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who cares ...it's over.....they lost...
at the MSM and you re s who believe anything you hear.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/ar...13hoax.html?em
A Senior Fellow at the Ins ute of Nonexistence
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.
Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.
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 Ins ute 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.
Now a pair of obscure filmmakers say they created Martin Eisenstadt to help them pitch a TV show based on the character. But under the cir stances, why should anyone believe a word they say?
“That’s a really good question,” one of the two, Eitan Gorlin, said with a laugh.
(For what it’s worth, another reporter for The New York Times is an acquaintance of Mr. Gorlin and vouches for his iden y, and Mr. Gorlin is indeed “Mr. Eisenstadt” in those videos. He and his partner in deception, Dan Mirvish, have entries on the Internet Movie Database, imdb.com. But still. ...)
They say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere.
“With the 24-hour news cycle they rush into anything they can find,” said Mr. Mirvish, 40.
Mr. Gorlin, 39, argued that Eisenstadt was no more of a joke than half the bloggers or political commentators on the Internet or television.
An MSNBC spokesman, Jeremy Gaines, explained the network’s misstep by saying someone in the newsroom received the Palin item in an e-mail message from a colleague and assumed it had been checked out. “It had not been vetted,” he said. “It should not have made air.”
But most of Eisenstadt’s victims have been bloggers, a reflection of the sloppy speed at which any tidbit, no matter how specious, can bounce around the Internet. And they fell for the fake material despite ample warnings online about Eisenstadt, including the work of one blogger who spent months chasing the illusion around cyberspace, trying to debunk it.
The hoax began a year ago with short videos of a parking valet character, who Mr. Gorlin and Mr. Mirvish said was the original idea for a TV series.
Soon there were videos showing him driving a car while spouting offensive, opinionated nonsense in praise of Rudolph W. Giuliani. Those videos attracted tens of thousands of Internet hits and a bit of news media attention.
When Mr. Giuliani dropped out of the presidential race, the character morphed into Eisenstadt, a parody of a blowhard cable news commentator.
Mr. Gorlin said they chose the name because “all the neocons in the Bush administration had Jewish last names and Christian first names.”
Eisenstadt became an adviser to Senator John McCain and got a blog, updated occasionally with comments claiming insider knowledge, and other bloggers began quoting and linking to it. It mixed weird-but-true items with false ones that were plausible, if just barely.
The inventors fabricated the Harding Ins ute, named for one of the most scorned presidents, and made Eisenstadt a senior fellow.
It didn’t hurt that a man named Michael Eisenstadt is a real expert at the Washington Ins ute for Near East Policy and is quoted in the mainstream media. The real Mr. Eisenstadt said in an interview that he was only dimly aware of the fake one, and that his main concern was that people understood that “I had nothing to do with this.”
Before long Mr. Gorlin and Mr. Mirvish had produced a short do entary on Martin Eisenstadt, supposedly for the BBC, posted in several parts on YouTube.
In June they produced what appeared to be an interview with Eisenstadt on Iraqi television promoting construction of a casino in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Then they sent out a news release in which he apologized. Outraged Iraqi bloggers protested the casino idea.
Among the Americans who took that bait was Jonathan Stein, a reporter for Mother Jones. A few hours later Mr. Stein put up a post on the magazine’s political blog, with the le “Hoax Alert: Bizarre ‘McCain Adviser’ Too Good to Be True,” and explained how he had been fooled.
In July, after the McCain campaign compared Senator Barack Obama to Paris Hilton, the Eisenstadt blog said “the phone was burning off the hook” at McCain headquarters, with angry calls from Ms. Hilton’s grandfather and others. A Los Angeles Times political blog, among others, retold the story, citing Eisenstadt by name and linking to his blog.
Last month Eisenstadt blogged that Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, Joe the Plumber, was closely related to Charles Keating, the disgraced former savings and loan chief. It wasn’t true, but other bloggers ran with it.
Among those taken in by Monday’s confession about the Palin Africa report was The New Republic’s political blog. Later the magazine posted this atop the entry: “Oy — this would appear to be a hoax. Apologies.”
But the truth was out for all to see long before the big-name take-downs. For months sourcewatch.org has identified Martin Eisenstadt as a hoax. When Mr. Stein was the victim, he blogged that “there was enough info on the Web that I should have sussed this thing out.”
And then there is William K. Wolfrum, a blogger who has played Javert to Eisenstadt’s Valjean, tracking the hoaxster across cyberspace and repeatedly debunking his claims. Mr. Gorlin and Mr. Mirvish praised his tenacity, adding that the news media could learn something from him.
“As if there isn’t enough misinformation on this election, it was shocking to see so much time wasted on things that didn’t exist,” Mr. Wolfrum said in an interview.
And how can we know that Mr. Wolfrum is real and not part of the hoax?
Long pause. “Yeah, that’s a tough one.”
who cares ...it's over.....they lost...
This article said nothing about the Palin stories' being false -- just that a fic ious blogger took credit for the leak.
It also didn't say whether Africa is a continent or a country. I need to know for a bet.
Dude, you cannot be this stupid. The "source" was a hoax but the stories are true? She was running around shopping at Saks but nobody ever recognized her and the media who was following her every move never saw her shopping?
I guess you just want to cling to your beliefs no matter what. At least FOX News has the courage to own up to their mistake. The headline they are going with is "MSNBC Duped"
I'm just going by the article. From what i heard the Africa thing was more asking a clarification whether the whole continent was being discussed or just something like South Africa. Fox seemed to distort that into not knowing Africa was a continent.
Where do you see Fox owning up to their mistake?
Last edited by ChumpDumper; 11-13-2008 at 02:49 PM.
Maybe you should read the AP story on the Fox site in its entirety.
It says exactly what I did, dumbass.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11...n-story-duped/
Seventh paragraph, if you have trouble finding it.
Finished it yet?
Trying to find a way to deny it?
Thinking up a change of subject to save yourself further embarrassment?
LOL at anyone who actually BELIEVED Palin didn't know Africa was a continent.
As it's a pitbull thread:
Sarah Palin Baffles Reporters By Rehashing Stump Speech At RGA Conference
"Jonathan Capehart told MSNBC's David Shuster, "I watched her entire speech, and I had to remind myself that the election was a week ago, and this was not a McCain/Palin rally." Is that crazy white-haired lady who thought Obama was "an Arab" a Republican Governor? Probably! "Everything you heard at a McCain/Palin rally since she was selected as the Vice Presidential nominee since September, and even down to the same rhetoric was in that speech," said Capehart."
========
She's so weird, I bet she would be tested as mentally deranged to some degree.
That was sarcasm
Ah, changing the subject it is!That was sarcasm
Now flat out denial is the order of the day.
1) It is not a Fox News story. It is a story from the AP.
2) It states quite plainly that the actual charges in the story have nothing to do with the hoax. The hoax has to do with the person claiming to be the source of the information, not the information itself.
Read paragraph seven slowly. Get someone to help you, because you don't understand the words.
Here is the AP link.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j...DqNRAD94DQU5O0
It's still in paragraph seven.
It's still owning you.
Does anyone care what she thinks about anything? She showed a lack of knowledge and even basic interest in a lot of issues, and now we are supposed to care what she thinks.Capehart added, "She needs to stop." And, according to David Shuster, 52% of people polled agree that it's time for Sarah Palin to go home.
...
Last edited by Bender; 11-13-2008 at 04:03 PM.
i see that if you peel off that black sticker, you get down to the white goodness.
have you ever heard of "discretion"?
This just in: Sarah Palin thinks Alaska is a country -- not a state.
Believe it.
i would absolutely love to see palin win the republican primaries in 2012.
Great. Not only are the unnamed sources, unnamed... They are also not real!
It doesn't surprise me that people like Dan Mirvish
are the culprits. A former speech writer for Tom Harkin (democrat Ohio.) A partisan attack by an alias of a democrat pundit rather than any internal strife inside the McCain camp.
Seriously. You guys need to learn how to read.
Actually, her husband was a member of a political party that wants Alaska to be a country -- not a state.
Why do liberals like you so easily accept the media's lies and propaganda?
Todd Palin was a member of the party that this is attributed to. However, that is not part of the parties beliefs. Some of the members advocated such a belief. Not the party as a whole.
Please keep up with the facts.
Yeah, it's called the Alaska Independence Party because they don't want to be independent!
Fools!
Not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservative.
- John Stuart Mill
The statement you quote, I was aware of. It has the option of being a state without saying they prefer otherwise. You see, the natives of Alaska were not part of the voting process to be a state. They simply want a valid statewide vote. Dig a little deeper, on what the members say:
AIP Platform:
Platform and Goal of the Alaskan Independence Party
Preamble:
We affirm that all political power is inherent in the people; that all government originates with the people, is founded on their will only, is ins uted to protect the rights of the individual; that all persons have a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the rewards of their own industry; that all persons are equal and en led to equal protection under the law. We stand on a firm cons utional foundation.
Platform.
We pledge to exert our best efforts to accomplish the following:
1. To effect full compliance with the cons utions of the United States of America and the State of Alaska.
2. To support and defend States' Rights, Individual Rights, Property Rights, and the Equal Footing Doctrine as guaranteed by the cons utions of the United States of America and the state of Alaska.
3. To advocate the convening of a State Cons utional Convention at the cons utionally designated 10 year interval.
4. To reinforce the unalienable rights endowed by our Creator to Alaska law, by eliminating the use of the word "privilege" in the Alaska statutes.
5. To amend the Cons ution of the State of Alaska so as to re-establish the rights of all Alaskan residents to entry upon all public lands within the state, and to acquire private property interest there in, under fair and reasonable conditions. Such property interest shall include surface and sub-surface patent.
6. To foster a cons utional amendment abolishing and prohibiting all property taxes.
7. To seek the complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska in conformance with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, of the federal cons ution.
8. To prohibit all bureaucratic regulations and judicial rulings purporting to have the effect of law, except that which shall be approved by the elected legislature.
9. To preserve and protect the Alaska Permanent Fund, Permanent fund earnings, earnings reserve fund and individual Permanent Fund Dividends.
10. To provide for the direct popular election of the attorney general, all judges, and magistrates.
11. To provide for the development of unrestricted, statewide, surface transportation and utility corridors as needed by the public or any individual.
12. To affirm and assert every possible right-of-way established under R.S. 2477 of July 26, 1866, before its repeal by the Federal Land Management Policy Act of October 21, 1976.
13. To support the right of the individual to keep and bear arms.
14. To support the complete abolition of the concept of sovereign or governmental immunity, so as to restore accountability for public servants.
15. To support the rights of parents to privately or home school their children.
16. To support the privatization of government services.
17. To oppose the borrowing of money by government for any purposes other than for capital improvements.
18. To strengthen the traditional family and support individual accountability without government interference or regulation.
19. To support the right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, according to their conscience.
20. To support "Jobs for Alaskans...First!"
Confirmed by Statewide Convention
Fairbanks, Alaska 2008
All other copies are void
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