A few problems in the dumbest man on the Internet’s narrative

The entire right wing universe (including Drudge Report) is now screaming about this post by, yes, the Dumbest Man on the Internet again, claiming that anonymous sources told him officer Darren Wilson suffered an “orbital blowout fracture to the eye socket” in a struggle with unarmed teenager Michael Brown: BREAKING REPORT: Officer Darren Wilson Suffered “Orbital Blowout Fracture to Eye Socket” During Mike Brown Attack | the Gateway Pundit.

It’s possible that someone did leak this information to Hoft, but I’ll remind my readers that Jim Hoft is probably the single most dishonest right wing blogger on the Internet as well as the dumbest, with a very long history of distorting facts and completely making stuff up to push his far right, often overtly racist agenda.

And there are some things to consider about Hoft’s claims this time as well, before lending them credibility they probably don’t deserve.

Here are the symptoms of an orbital blowout fracture:

The most common symptoms are bruising, tenderness and swelling around the eye; redness of the eye; double vision, ordiplopia (seeing two images at the same time); numbness of the cheek, nose or teeth; nose bleeds (epistaxis) [See figure 1]. Symptoms that typically indicate a more serious injury are pain on eye movement, double vision, air under the skin around the eye, and numbness of the cheek/mouth/nose on the side of the injury. Severe trauma may cause facial bone fractures, injury to the eye itself, and injuries to the skull/brain.

In the video taken by an eyewitness immediately after the shooting, officer Darren Wilson is seen walking calmly around the body with no signs of discomfort or injury, even though by this time he would have been in very serious pain.

YouTube

Also, no ambulance was called for Wilson, and no first aid was administered by other officers, which seems odd if he had indeed suffered this type of serious injury — or any injury at all.

And there’s more evidence that Hoft is trying to pull a fast one again; here is the original image posted at the AAPOS site, showing a CT scan of a blowout fracture (on the left), compared to the image posted at Gateway Pundit by Hoft (on the right):

Original example CT scan (L), compared to altered image posted by Jim Hoft (R)

Notice the difference? In the version posted by Jim Hoft, the text at bottom right that says “UNIV OF IOWA” has been crudely erased. Caught you, Jim.

Was Hoft trying to mislead his readers into thinking this was the actual X-ray (or CT scan) of Darren Wilson? His text does not make it clear it wasn’t Wilson’s CT scan — and the words “UNIV OF IOWA” have been blacked out, quite deliberately.

If Hoft’s intent was to mislead, it worked. All over Twitter and right wing blogs, the wingnuts are raving about “Darren Wilson’s X-ray” that shows a fractured eye socket — but this is just a generic example image of an unknown person’s CT scan.

Time will tell if Wilson is going to claim he had this type of injury, but nobody should take Jim Hoft’s word for it.

And one more point while I’m at it; Hoft writes:

This comes from a source within the Prosecuting Attorney’s office and confirmed by the St. Louis County Police.

If that’s true, it’s highly disturbing that the St. Louis prosecutor’s office and the St. Louis County police department are leaking information to a far right hateblogger known for his unrelenting dishonesty, who uses a white supremacist hate group as a source.