A New York Times article reports that one of John McCain advisors who was quoted by various news sources as saying Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent does not really exist.

 

Martin Eisenstadt, the “McCain policy adviser” who was quoted is in fact Eitan Gorlin who with “his partner in deception”, Dan Mirvish, created a bogus organization on the internet called the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. They released a couple of interviews on You Tube and as far as the news media was concerned they were legitimate.

 

 I don’t know about anyone else but this frightens me. I can understand some less than brilliant person at home responding to the email and from a nice diplomat in Africa who wants to send them millions of dollars if they will just kindly send their bank account information to speed the processing.

 

However the idea that reputable news agencies (and Fox News as well) would get information off the net and then pass it off as fact without checking the source… that has to make me wonder at every “fact” they release. I think the safest thing to do is just stick with Jon Stewart and the Onion News Network and then I don’t have to worry about whether it’s true or not.

 

Professor I. Corey, a spokesman for the Bush White House was quoted as saying that “this type of misinformation and sladerous lies was patented by the Republicans and they would not allow it to be subverted “