Allan, I'll amend my title: "The Fear of Being Fooled by the Establishment"! Conspiracy theories tend to argue against institutions, seeing them as dark and devious monolith powers that use propaganda to lie to, deceive, and control the common citizen. The fact that so many people fall for these anti-extablishment hoaxes was my concern.   

As far as the Wilson/Plame affair, I think it's more a case of people who knew the truth (there WAS no conspiracy), but they hate the Bush administration so much that they claimed they were victims to further their own political agenda. They're the ones guilty of telling "the Big Lie" ... and they're not about to admit that it was anything else because that lie continues to serve their ends.   

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[DRC]

I wonder how much of this distrust of "the Establishment" dates from Watergate? I personally don't have the historical perspective to say for sure (I was alive at the time, but was much more concerned with learning to use the toilet by myself than what the president was up to), but it seems as if Watergate signaled a fundemental shift in how the public viewed government. Does anyone know, did the theories of a second shooter at JFK's assasination start right away, or did they not appear until after Watergate?

In other words, this is all Chuck Colson's fault ;)