
(3) He has a trophy wife
(4) He refused to put on a firefighter hat

Nothing, absolutely nothing, about his policies.

After getting through about 3/4 of the comments at the time, I just lost it and posted a ranting comment expressing my disgust with HotAir, Michelle Malkin and AllahPundit and Bryan Preston for blowing this up into a huge scandal. Last I checked over there, there were 165+ comments on this, including multiple comments by Michelle Malkin herself!

I was just left dumbfounded.

I’ve really had it with people and this presidential campaign. The mass media and blogs like HotAir are more concerned with tabloid crap like this, instead of focusing on policy and analyzing where each candidate stands on the issues.

I decided during the past few weeks that Fred Thompson most aligned with my conservative principles. I think I am just going to ignore everything related to this campaign until the Primaries and then cast my vote and be done with it. This is getting absolutely ridiculous.

Lots of people whine about government, yet they don’t look in the mirror and analyze how they demonize policitians. Maybe if we were all more concerned about policy instead of fireman’s hats, government would be better.

*sigh* sums it up perfectly.

He did the right thing — he is a politician, not a fireman. I like Fred even more now…he doesn’t pander, he leads.