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Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.
And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.
Yep. The MSM has lowered itself to airing unvetted, malicious rumors now.
Yep. The MSM has lowered itself to airing unvetted, malicious rumors now.
You must have missed the first paragraph of the NYT article, which states, "It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent."
The Africa story started with Fox on O'Reilly's show. MSNBC's and The New Republic's mistake was attributing the comments to the made up Eisenstadt, who "claimed credit."
Last edited by helenejen; 11-12-2008 at 10:20 PM..
You must have missed the first paragraph of the NYT article, which states, "It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent."
The Africa story started with Fox on O'Reilly's show. MSNBC's and The New Republic's mistake was attributing the comments to the made up Eisenstadt, who "claimed credit."
all true.
but fox at least was bright enough to treat the whole episode with a degree of skepticism, seeing that it came from unnamed sources.
then the same 'FAUX NOOZ'-shrieking usual suspects on this forum, unexpectedly, ate it up without a second thought.
all true.
but fox at least was bright enough to treat the whole episode with a degree of skepticism, seeing that it came from unnamed sources.
then the same 'FAUX NOOZ'-shrieking usual suspects on this forum, unexpectedly, ate it up without a second thought.
it made me lol.
Things are easy to believe when it doesn't take much stretch of the imagination. Given the many things she's said, it wouldn't be a total shock if she wasn't entirely clear on the status of Africa. Furthermore, many Americans probably *know* Africa is a continent if they think about it, but tend to refer to it like a country, which leads to some people getting the two concepts confused. If that was the case for her, she'd be like many Americans.
Now, if the story was that McCain had said Africa was a country, 99% of people (including Obama supporters) would not believe it, because he's shown himself to be knowledgeable about the world.
all true.
but fox at least was bright enough to treat the whole episode with a degree of skepticism, seeing that it came from unnamed sources.
then the same 'FAUX NOOZ'-shrieking usual suspects on this forum, unexpectedly, ate it up without a second thought.
it made me lol.
There was NO skepticism, on the part of Fox, when that story was reported. I never watch Fox News, but I was curious about what O'Reilly would say the day after the election, so I watched. I couldn't believe it when that Cameron guy was telling O'Reilly all that stuff about Palin (Africa, NAFTA, tantrums, shopaholic, wearing only a towel, etc.). Neither Cameron nor O'Reilly was skeptical in the least, which really surprised me. (I think there was a "Palin Thrown Under the Bus" thread that started on this forum that night.) Here's a link to the actual report on Fox: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8VOciA8LxY. O'Reilly's response was that Palin could be "tutored" to learn about these things and commended Cameron for his "good reporting."
But as far as I know, the story about Palin's confusion about Africa hasn't been proven false. In fact, Palin's first comments about that controversy, which she described as "the continent versus the country," certainly make it seem plausible that Palin didn't realize that Africa is a continent: "'If there are allegations based on questions or comments that I made in debate prep about NAFTA, and about the continent vs. the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context,' she said." Um, if Africa the country doesn't exist, how could there be a "continent versus country" discussion during debate prep?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081107/ap_on_el_pr/palin_clothing#full (broken link)
Last edited by helenejen; 11-12-2008 at 10:51 PM..
Network runs correction on air after reporting an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about Sarah Palin, information stemming from a hoax.
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.
The Eisenstadt claim had mistakenly been delivered to Shuster by a producer and was used in a political discussion Monday afternoon, MSNBC said.
"The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air," said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. "We recognized the error almost immediately and ran a correction on air within minutes."
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MSNBC Retracts False Palin Story; Others Duped
