I hate conspiracy theories, especially blogging about them. Even more do I hate spending my time checking them out to see whether they have any merit. That's because few reasonable people care. Reasonable people don't waste time with conspiracy theories, and tend not to believe them. So, if a conspiracy theory is "debunked," the reaction of reasonable people is a collective "so what?"

OTOH, to the people who believe in conspiracy theories, there is no such thing as debunking. To the contrary; the latest scientific evidence is that debunking only heightens their determination to hold firm, dig in their heels, and relentlessly present "The Truth" -- and save the rest of us miserable people from our complacent selves.

So, trust me when I say that few things are more tedious than what I did last night, which was to stream a very tedious BBC broadcast and listen in the hope of verifying the "evidence" in support of recent contention that not only was last week's economic bailout a Bish coup, but that sinister Bush coups run in the sinister Bush family.

Oh yes:

The Bush family, in the form of Prescott Bush, has tried a more aggressive coup before in order to install fascism in this country. This treasonous plot was called "the Business Plot," because the high-level plotters - including Prescott Bush - were Wall Street men who openly supported fascism.

It seems this time around, the Bush family is trying the more subtle approach to open bloodshed: first create a crisis, then under the guise of addressing that crisis, overthrow democracy. Yes, it does sound terribly conspiracy-theory-esque when explained just this way. But what else does one call a criminal conspiracy to destroy Congressional powers permanently, alter Judicial powers permanently, and steal public funds?

But for the "coups are a Bush family tradition" meme I would not have had much to add. And frankly, if the same argument had been made a writer at Rense.com or some other conspiracy site, I would not have bothered to examine the "evidence." The problem is, the author in question here -- Larisa Alexandrovna -- happens to be the managing news editor for Raw Story. The latter is a site I visit regularly, and while I knew it was liberal in its orientation, reading that the news editor thinks this way hardly inspires confidence.

Nor is the author backing down from her claim of Prescott Bush's 1933 coup involvement. She has attacked her critics as "right wing idiots," and at her blog she also maintains -- apparently seriously -- that this is no conspiracy theory:

Another one [critic] actually thinks that the infamous Business Plot is a conspiracy theory. So much for history lessons. Who needs them anyway, right?

Again, here's the "history" this Raw Story editor believes is so settled as to be beyond dispute:

This treasonous plot was called "the Business Plot," because the high-level plotters - including Prescott Bush - were Wall Street men who openly supported fascism.

Here's how it is described -- by the BBC:

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush's Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

I hate seeing shit like that late on a Sunday night. Honestly, it felt like homework. Very ugly homework.

But like the dutiful schoolboy I never really wanted to be, I did my duty, and I found the entirety of the interview archived here, and I listened for more than 27 minutes.

At no point is there any allegation that Prescott Bush was involved in the Business Plot.

From the show, starting at 20:07:

...a shipping company called HAL was accused of providing free passage to Germany to American journalists willing to write favorable copy on Hitler's rise to power. The company is also alleged to have brought Nazi spies and pro-fasicst sympathizers into America.

John Buchanan has studied this latest section of the report and has discovered that one of the company's managers came from a very famous family:

"The thing that surprised me the most was to discover in the documents that this company Hamburg America Lines had in fact been been managed on the managed on the US side at the executive level by Prescott Bush, as part of a web of Nazi business interests that were all seized in late 1942 under the Trading With The Enemy act by the US Congress, and Prescott Bush is the grandfather of the sitting president of the United States."

In short, there's nothing whatsoever to tie Prescott Bush to the coup. (Ironically, Ms. Alexandrovna is right to maintain that this is no conspiracy theory, because there's no evidence to support it.)

This is confirmed in Prescott Bush's wiki entry, which contains a heading titled Alleged plot to overthrow FDR:

On July 23, 2007, the BBC Radio 4 series Document reported on the alleged Business Plot and the archives from the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings. The program does not in any way state or imply that Prescott Bush was involved in the plot. The program mentioned Bush's directorship of the Hamburg-America Line, a company that the committee investigated for Nazi propaganda activities, and the alleged 1933 attempt, supposedly led by Gerald MacGuire, to stage a military coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt aimed at forcing Roosevelt to resign (or, failing that, to assassinate him) and at installing a fascist dictatorship in the United States. [6]

However, it's simply inaccurate for Wiki to say that the program "does not in any way state or imply that Prescott Bush was involved in the plot" -- because the program description clearly states exactly that. Again, the BBC:

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bushâs Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

I suspect that some of the people citing the radio show as "proof" have not listened to it, but instead rely solely on the description.

Whether this was a complete waste of time, I don't know. Those who want to believe Prescott Bush was involved in a coup may have an emotional need to believe that, so in that sense this is -- and always will remain -- undebunkable.

This reminds me of the time I listened to a long radio interview with a crackpot who claimed he enjoyed sex and drugs with Barack Obama (and that the latter had acted as a sort of limousine tour guide even though he was a state representative at the time). I thought it was absolute nonsense, but I slogged through it, and eventually, the man's story was debunked. But at least there was an actual allegation made during the radio interview to be believed or disbelieved depending on whether you're a conspiracy theorist.

In contrast, here there is no accuser, and no accusation.

I don't think this rises to the level of a conspiracy theory.

(Even for unreasonable people.)

MORE: Back in 2004, Hugh Hewitt said something in another context that I think might -- and I mean might -- be helpful here:

It would not be hard for intelligence services from around the world to build blogs with an intent to deceive or manipulate, putting out solid content to gain an initial audience before using it to disseminate disinformation intentionally.

Of course, there's no showing that any intelligence service has been involved in promoting the "Bush family coup" disinformation.

For starters, the BBC is not a blog.