De-evolution Of A Smear

Several days ago, Larry Johnson at No Quarter shocked the blogosphere by stating:

I now have it from two three four sources (three who are close to senior Republicans) that there is video dynamite–Michelle Obama railing against “whitey” at Jeremiah Wright’s church. Republicans may have a lousy record when it comes to the economy and the management of the war in Iraq, but they are hell on wheels when it comes to opposition research. Someone took the chance and started reviewing the recordings from services at Jeremiah Wright’s United Church of Christ. Holy smoke!!

This caused a flurry of blogs to start spreading this unsubstantiated rumour, essentially, as fact although no one has even seen this video.

Yesterday, however, in a shocking reversal of Darwinistic proportions, Larry Johnson then offers to his readers, "Who wants to be a millionaire?"

Here’s the news short and sweet–if you have a copy of the Michelle Obama video, in which she is lambasting white people (four different sources say she uses “whitey” as an epithet) at Jeremiah Wright’s church, then there is an ultra conservative Republican billionaire who wants to pay your $1 million dollars for the tape.

So what started as "two three four sources" for this outrageous video has now turned into a story of how regular readers can turn from rags to riches at the hands of a conservative, Republican, ultra-conservative, Billionaire Republican who is offering One Million Dollars (mwuahahahahaha~!) to anyone who can procure this video to him.

Funny it is, then, that Larry, using four unnamed sources on this scoop of a supposed video, three who are close to senior Republicans, posts about another unnamed ultra conservative Republican billionaire to get word out that A) he is offering $1,000,000 for the video and B) admitting that despite being ultra-conservative and a Republican, they can't get in touch directly with LJ's Republican sources to get the video for themselves.

Fancy that...

And yet, for all I know, there could be a video out there. But my skepticism of the existence of such a video is increasing day by day.

P.S. A couple things I'm pondering...

1. Does Larry Johnson get any form of compensation for recovery of this video from said billionaire? I think that's something that should be known.

2. Why are some Democrats so eager to help this Republican in his efforts to defeat John McCain when Democrats are overall and resoundingly confident that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are more than capable to take on and win in the primary against him?