i dont see the current levels of disinformation as a function of any "natural" process.
it is a function of a deliberate politics. this is what the conservative media apparatus does. that's it's stock in trade----it produces and repeats and provides velocity to and for this kind of politicized infotainment.
which is in this case a direct extension of the strategy developed by the right to enable it to run against its own record.
what the right is concerned with, really, judging from pretty much everything, is holding power. it is an end in itself.
the bush people left the republicans in a pretty shitty position at the end of its debacle of a period in office. apparently the decision got taken---let's pretend we're not the republicans exactly. and let's assume that people's memory really is the length of the last news cycle. and let's assume that people believe what they want to from within a range of prefabricated options. so by extension that politics is a consumer matter.
these statements circulate. everyone knows someone who believes one or more of them. they're mostly the sort of horseshit that the talking heads at fox or am radio pundits use alot. everyone knows they're out there.
the problem with the article, i suppose, is that it talks in terms of belief. what that opens up is the possibility for any given conservative to point at any one of the statements and say "i don't believe that" from which presumably it'd be possible to say "therefore everything is false."
which is unfortunate, giving an out like that.
paul krugman addresses much the same problem in todays ny times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/op...rugman.html?hp