I will destroy the reputation of innocent people by spreading lies, and then win the heart of Molly Ringwald.

Here’s a fun game of conservative media telephone. The Hollywood Reporter reported last week that Americans living in Europe will have an Independence Day fund-raiser for the Obama campaign. Ben Shapiro at Breitbart.com turned that into an item implying, without saying, that Obama himself would be in Europe on the Fourth of July:

the Obama campaign is headed overseas — with its celebrity friends in tow. The European Obama campaign starts next week in Paris on July 4 That also may be the only place Obama can still find cheering throngs.

National Review’s Andrew McCarthy (not that Andrew McCarthy) linked to the item to assert that Obama himself would be in Paris on July 4. Karl Rove tweeted it. And now this has become one of those “facts” that Republican partisans know to be true but won’t be reported by the lying MSM.

Joel Mathis informed McCarthy that his item is utterly false. McCarthy, characteristically, did not care, though I suspect his editors will.

There’s always a cheap, easy joke to be made about a right-wing pundit named McCarthy. I try so hard to steer clear of them. But why must McCarthy engage in wild slander campaigns in which he impugns the patriotism of his enemies and ignores proof of their innocence? In the same vein, journalist Richard Blow is probably a decent guy and nobody would have made fun of his name if he hadn’t insisted on writing fawning profiles. If I had the last name Gambino, I would be really careful about threatening people. McCarthy’s approach seems to be to invite the most obvious mockery.

Update: After initially refusing, McCarthy now concedes on Twitter that his post was not true.