Apparently, the “Palin thinks Africa’s a country” story is sourced to a long-running hoax, in which a pair of filmmakers manufactured a fake “policy expert” (a senior fellow at the made-up Harding Institute) who claimed first to be a Giuliani supporter, and then later a McCain advisor.
Update: It looks like I misinterpreted the article — the mistake the media made was picking up on attributing the story to the hoaxster, but other articles have Fox denying that the hoaxster was the source for the original story. See the comments section.
Update 2: AP confirms that “The hoax was limited to the identity of the source in the story about Palin — not the Fox News story itself. While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony.”
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Don’t tell Chris Matthews, he’s busy making a career out of the Sarah—Africa story.
Are you sure that’s what the article is saying? It’s sort of ambiguous; I can’t tell if they’re saying that this fake person was the source of the original Sarah-can’t-find-Africa anecdote and that therefore the whole thing is a hoax, or that the hoax was the attribution of the anecdote to the fake person but the original story stands.
I’m going by this sentence:
"And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt"
If they meant that the story was made up by "Eisenstadt", I would have thought they would have said "the Africa anecdote is the latest ruse", not "the claim of credit for the Africa anedote is the latest ruse".
I thought it was the former, but on re-reading the article the latter interpretation is plausable as well.
Quick googling turns up a Huffington Post article saying they’ve been told by a Fox source that the hoaxster wasn’t their source, which points heavily towards the latter interpretation.
Elizabeth, but they did.
"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."
1. Martin Eisenstadt, aka Eitan Gorlin, claimed to be a McCain policy adviser.
2. ME/EG claimed to have said it as the adviser.Â
As much as a liar lies, however, since no one else has come forward as the leaker, the trail ends there–until that someone else claims it.
"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.â€
They are talking about the Palin aspect of the story, not the fake McCain advisor. The source at Fox probably got the same email, albeit possibly from another person.Â
So there’s an anonymous source now?
And the claim is still patently, obviously false, since through her church, Palin is very well aware of events in Sudan (the Darfur genocide), and familiar with the AIDS relief efforts of Presidents Clinton and Bush.
The idea that she really thought "Africa is a country" is facially ridiculous and obviously false.
Does anyone here find it ironic that it’s the NY Times that is reporting on a media outlet being duped into printing something?
Yeah, it’s not like she said there were 57 US states, or that Iran was a "tiny" country or anything….
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By the way, it is entirely possible that Palin did say something that generalized about Africa in the way one might generalize about a country, and some wise-ass emailed, "Cripes, she thinks Africa’s a country…."Â In which case there would be some truth to the claim, and yet it would, in essence, be the opposite of "fake but accurate" — Real but inaccurate.
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That’s more or less what I thought happened. My best guess was something along the lines of somebody saying "southern Africa" and Palin mishearing that as "South Africa".
Since we only have the word of the one anonymous source and Palin’s nonspecific defense that she was taken horribly out of context, we can’t say for sure what happened or how bad it was.
All this really reveals is how quick the liberals in the media are to grab onto anything that fits their preferred narrative.
Had such a story surfaced about their beloved Obama (who DID say there were 57 states and who DID call Iran a "tiny" country) it would never have seen the light of day ESPECIALLY if true.
It’s all about the narrative, and that is why old media is dying.
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Geesh.
I mean, I’ve called my own kids buy the wrong name.
Even if it is true, anyone that talks day in and day out will stumble across their tongue once in a while.
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Robert:
In the media’s view, liberals mispeak, conservatives are lucky to be able to grunt a few words past their cro-magnon tongues and massive bone-cracking teeth.
As I said, it’s all about the narrative.
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The problem with setting the “narrative†like this is that it just freaken works, even in this day and age.  And that disturbs me to no end.
An example: One of my coworkers is a highly intelligent guy. Masters degree in engineering (state universities), 20 year successful career, six figure salary, etc. Â Devout Catholic growing up, but switched to Mennonite a few years ago. Â
Politically he is a moderate democrat, but he’ll vote R in a heart beat (loved Reagan). He claims to despise the far lefties, and I believe him. Â
He’s open minded, reads a lot, but he gets his news from the NYT, News Week, CNN and NPR. Checks Drudge a couple times a day, but that’s as far from the MSM he’ll venture.Â
And he’s convinced Palin is a complete idiot.   He liked McCain, but said there was no way he would vote for him since there was a chance a “dunce†would get the job if McCain died.  And no matter how many links I send him that points out evidence to the contrary, if it’s not from the MSM, he dismisses it as Republican propaganda.
It’s discouraging.Â
I wouldn’t say Palin isn’t bright by any means, but I didn’t get the impression of her as an especially deep or nuanced thinker during the campaign. I did think her responses to Couric were incoherent at times and I found that disconcerting. However, I’m pretty sure she knew Africa was a continent. Anyone can be distracted and say something boneheaded. A friend of mine who is a respected molecular biologist once saw me setting my microwave for 33 seconds and said, "Oh, a third of a minute?" Then of course she realized how resoundingly silly that was and backtracked, but if the national media had been following here around she would have been branded as an idiot.
As I typed this, my six-year-old pointed out that I’d left out a word and said something ungrammatical.  Case in point. :-)
CC,
and yet those two stories did see the light of day, how strange.
far from being something about liberals seizing on a narrative, it seems more likely that the media can smell blood and know that what bleeds leads.
Before Sarah Palin was picked as the Republican VP candidate, virtually EVERY news story on her was overwhelmingly positive. She was described as intelligent, principled, resourceful and, all too frequently, as beautiful. Her approval rating as governor of Alaska was over 80%. That’s a stratospheric level of approval.
When she was picked as the VP candidate, and the Left realized what a powerful threat she was to the feminist narrative, she was slandered in ways that shocked even me, and I’m pretty hard to shock these days.
When Republicans or conservatives do something shameful, I am embarrassed by association.
Anyone who considers themselves a Democrat or a liberal should be deeply and profoundly ashamed of what has happened to Sarah Palin.
There are some liberals who I respect greatly. Camille Paglia is one of them. I think her comments about Sarah Palin are dead on target. Every liberal should read them, go look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are proud of what was done in their names.
And as far as conservatives who jumped on the anti-Palin bandwagon? Shame is not nearly a powerful enough word for what they should feel.
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Ms Reid:
I didn’t watch the Couric interview, but certainly saw the Q&A on that single question. I thought it was an odd question, (to the best of my recollection) "What magizines do you read that shape your world view?" If Couric was interested in getting to know Palin, OK, what magizines do you read, but "mags" that shape her world view? Who gets a world view form magazines?
I don’t know if it was a trap (Answer — Redbook, General Housekeeping, People are good mags that a lot of people read, but shaping a "world view"? — that would really show her up for a ninny).  In her shoes I would have been trying on the fly to figure out what answer does not result in a ding, and I would have probably have tried like #$(* to give a non-comittal answer.
An honestly, I don’t watch Couric at all anymore; if she’s on, I change the channel. I think the mistake was setting Palin up with Couric.   Couric is too intense and always seems to me to either be selling some kind of agenda (as opposed to trying to find and pass on information, although sometimes I have a hard time figuring out what her point actually is) or is just not very interesting. If she doesn’t have an opinion then she isn’t engaged.
"What newspapers and magazines do you read" is not actually a very unusual question for a candidate. I’ve heard it asked of other Presidential candidates. George Bush was asked that during the debates in 2000, and he rattled off several (starting with the Austin-American Statesman, I think) without much thinking about it. Of course, maybe he’d been prepped. Probably he had been. I remember hearing growing up that President Kennedy read something like 10 newspapers a day, which is really sort of preposterous (did the man have any other job?) but that sort of emphasizes that this is the sort of thing that gets brought up in these sorts of things.
Generally speaking, if you read a publication regularly, that publication shapes your worldview. It just does. Even if it’s basically fluff like People Magazine, it does, and says something about you. If you don’t read anything in particular very often but read all sorts of things all the time, that says something about you. If you don’t much read newspapers or magazines, that says something too. Negative, positive, whatever, it gives SOME insight into your character–and despite what some claim, character does matter.
The very fact that you read this blog says SOMETHING about your character, although we’d probably have to know something more about you to make any hard determinations about WHAT it says. ;-)
I think it is accurate to say that Palin flubbed that question. In fact I’d even call it a softball question, certainly not one that if I saw on a list of potential questions that I’d be surprised by.
How would I answer?
Dean’s World
Instapundit
Ace of Spades
National Review Online
Drudge Report
Huffington Post (gotta keep an eye on the enemy)
Slate (ditto)
I’m sure Katie’s eyes would glaze over and she’d say "what world are you from?"
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The publications question wasn’t the one I was worried about, actually, although it did seem odd that she couldn’t answer it. I would be able to answer it myself although I’m sure my answer wouldn’t qualify me for political office (front page of CNN, Newsweek, the Economist when I’m in the mood).
I was principally worried that she couldn’t explain the intent of the bailout plan. Since it was such a huge issue the week of the interview, I would have thought that that was a question that she couldn’t possibly have been blindsided by, and yet she couldn’t give a pithy, meaningful answer. Again, I’m sure it had been an overwhelming couple of weeks and I don’t think inability to give a good answer means she’s stupid, but it didn’t paint a picture of her as a quick study who was on top of the most important news item of the day. Up until that point I’d been thinking, wow, McCain scored an awesome VP candidate there, and afterwards I was thinking, oh dear, I’m not sure that this is going to go well.
Elizabeth:
I am quite certain that Palin COULD answer it. She no doubt realized it was a trap question and that no matter what she answered, she was likely going to be hammered for it. If she said "Newsweek, Time and USA Today" she would have been sneered at as a dilettante. If she had said "National Review" she would have been jeered as a knee-jerk neo-conservative. If she had said "Slate" she would have been accused of pandering to the Left….
And if she had said "Good Housekeeping" she would have been ridiculed as a stay-at-home mom somehow off the reservation.
So what should she have said? Well, as Eddie Izzard says, it’s 70% how you LOOK saying it, 20% HOW you say it and 10% WHAT you say.
I was kidding up above when I listed all those blog sites, what I would have done is most likely something like: "Katie, I get my information about the world from a lot of sources, magazines are not even the most common source. I read the major current affairs newspapers and magazines, I read a few of the weekly "news" magazines and I read the leading internet websites that provide news, commentary and political analysis. Just like most Americans though, I’m not above picking up a People magazine in line at the Supermarket and flipping through it on occasion. I’m sure you realize that as the Governor of America’s biggest state, I have a staff which looks through all of those sources and finds things that they think I should see and puts them in my daily press briefings. What do YOU read Katie?"
As far as not being able to "explain the intent of the bailout plan" I have to say that if ANYONE thinks they could explain its intent now or then, they are fooling themselves. The plan was poorly conceived, poorly executed, and is being changed on the fly. The only INTENT of the plan was as follows:
"Something NEEDS to be DONE!!"
"This plan is SOMETHING"
"Therefore we need to do THIS PLAN."
If I were asked that question I would have said "Katie, like most things that are driven by political realities in a crisis this plan is a guide to follow as we learn more about what needs to be done. It’s a sort of blank check for Treasury to take action when they fully understand what action needs to be taken. As such I have grave concerns that it will not be executed in the right manner and with the right controls and that is why John McCain and I are more concerned about the oversight of the plan than the current wording of it."
Now, am I concerned that Palin isn’t able to think on her feet like that and come up with answers that would shut Katie up and not provide her with more threads to follow in her attempt to unravel Palin? Yes I am a bit, because I, like most people, tend to confuse glibness with intellect. Bill Clinton is glib AND intelligent. Joe Biden is glib, but NOT intelligent. Both of them get away with murder in these situations, but at least Bill makes a lick of sense. There are actually very, very few politicians who can think that quickly on their feet and not get all screwed up in their response. Obama, for what it is worth, is NOT one of them. That’s why his press interaction is so carefully scripted. But the press loves Obama so when he says some unbelievably stupid thing ("my Muslim faith") the press covers up for him ("you mean your CHRISTIAN faith, right?") while when Palin does it, the press goes for the throat.
That’s the only difference, really.
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