Bill Ayers Punks Conservative Blogger

Let's put this one to bed right now.

Far-right sites have been spreading a post around today by blogger Anne Leary, who wrote that she ran into Obama acquaintance and 2008 election albatross Bill Ayers at an airport. Leary writes how Ayers, unprompted, unleashed a long-winded confession confirming one of the more absurd conspiracy theories floating around the fringes: that Ayers secretly authored Obama's bestselling memoir, Dreams From My Father.”

I emailed Ayers to see if he could shed any light on the story. His response:

“You've all lost your minds,” he wrote. “Best of luck in the twilight zone.”

That sounds simple enough. Already some of the bigger conservative bloggers, including National Review Online's Jonah Goldberg and Hot Air's Allahpundit have indicated that they don't take Leary's story too seriously, especially given that Ayers has a long history of deadpan responses along the lines of the one she described, as the Washington Independent's David Weigel reports. With any luck, that should be the end of things. But then again, the “death panels” and the birthers’ fantasies about Obama’s nationality are still in orbit, way out there in the blue.

Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.