The dismaying news just in from a public poll is that nine percent of Americans polled "buy into Rush Limbaugh's conspiracy theory that environmentalists may have been responsible for the spill in an effort to build support for their agenda."

Rush Limbaugh famously blamed environmental activists for BP's oil spill; handily overlooking the facts that:

A.    Most people (environmental activists among them) aren't nearly as half baked as Rush Limbaugh is, apparently.  Most people think things through.  Of course, that's a lot easier to do when you're actually planning to do something, instead of just running your idiot yap on the radio.

B.    The explosion would have been tragic, with the loss of life and equipment and all, but this spill wouldn't have happened if BP hadn't been negligent.

To quote Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), "The safety of its entire operations rested on the performance of a leaking, modified, defective blowout preventer."

This corporate negligence would be the result of the kind of lax legislation that Rush Limbaugh himself is always promoting.  So in an interesting way, this spill is practically Rush Limbaugh's fault.

But crazy as it may be to claim that environmentalists blew up an oil rig, PEOPLE STILL BELIEVE HIM.  So far as I know, Rush is the only one idiotic enough to even try to put forth this argument.  Nine percent of all Americans believe that environmentalists are to blame.  Republicans are surprisingly over-represented in that number; 13% of Republicans believe that environmentalists are to blame.

This crushes my belief that people only listen to Rush's radio show for the humor value.  I like to think of him as a sort of conservative Howard Stern.  But now you people are just scaring me!

I'm less concerned about the actual number than I am about what it indicates.  Let's face it, 13% of Republicans believe all kinds of crazy nonsense.  Heck, 9% of Americans believed that a giant UFO was hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet that passed near Earth in 1997.  (A belief that inspired and spurred on the mass suicides at the Heaven's Gate cult.)

I'm a lot more concerned about the fact that this seems to indicate that people are taking Rush's words as literal truth.  Even if it is only the lunatic fringe, possibly the same fringe that believed in the Hale-Bopp UFO (note the coincidence - 9% in both cases!) this may even be worse.  The lunatic fringe is, after all, the best armed of all the fringes.

Who are these 9%?  And more importantly, are they going to delete their Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter accounts after Rush blasted those places as being where "people who want to matter" get "lured into environmental activism"?  Because apparently the environmental movement is luring people in with flattery and appeals to the audience's ego.  Which is pretty funny, if you consider that's exactly what Rush does to garner HIS audience.

According to Rush, you're supposed to admit that you "want to matter" instead of saying you "want to make a difference."  Because you know who made a difference?  That's right: Hitler.  

(Is there any circumstance in which Rush won't make a Hitler comparison?)

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user New Orleans Lady