Microwaves may be spying on you, suggests Kellyanne Conway

Controversy machine, couch-sitter, and presidential aide Kellyanne Conway is back in the fight after addressing accusations that the Trump campaign was wiretapped, as the president alleged during an early morning tweet storm over a week ago.

And that's where we get our latest Kellyanne Head-Scratcher. During an interview with The Bergen Record, Conway discussed those wiretapping allegations and, during one exchange when the questioner asks point blank about those allegations, made the following claim:

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Said Conway, "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, etc. So we know that's just a fact of modern life."

What is she talking about?

Now, most of that is true, as we know thanks to last week's big WikiLeaks dump. Smart phones and smart televisions are vulnerable (as the Trump administration should know after their foolhardy behavior at Mar-A-Lago when aides used their smart phones' lights to read classified documents).

But microwaves becoming a camera? That's... not a thing. I have no idea what article Conway was referencing but it's probable she's getting microwave ovens confused with microwave cameras, which, yes, can be used for surveillance purposes.

Or she's referencing this smart toaster oven from June which does connect to WiFi and has a camera inside for watching your food cook in case the glass door of the oven isn't enough for you.

And this matters because...?

Okay, fine, she got things confused and misspoke. It's hardly the first time. But it's also significant because she was answering a question about specific allegations made by President Trump against President Obama.

Understandably, people interpreted her answer as backing Trump's claim, an affirmation that there were a wide range of ways the Obama administration was listening in to the Trump campaign.

But Conway is already saying that angle is totes not true.

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And she's been all across television Monday morning, addressing the allegations and claiming she doesn't have evidence of such tampering, she was just talking about surveillance in general. Speaking to CNN, she even claims that, no, she doesn't think a microwave can spy on you.

Suggesting nefarious doings and then walking it back with a significant lack of finesse has become so familiar we might as well start calling the move "The Kellyanne Two-Step."

It's most evident in her CNN interview when she quips, "I'm not in the job of having evidence. That's what investigations are for."

Then her job is apparently floating broad, highly suggestive ideas absent any specific evidence and blaming the media when she has to walk it all back. Got it.

She also was grilled by George Stephanopoulos on ABC on the same topic and said, indignantly, "Of course I don't have any evidence for those allegations. And that answer has nothing to do with what the president said last week."

So Conway said that microwaves can spy on us but then said she knows that's not true. Why say it then, and look like your aunt who just skims headlines on her Facebook feed?

Because it allows to perpetuate conspiracy theories in a back-handed "I'm not saying, but I'm saying" kind of way.

By rattling off the ways someone could spy on you using surveillance, she's still implanting the idea in the news cycle no matter if she changes her mind or not. It doesn't make what she said any more true, but the chicanery continues to carry a stench that turns heads away from bigger—and more concrete—problems and obfuscates the entire process.