So apparently those annoying emails you get in your inbox from right-wing friends and relatives are part of a larger conspiracy to spread lies and misinformation about the left. Who knew? Apparently Christopher Hayes does, as he’s written a long, detailed examination of the issue for the Nation. The idea that there is some kind of mysterious and malevolent force out there that prompts bored, and one would assume largely middle-aged, conservatives to forward chain emails is absurd on its face. People do this of their own free will, and besides, I’m not sure what Hayes’s solution would be other than to form some new government bureaucracy to monitor people’s email to make sure that the contents have been properly fact-checked (after all, some magazines don’t even fact-check stories before publication). Still, there’s one part of his story that is itself a smear: