Folks jumped all over the name Martin Eisenstadt after he "admitted" that he was the leak that came out with the story about Sarah Palin not knowing Africa was a continent.
Well, seems that TNR, MSNBC and a few others have a little bit of egg on their face, after finding out that a blog post they linked to, was nothing more than a hoaxter getting jollies out of making idiots of people a little too quick on the draw.
Via Hot Air. (Go there for the video.)
Guys? The post at Shakespeare’s Sister revealing the hoax is linked on the first page of the Google results for “Martin Eisenstadt.” Remember these goofball viral “ads” for Giuliani? Anything look familiar?
The “Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy”? Named after one of America’s worst presidents, whose term in office lasted two years with zero foreign policy accomplishments? Dude? Click the image to watch.
A little more detail provided by NewsBusters, titled "Sarah Palin Leaker Outs Himself...and Turns Out to Be a Hoaxer!":
Check out the update below. Apparently this leaker is actually a hoaxer. Did Carl Cameron get scammed with completely false information? I have now added video of the person who claims to be "Martin Eisenstadt" that was uploaded to YouTube on October 28. Why do I have the feeling that this person is a leftwing Democrat engaging in Web guerrilla warfare?
Political Machine offers a lesson in all of this idiocy:
This guy's not a McCain adviser. He's an Internet prankster who has also been tied to rumors that Joe the Plumber had ties to The Keating 5, and something to do with The Hiltons - as in Paris Hilton's family.
Let this be a lesson that anyone in the media or blogosphere should be highly skeptical of anything that presents itself on a silver platter like that. In case I had any doubt about whether journalistic standards were going down the toilet in this country, the fact that this story was picked up by several places just reassured me that I was not, in fact, wrong. And that makes me very, very sad.
Enough links there for you to follow and perhaps some might even learn a lesson from this.
I am not seeing a correction made by MSNBC as of yet, I am sure it is imminent.
Not holding my breath waiting for it though.
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