The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Michael Hastings Conspiracy Theories: Missing the Real Mystery of His Death

Posted on | August 16, 2013 | 79 Comments

On June 19, the day Michael Hastings died, I remarked: “The conspiracy theorists have already gotten way ahead of me on this story.”

That day, I wrote a 2,000-word article for ViralRead (“The Short Career and Sudden Death of Michael Hastings“), and the next day I wrote another 500 words (“Michael Hastings Was ‘Paranoid’ About FBI Before Fatal Crash“). Then I wrote a long column for The American Spectator, “Hope, Fear and Michael Hastings”:

Scarcely had the charred remains of Michael Hastings been pried out of the wreckage of his Mercedes-Benz than conspiracy theorists began to suggest that the award-winning journalist’s fiery death was not an accident. Within 12 hours, it was reported that Hastings had told a lawyer before Tuesday’s fatal crash in Los Angeles that he was under investigation by the FBI. His friends soon confirmed that Hastings had been “paranoid … incredibly tense and very worried” about government surveillance, and the fevered imaginations of the kook fringe cooked up all sorts of wild-eyed claims: Hastings had been “murdered” or “assassinated” by a “car bomb,” perhaps by the CIA.
Welcome to America in 2013, where Hope and Change have transmogrified into Fear and Loathing, where even a liberal reporter who last year praised Obama as “one of the most talented politicians around” could not resist the pervasive paranoia inspired by what voters were once promised would be “the most transparent administration in history.” . . .

You can go read the whole thing, if you’ve never read it or if you need to remind yourself that Michael Hastings himself seems to have slipped over edge into paranoia before his death.

The idea that Michael Hastings was assassinated because he was “getting too close” to some hidden truth — the spy-thriller scenario, “The Man Who Knew Too Much” — was something I also explored in a 700-word article for ViralRead: “What ‘Big Story’ Was Michael Hastings Working On When He Died?” And the bottom line of that story is, Hastings seems to shown interest in three or four different stories, none of which looked like a motive to have him targeted for death by the Military-Industrial Complex or any other shadowy Force of Evil.

You kooks should stop using cheap tinfoil in your hats. Insist on premium Reynolds Wrap™  to block those CIA brain-control waves.

Mother Jones has an article about Examiner columnist Kimberly Dvorak’s writing on the death of Michael Hastings, “Meet the Journalist Spreading Michael Hastings Conspiracy Theories,” which stops just short of calling her a kook. Dvorak seems to be a conservative, and has actually gone to L.A. to try and report on the story, which is a hell of a lot more than some of Hastings’ liberal friends have bothered to do, but the problem is, she’s chasing the wrong story.

There is no reason to believe that the car accident was anything other than a car accident — insofar as a fatal crash is an “accident” when you’re driving a Mercedes-Benz sports coupe 100 mph down a city street at 4 o’clock in the morning.

The real story — and I’ve said this from the get-go — is why Michael Hastings was driving so fast at such an ungodly hour.

Frankly, I think Hastings had slipped back into the substance abuse that once caused him to drop out of college for a year, and I think those of his friends who know about his personal problems won’t say anything about this, out of respect for their deceased friend.

If you want to know what happened to Michael Hastings, you need to find out who he was hanging out with in the final week or so before that crash, and you especially need to look at why he was out on the streets of L.A. at 4 a.m. Had he been to a nightclub? Had he been to a party?

Had he been hooking up with call girls or strippers?

Was he abusing alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine?

Maybe I’ve missed something in the past two months. Maybe some mainstream reporter or one of Hastings’ left-wing buddies has told the story of why he was out on the streets at 4 a.m., but I don’t think so. No, I think that there is not a deliberate cover-up, but rather an embarrassed silence among the friends of Michael Hastings who know the real truth: He had a paranoid breakdown, or went off on a binge, or both.

They don’t won’t to admit their buddy freaked out, see? They want Michael Hastings to be remembered as a courageous journalistic hero, and so none of his friends are interested in telling the truth.

Conspiracy theories about Michael Hastings’ death gain traction because his liberal journalist friends are afraid to report the truth.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

 

Category: Conspiracy Theories, Fear. Loathing., Journalism

Comments

79 Responses to “Michael Hastings Conspiracy Theories: Missing the Real Mystery of His Death”

  1. TMLutas
    August 16th, 2013 @ 11:40 pm

    Challenges for the conspiracy theory:
    1. Who were the friends the FBI was interviewing? Did they have cards to contact anybody if they thought of something or saw something important later. You’d think they would.
    2. What happened to the reporter’s computer and notes which should have shown some sort of evidence of what he was looking into.
    3. Go look up other high profile cases like Whitney Houston and you will also find a long wait for toxicology. Don’t compare things with other jurisdictions with other procedures and budgets.

  2. Wombat_socho
    August 17th, 2013 @ 12:05 am

    I’d QC that stuff, especially if it was made in the last ten days of the month. What with so much of the old Soviet practices coming back under Putin and all.

  3. Micha_Elyi
    August 17th, 2013 @ 12:38 am

    …on a golf course.

  4. Micha_Elyi
    August 17th, 2013 @ 12:41 am

    Waiting for a car to come in for a smog check is too hit and miss. In California these days, a late model car could go for years before being tapped by the DMV for a smog test.

  5. Micha_Elyi
    August 17th, 2013 @ 12:42 am

    Joe Biden tells us ‘shame’ is a word with four letters.

  6. Abdi Abdo
    August 17th, 2013 @ 1:19 am

    He’d still be alive if he were driving a Prius.

  7. Finrod Felagund
    August 17th, 2013 @ 2:08 am

    Is anyone who drives a Prius truly living?

  8. gearbox123
    August 17th, 2013 @ 2:54 am

    LOL! (Or should that be Lolita?)

  9. K-Bob
    August 17th, 2013 @ 2:55 am

    Wake me up when they get to the part about the masonic symbols that keep appearing in his notes, and on random frames from the security cameras.

  10. TMLutas
    August 17th, 2013 @ 3:17 am

    The point is that by law, you’ve got to occasionally expose your car computer to the state and with no easy way to verify that the code you drove in with is the code you drove out with.

    It doesn’t have to be some sort of black helicopter government operation. Alternates include a foreign power and private operators seeking blackmail leverage with manufacturers.

    Eventually, the hostile code would tumble across a paranoid auto computer tweaker but they aren’t too big a community and it could take a long time.

  11. rmnixondeceased
    August 17th, 2013 @ 6:52 am

    Brett wishes for a Lolita…

  12. timmaguire
    August 17th, 2013 @ 6:58 am

    Conspiracy theories…gain traction because…liberal journalist[s]…are afraid to report the truth.

    That’d be a first.

  13. rmnixondeceased
    August 17th, 2013 @ 7:01 am

    Really? Show me where any liberal journ0list has published any truth in the last 20 years …

  14. ThomasD
    August 17th, 2013 @ 7:30 am

    It’s the finest quality metal foil!

    So what if it ‘s made from lead shielding stripped from the Chernobyl containment dome…

  15. larsoneric50
    August 17th, 2013 @ 8:35 am

    Michael Hastings Conspiracy Theories: Missing the Real Mystery of His Death http://t.co/LD4qlznY3E

  16. douginsd
    August 17th, 2013 @ 10:09 am

    Correct. Six years when new, then every two years, unless you were a gross polluter. That does not add up to an effective strategy

  17. Yehiel
    August 17th, 2013 @ 11:38 am

    Just because it’s a conspiracy theory doesn’t mean it isn’t
    true. CIA(CYA nowadays), NSA, IRS etc.

  18. Yehiel
    August 17th, 2013 @ 11:39 am

    Michael Moore – the dancing pig.

  19. Anthony_A
    August 17th, 2013 @ 11:58 am

    Al Gore’s kid. The one who taught the rest of us that you can take a Prius up to 100mph..

  20. Listen: McCain and Akbar Speak on #FreeKate, Michael Hastings, Barrett Brown, the NSA and Power… : The Other McCain
    August 17th, 2013 @ 2:38 pm

    […] where it will decided whether or not Kaitlyn Hunt violated the conditions of her bond, journalist Michael Hastings not-so-mysterious death, Barrett Brown’s meltdown, the Washington Post exclusive exposé in which they tell of the […]

  21. DaveO
    August 17th, 2013 @ 3:17 pm

    RSM’s questioned what he missed. I answered that the means of murder is available, and is not science fiction. Motive (love, lust, or lucre) and opportunity (while the car was parked) are outside my answer.

  22. timmaguire
    August 17th, 2013 @ 6:54 pm

    No truth in 20 years? That seems a bit extreme.

  23. Third News
    August 17th, 2013 @ 7:50 pm

    @Micha_Elyi The problem with quoting rules, is typically one fails to follow thru on exceptions.

    California’s program includes a reporting a smoggy car/ dial #SMOG service. Ergo, not as hit&miss as you claim.

    I’m interested in the possibilities, without respect to a conspiracy/crime

  24. TMLutas
    August 17th, 2013 @ 8:11 pm

    You seem to imagine I was criticizing your technical analysis. If I was, it was that you missed a possible vector and the problem is more serious than you laid out.

  25. TMLutas
    August 17th, 2013 @ 8:11 pm

    Well, zombie Nixon’s gotten less moderate over time.

  26. werewife
    August 17th, 2013 @ 9:26 pm

    Point taken.
    G-d, I miss Andrew Breitbart….

  27. Linda Starr
    August 18th, 2013 @ 3:29 am

    “According to the official story, Hastings was traveling at 100 miles per hour when he hit a tree, causing his 2013 Mercedes Benz C250 to explode and burst into flames. San Diego Channel 6’s Kimberly Dvorak contacted a San Diego State University professor of Mechanics to analyze newly unearthed video of Hastings’ vehicle seconds before the so-called crash. The professor stated that Hastings was only traveling 35 miles per hour, not 100 miles per hour as investigators claim. Further, according to Dvorak, a witness states that the vehicle blew up before it hit the tree. The unearthed video seems to corroborate this, as multiple explosions occur prior to the vehicle coming to rest at the base of the tree, not to mention the fact that there was minimal damage to the tree. Further, the engine and drivetrain were ejected several hundred feet from the vehicle at a ninety degree angle to the direction of travel. According to the laws of physics, this is impossible. This proves the vehicle exploded before hitting the tree.”

    http://www.westernjournalism.com/was-obamas-cia-chief-behind-journalists-murder/

  28. Steynian 487nd | Free Canuckistan!
    August 18th, 2013 @ 12:30 pm

    […] Reece, Birchers, Buckley and the Attack on Diana West; Michael Hastings Conspiracy Theories: Missing the Real Mystery of His Death; LIVE AT FIVE: 8.16.13; Prosecutors: Kaitlyn Hunt Violated Order, Sent Messages, ‘Lewd’ Photos […]

  29. HarryUSA
    August 22nd, 2013 @ 11:27 am

    The truth is relative to liberals, leftists and stateists. I find it entertaining to hear the NPR spin, at the same time many people actually believe it is news.