My immediate response to Marc would be that to understand Townhall is to understand that we represent a broad array of conservative voices and opinions. In fact, we do not even publish editorials or take editorial positions.

But!

I am of the opinion that anyone advancing the notion that Obama is not a citizen, and thus not qualified to become president, is actually undermining the conservative cause. Sadly, this ridiculous “conspiracy theory” will only serve to undermine the legitimate attacks on Obama, by casting us all in the role of zealots.

Which is great. But! This Townhall guy (Matt Lewis; I’ve never heard of him) doesn’t really address the opinion of Townhall as a whole, or his opinion of Townhall if they are accepting cash from conspiracy groups he hates in order the have Townhall advise to said groups. Which makes me wonder… If a pro-choice organization ponied up the cash and told Townhall, “Here’s the dough, now email our ad to your Spotlight listserv”, would they do it?

Probably not.

Yet Townhall is more than willing to email an advertisement making false and ridiculous claims against the next president of the United States, who they don’t ideologically agree with. I suuuuure this is all a coincidence.

What a bunch of teabags. This is the state of the conservative movement in a nutshell, and we saw this all throughout the Bush years and the McCain campaign: Say the most extreme and slanderous thing possible, then attribute it to the supposed extremists of your side. The act gets old. One either means what they say (through allowing advertising of otherwise) or doesn’t say it at all. By allowing extremist conspiracy theories to be aired, Townhall demonstrates that such theories are not on the fringes of conservative thought. Far from it.