In defense of Kellyanne Conway's astonishingly stupid microwave comment

Over the weekend, Kellyanne Conway talked some nonsense about microwaves. Which has put us in the unfortunate position of defending her nonsense.

"There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phone, through their television sets, any number of different ways, microwaves that turn into cameras," she told The Bergen Record. "That's just a fact of modern life."

The internet was swift to lol at Ms. Conway, who very clearly doesn't understand how technology works. There's no joy in defending her—recall that, as Trump's mouthpiece and de facto spokeslizard, she once invented a massacre and blamed refugees for it. And yet: while Conway's view on microwaves is both wildly ignorant and comically paranoid (no, they can't "turn into cameras"), her comment does carve out a piece of a much larger pie that we're all too happy to dine on.  Read more...