So the Joe Conason piece was indeed bogus......

[marmar]

Tuesday we posted what seemed like a very strange column by Joe Conason. It turns out that’s because it wasn’t his column.

“Rand Paul’s Plan to Save the Cities” seemed to deviate from Conason’s progressive point of view, but we’ve been running him for years and we weren’t about to censor him for taking a libertarian turn in one piece.

Today, Conason and his syndicate informed us that he did not write the column. We’re not sure what happened. The column was sent with Joe’s byline, so clearly there was a mistake.

Our apologies to Joe, who took a beating, as Christopher Moraff put it on Twitter. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/correction_joe_conason_did_not_write_rand_pauls_plan_to_save_the_cities_201?ln

[el_bryanto]

1. That's good to hear - I like Joe Conason (I think he bangs on about certain things too much)

But his book Big Lies was very good.

Bryant

[DonViejo]

2. Update:

Update: We’ve learned that Joseph Farah was the author of the column in question. Apologies to him, as well.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/correction_joe_conason_did_not_write_rand_pauls_plan_to_save_the_cities_201?ln

[spanone]

3. wtf? how the hell does that happen?

[JHB]

4. Conason attributed it to human error at Creator's Syndicate

Somebody queued up the wrong Joe's (Joseph Farah)'s column to run for Conason. Truthdig and others who run Conason's syndicated column picked it up automatically.

Depending on how they actually handle it, it could be as simple as a drag-and-drop error.

See the thread on it from the day:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4193322

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. Wow..not surprised to read that, since it was not at all like Joe's prior work.

[JHB]

6. What I found more troubling was the number of people who didn't...

...think to or bother with looking at some of Conason's recent stuff to see if he'd taken a turn into the Paulight Zone, and just assumed he had.

Even the most cursory look at his recent columns and tweets showed no sign of Paulophilia, and much that was at odds with the tone and take of that article.

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. Yep. A few years ago I read his book "Big Lies"...that's the Joe I know about....

the pro-Paul stuff would be bizarro world Joe!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. I read that column, and also thought it odd.

I'd been reading Conason for a long time and always found him to be reliably liberal - couldn't figure out why he'd gone over to the dark side with all that libertarian claptrap. It's nice to know he actually didn't write it.