The paranoia over at Newsbusters is really getting out of hand.

They've been hyperventilating for months over the rather mundane fact that George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, James Carville and Rahm Emanuel talk on the telephone. (Newsflash! People who have been friends for two decades sometimes, uh ... talk to each other.)

Today, Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard goes so far as to write a convoluted post suggesting Stephanopoulos played a role in the creation of a DNC ad criticizing Republicans. In order to do so, Sheppard pretends that there is something unusual about a television reporter like Stephanopoulos asking a political figure about a television ad criticizing that politician. Such questions are beyond common; they are standard operating procedure, and have been for as long as television ads have existed. But to Sheppard, it's all part of a grand, secret conspiracy.

Meanwhile, Sheppard's colleague Warner Todd Huston has an overheated post headlined “Ultra Secret Website for Behind Scenes Media Planning Sessions Revealed.” Huston links a Politico article which, he says, “revealed the existence of a hush, hush web message board where denizens of the lefty media get together on a daily basis and plan how they will all cover the news for the great unwashed out there.”

That's not actually what the Politico article “revealed,” mind you, but that doesn't slow Huston down as he goes on about a “great cabal of underground left-wing plotters attempting to co-opt the message emanating from the bowls* of the Old Media.”

Huston and Sheppard seem to think they're on the verge of uncovering a vast conspiracy in which secretive liberals plot to undermine capitalism, stamp out religion, rob cavefish of their sight and rig every Oscar night.

What they have instead stumbled across is the fact that sometimes people talk on the telephone. They also sometimes send email. Some of those conversations are private. Scandal!

* I think he meant “bowels.”