Last week, right-wing bloggers were frantically trying to claim that John Patrick Bedell, who was killed after he opened fired on Pentagon security officers, was a loony liberal and that Bedell's attacks had nothing to do with the increasing bouts of anti-government violence spreading on the far-ring end of the political spectrum.

The supposed proof of Bedell's liberal leanings seemed pretty thin. But this one concocted by Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit was almost comical in the sheer dishonesty of the charge [emphasis added]:

UPDATE: So... Will the state-run media report this?
The Pentagon shooter is linked to several gay rights groups along with PETA, NPR, various drug legalization orgs, Greenpeace and Al Franken.

Oh my, Bedell was linked to lots of liberal groups and even a lib senator. But when readers clicked on the Gateway Pundit link, they ended up at Left Coast Rebel, which tried to deduce all kinds of information about Bedell from his Facebook page:

I don't have access or visibility to Bedell's profile or friends. What I do have though is a list of the friends that his profile is linked to. Right off the bat I see several middle eastern sounding names many students. A large number of Bedell's friends seem to be of Indian descent - not surprising considering John Bedell's tech/science background. I even see actress Mary Bradley on here as well.

I found friends of Bedell were linked to several gay rights activist groups along with PETA, NPR, various drug legalization organizations, Greenpeace, Al Franken and a whole bunch of other stuff.

The right-wing blogger didn't have access to Bedell's FB profile, but the blogger did get to poke around Bedell's friends and found out Bedell's FB friends linked to some liberal orgs and pols. So what does Gateway Pundit do? He announces that Bedell was “linked” to the liberals outposts and politicians. Why? Because Bedell's FB friends had associations with them.

That's right, according to Hoft's fool-proof logic, every Facebook user is now “linked to” every group and interest that their hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of FB friends connect to.

Nifty trick, eh?

Behold “conservative journalism.”