As reported yesterday by LGF contributor Philosophus Invidius, a Las Vegas man named Larry Pfeifer pulled quite a prank on right wing blogs, by claiming to have seen Harry Reid’s brother at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where he said he’d beaten up a relative — implying that the relative was his brother, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

For the past month the wingnut crowd has been hyperventilating over Harry Reid’s recent facial injuries, even concocting and circulating stories that it was due to a beating by mobsters. They refuse to believe it was caused by an exercise band accident as Reid said, mocking the idea that this kind of accident could cause such severe injuries.

So Pfeifer’s hoax was cleverly designed to play into this conspiracy theory, by giving them a slightly more believable story. And sure enough, it immediately spread throughout the right wing echo chamber, even making it onto the radio shows of Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh.

You can imagine the damaged egos that resulted when Pfeifer revealed his hoax to the Las Vegas Sun, and no ego is more damaged than Powerline blogger John Hinderaker’s; he posted a rather hilarious attempt to make excuses for falling for the hoax: What Really Happened to Harry Reid? Part 5 [Updated].

Yes, this is is Hinderaker’s FIFTH post on this crazed right wing delusion.

Hinderaker’s post boils down to a rant about Larry Pfeifer being a “liar,” which of course is self-evident. It was a hoax, after all. And it’s incredibly revealing that Hinderaker and practically every right wing blogger on the web just went for it without suspecting it might be false (as if the name Pfeifer used, “Easton Elliot,” wasn’t a dead giveaway by itself) — because these people are so deranged and irrational at this point that they’ll basically fall for anything negative about one of their perceived enemies.

I won’t bother going through Hinderaker’s self-aggrandizing rant line by line; it’s not worth the effort. Instead of admitting he got played, apologizing and retracting his post, he goes on the attack against the guy who punked him. But his opening paragraph shows how ridiculous he is on this subject:

I have written about the severe injuries that Harry Reid mysteriously sustained on New Year’s Eve or New Years Day on five occasions: here, here, here here and here. In each of those posts, I expressed skepticism that Reid’s injuries, including the loss of sight in his right eye, broken facial bones, severe bruising down his right jaw, a concussion and multiple broken ribs, were the result of a breaking elastic exercise band-or, as Reid later changed his story to claim, a slipping exercise band. My constant theme has been to call for an investigation of what appear to be obviously suspicious circumstances, along with contradictory accounts coming from Harry Reid and his office.

Yes, he’s written over and over and over about Harry Reid’s facial injuries, and his “skepticism” that they could possibly have been caused by an exercise band injury — apparently without ever Googling “exercise band injuries” to see if there are any other accounts of similar injuries.

Which, of course, there are; for example:

Woman Injured at Manhattan Gym, Sues for $1M.

A woman has slapped her Manhattan health club with a $1 million lawsuit after leaving a fitness class in far worse shape than she started.

Elizabeth Lapp claims she suffered severe injuries, including permanent loss of vision, when an exercise resistance band snapped loose from her foot and “abruptly and violently” hit her in both eyes.

Sounds a lot like what happened to Harry Reid, doesn’t it?

These kinds of injuries are unfortunately rather common, and this is far from the only report; Google it for yourself and see. And then you’ll have done more research than John Hinderaker.