Pivot Politics

There seems to be quite a bit of hand-wringing over this NY Times article which reveals Martin Eisenstadt as a phony advisor to the McCain campaign.

The background is this: an anonymous source was quoted on air by Carl Cameron of Fox News as saying, among other things, Palin thought Africa was a country, and not a continent. After this report, “Martin Eisenstadt” came forward to claim he was the anonymous source. Turns out, “Martin Eisenstadt” is a character played by Eitan Gorlin, and so his claim of attribution for that story is a hoax.

Here’s where a number of political commentators are getting tripped up (at Politico and The New Rebulic for example). They are inferring the story itself is a hoax, and the original reporting only came about because of the false information provided by Eisenstadt/Gorlin. But that is not what the NY Times article says, and there has been no retraction from Carl Cameron himself.

So there is at least a likelihood the story itself is true, yet the attention grab of identifying himself as the source by Eisenstadt/Gorlin is the only hoax. Of course it is also possible the entire thing is a hoax, but we’ve no proof of that, nor any refutation of the original reporting on Fox News.

UPDATE: Rich Lowry over at the Corner seems to understand it.