MSNBC retracts false Palin story; others duped

[dennis4868]

NEW YORK – MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, had come forth and identified himself as the source of a Fox News Channel story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent.

Eisenstadt identifies himself on a blog as a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. Yet neither he nor the institute exist; each is part of a hoax dreamed up by a filmmaker named Eitan Gorlin and his partner, Dan Mirvish, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

more...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081113/ap_en_tv/palin_hoax

I know the filmaker who is the hoaxter...what an idiot!

[MadBadger]

1. Shuster said it was a hoax literally five minutes later

[ErinBerin84]

6. yeah, and during it, he was like "I think it's a fake"

And then afterwards he confirmed it. It wasn'even the focus of the story they were doing, he was just talking to the strategists about the rumors. Stupid. It was supposed to be a fluff thing, like the "Did Obama flip Hillary off?" segment they did, with the strategists saying "nooo" during it.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

8. Yes, he did.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. The true importance of this hoax is how easily most believed it

to be true after witnessing what Mrs. Palin did on national television over and over again.

[Zynx]

3. The hoax does not have to do with the Africa bit. The only part that is a hoax is the

guy who was labeled as the source.

[GoesTo11]

4. Dan Rather rule: Makes the original problem untouchable

If they were hoaxed later about who did the leak, then the conventional wisdom becomes that the story was a hoax. This rule applies to Palin a lot.

[dennis4868]

5. Then who was the source?

how do we know the Africa bit is true?

[ErinBerin84]

9. On Hardball the other day

Chris Matthews said to Kelly O'DOnnell, "What does your reporting tell you, was there any indication that she did not know Africa was a continent?" and Kelly said "My reporting...aides were saying that she did not know that Africa was a continent..but the same aides gave her credit for at least making the effort to sit through long briefings", so whoever said it, it was more than one aide and they were talking to other reporters like Kelly and not just Carl from Fox. Who knows if it's true, but I was surprised that Kelly said that because usually she is pretty favorable to the McCain campaign..though I guess she can be more truthful now that the campaign is over.

[WritersBlock]

7. The story itself wasn't a hoax, otherwise Sarah would not have confirmed (and reinforced!) it.

"If there are allegations based on questions or comments I made in debate prep about NAFTA, about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context. And that's cruel, it's mean-spirited, it's immature, it's unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they came away with it taking things out of context, then tried to spread something on national news. It's not fair, it's not right," Palin said.

http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/582697.html

That's a direct quote from Sarah Palin herself, confirming right there that she didn't know during debate prep that Africa is not a country - and also that she hadn't bothered to educate herself since the story came out.