The Washington Times, particularly its editorial page, has a long history of advancing bizarre right-wing conspiracy theories enabling the conservative media echo-chamber to cite Ronald Reagan's paper-of-record with a legitimate sounding source for their daily screeds.

So how should one respond when the Times comes knocking with questions aimed at advancing the right's conspiracy theory du jour - the baseless notion that Team Obama was 'colluding' with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in filing a civil lawsuit accusing Goldman Sachs of fraud in order to create a “villain” to advance financial regulatory reform.

Politico's Ben Smith reports on one hilarious technique deployed in an effort to push back:

An editorial writer for the Washington Times called DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan, Sevugan says, earlier this afternoon to ask when, exactly, the DNC had purchased the search terms, “Goldman SEC.” The writer was checking out a theory -- current on the right -- that Democrats had bought ads against the terms “Goldman” and “SEC” before the Securities and Exchange Commission's charges were made public.

The theory depends on it taking quite a bit of time for Google's ad words program to make its way through the system, as the DNC says it bought the ads right after news of the charges broke Friday.

Sevugan proved his point with a thumb in the eye of the Times: He bought a new ad for the DNC, against the terms "Washington Times + purveyor + baseless Republican conspiracy theories."

“This just proves how silly this Republican conspiracy theory is and that it was being desperately spread by Republicans and their allies in the hopes of sullying efforts Wall Street reform. The truest thing about all of this conspiracy theory is what's in the search term we just bought,” Sevugan emails.

Long a money-losing joke, it's nice to see the Times get its comeuppance in such a humorous manner.