Assholes.

I've stated earlier that I don't believe one word of this crap about Africa. Now MSNBC believes I'm right about them being fucking idiots too.

Free press my ass!

Looks like Sarah Palin just got smarter.

how many people who swallowed this story whole will alter their opinion of Palin now that it's been proved false?

My guess - almost none. They believed it because they see it as consistent with, not contradictory to, their impression of her.

So as far as the political fallout for MSNBC goes, I'd say - little to none. The lack of fallout should be sobering, but most people won't even notice, because apparently this stuff only matters when it's perpetrated on a member of the home team.

This is just one example of how partisanship undermines rationality, and how we fail to attend to things that matter because attending to them might undermine the consistency of our belief set.

From your own link:

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.

David Schuster got two weeks off after remarking about the Clinton's pimping Chelsea.

When he came back they gave him his own show.I have no sympathy for Schuster,or MSNBC.

is sort of a pet issue of mine. I think once media ownership is "re-regulated", it both mitigates the financial incentives that give "entertainment value" primacy over information fidelity, but it also detracts from the momentum of misinformation and leaves relatively small outlets more amenable to public pressure for accountability.

Obama said he'd do it, though I imagine the pressure against such a move is pretty immense. I dearly hope he will.

[off to work...]

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.

Did I say I was immune? [looking down, scuffing foot.]

However. It does say something about the credulity of reporters regarding the veracity of their sources, doesn't it? Why are we all so content to grant so much weight to anonymous sources? When we do that, we're trusting the reporter has established the credibility of the source.

Like this one did?

[ok, really gotta' run. But, good catch, my bad.]

Impossible....they have no nuts.

Jack

Good for you for bringing this out. I never believed it for a second either. Hell I could see the Troopergate shit was a rabid witch hunt too way before she was found not at fault in any way.

But when the media shirks their duties of objectivity and goes on 24/7 attack mode against someone like stormtroopers it's impossible to do a thing to stop them. Like roaches they swarmed on her and engulfed her with non stop, relentless sneers, mocks and attacks. It's been a very very ugly thing to witness.

Good for you for posting the truth of this latest one. She's already been cleared on Troopergate and hardly a whisper in the media about how wrong they were about that one either.

stupid)

she wasn't denying it, exactly. Instead, she seemed to claim that she didn't know that Darfur was not a country and that it didn't matter as long as she was talking sympathy. Someone has debate prep video. She remains, in my estimation, a moron of staggering proportions.

I wonder if Hussein Al Obama still thinks there are 57 states.

Jack

she was Larry King last night for an entire half of the show and she presented quite well. She certainly is a women of adequate insight as to where why our First Amendment and The Objcetivity of The Free Press is essential to our maintaining our right to get the facts rather than the twisted spin.

When King asked her about Katie Couric's advice to her('she should go back to Alaska and get more experience before she attempts another run"..Palin's answer was the quintessential height of an astute politician when she said,"well I do appreciate Miss Couric's advice, however I won't deign to suggest I would have any advice for her as her job not in my purvue, however, perhaps Miss Couric might appreciate the importance of the media remaining objective and without rancor or bias for the rights of the citizens to get an undistorted view of the candidates." (paraphrasing..but she handled that question thusly and with aplomb.

Just saying she is dumb, without solid probable rationale, other than spin ,conjecture and rumor,just won't get it.

She is the most popular Gov. in the country for perhaps more reason that just her pretty legs and face.

She has accomplished some good work there and did in fact take on the 'good old boys ' up in Alaska and beat them.

this story wasn't a major contributing factor to my opinion of Sarah Palin. It broke long after I'd already formed an opinion that she was kinda dim. This story just served as an exclamation point to the sentence. So, if the story was to be de-bunked, I'd only go back to thinking of her as kinda dim.


Folks are treating this story as if it's utterly unbelieveable that anybody would not know that Africa is a continent. I regularly deal with people who should know this fact, but don't. They think it's like the USA, with a bunch of little states forming a larger single country. I was amazed at first, but after having dealt with it for years now, I find it's barely even remarkable. So I had no problem believing that a person who couldn't name a single newspaper that she reads regularly would be unclear about the status of Africa.