Martin Eisenstadt Tricks News Orgs On Being Source Of Palin Dirt

UPDATE: The New York Times has identified the man behind the elaborate hoax as Eitan Gorlin, a filmmaker who says he planned to pitch a TV show based on the character.

A former campaign adviser to John McCain named Martin Eisenstadt has outed himself as the proud source of the "Sarah Palin doesn't know Africa is a continent" story. The New Republic and MSNBC have picked up the Eisenstadt scoop.

But it's not at all clear that Eisenstadt exists. William K. Wolfrum of Shakespeare's Sister, who was suckered by Eisenstadt during the campaign, did some digging and concluded, "There is no M. Thomas Eisenstadt. There is no Eisenstadt Group. There is no Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. M. Thomas Eisenstadt is a hoax."

To be clear, none of this means the Africa story is false -- just that it didn't come from this source. Huffington Post has been told on background that Martin Eisenstadt was not one of Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron's sources.

Jonathan Stein at Mother Jones writes of being tricked by Eisenstadt on another scandal:

A few hours ago, we (okay, I) posted a blog about a man claiming to be a McCain adviser who made ridiculous comments on Iraqi television about building a casino in the Baghdad Green Zone. In addition to the inherent absurdity of it, there was a lot of arrogance, cultural insensitivity, and racism thrown in. Other blogs had posted on the guy, and when I checked him out before posting I found his blog and a foreign policy institute claiming his employ. Turns out the blog and institute, like the adviser, were an elaborate hoax. It didn't help that the guy, in creating his fictional foreign policy expert, closely mimicked the name of a real foreign policy expert.

Here's why I got taken: I received an emailed press release reporting that the supposed McCain adviser had apologized for his comments about the casino. You're welcome to disagree with me, but I had no reason to believe that someone would invent a persona, a blog, a foreign policy institution, a video with a fake Iraqi television station, a press release, and an organization or email entity to send out said press release.

But frankly, there was enough info on the web that I should have sussed this thing out. This is a long way of saying I apologize and that I'm more than a little ashamed. I've taken the post down. Kudos to the inventor of this whole thing. My only consolation is that if I had as much time on my hands as he clearly does, I probably would have figured this out and saved myself a fair amount of embarrassment.

Even if he did exist, Eisenstadt doesn't appear to have been high up enough in the McCain campaign to be privy to Sarah Palin's private utterances. According to his own bio, his role in the campaign was "offering advice and liaising with the Jewish community in particular."

The New Republic has retracted its blog post; MSNBC's David Shuster very quickly admitted that "there may be some indications" the story was made up.

In fairness, it should be noted that Huffington Post writers have also fallen for Eisenstadt's tricks on a couple occasions.

Comments

[kwijibo]

04:04 AM on 11/14/2008

Props to HP for not biting.

But...

Thumbs down for still believing it's possible, in the total absence of anything to substantiate it. Even worse, there's every reason to believe it's as fictional El Chupacabras or the Loch Ness Monster. Maybe the fictional Mr. Eisenstadt will say he saw them and it will somehow make THAT more credible, too.

[girlak]

01:09 PM on 11/13/2008

Let's stop giving her attention, maybe she will come back to Alaska & do her job. Thanks!

[lulu larue]

01:35 PM on 11/13/2008

Is she really doing her job in Alaska? And if so - is it a good one?

[Willow207]

12:52 PM on 11/13/2008

Every time Palin opens her mouth and spews more ignorance she only confirms her STUPIDITY and reassures the voters of why voting against her was a GREAT choice for the nation!!!!!!

Keep her in front of the camera she is destined to deliver the destruction of the republican party. Hooorah!!!!!!! Add death of a party to her resume'. Go Sarah Go, you are a one woman train wreck, and the GOP deserve you and all the hell and destruction you bring with you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[munki]

12:36 PM on 11/13/2008

MEDIA...
PLEASE STOP giving her freebies = STOP covering Palin,
but the real issues we are facing...

[cgoodie]

08:00 AM on 11/13/2008

I just don't want to spend another 4 - 8 years listening to Nu-cu-lar.

[GEAH]

01:06 AM on 11/13/2008

I think we can all agree that the Palin haters are the world's most gullible people.

Me: Did you know that Palin isn't really the governor of Alaska?

Them: Really??? She's such a liar!

[larmarch5]

12:14 PM on 11/13/2008

Gullible? JTP thinks he'll be better off under a McCain prez! Now that's gullible.

[DSchoen]

05:15 PM on 11/12/2008

tjohnson. YOU MISREAD the story ... the 'hoax' was not about what was said, it was about the SOURCE.

Blahhhahhahh OMF-ING G

The “SOURCE” of the story is a HOAXER!
Did ya get that?
The person who “invented” the story is a HOAXER!

There is NO Such Thing as “Fake but True”, just ask Dan Rather!

A story is either FAKE
Or a Story is True, and HOAXERS don’t “do” TRUE stories!

Seriously are you an idiot?

Hoax, to trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous

1. An act intended to deceive or trick.
2. Something that has been established or accepted by fraudulent means.

A hoax is a deliberate attempt to dupe, deceive or trick an audience into believing, or accepting, that something is real, when in fact it is not; or that something is true, when in fact it is false. In an instance of a hoax, an object, or event, is not what it appears to be, or what it is claimed to be

Remember this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax

The U.S. Presidential IQ hoax was a mid-2001 e-mail and internet hoax that purported to provide a list of estimated IQs of the U.S. Presidents from FDR to George W. Bush

However, the numbers claimed in the email were fabricated, and the sociologists and institutions (e.g., the "Lovenstein Institute") quoted in the article do not exist.

[larmarch5]

12:15 PM on 11/13/2008

Hoax: being tricked into thinking you're talking with the French President.

[chameleon59]

02:21 PM on 11/13/2008

Er, no, you misread the story. "Eisenstadt" did not make up the statement about Palin being unsure about whether South Africa was a country or a region, and he did not make up the statement that Palin thought Africa was a country, not a continent. He lied about being the source quoted in the Newsweek story. Which means that we still don't know who said it, but we do know that it wasn't THIS guy because he had no connection to the campaign and never spoke to the reporters who wrote the story.

[DSchoen]

04:37 PM on 11/12/2008

Miamia said:
“In the clip she said she had questions about the Continent versus the Country of Africa. I think she still believes there is a Country called Africa.”

What clip? Are you referring to what the hoaxer told reporters?
Is there a clip that ACTUALLY in full CONTEXT has “HER” saying Africa is a country not a continent?

Are you aware that South Africa is both a region on the Africa continent AND a Country called South Africa?

Didn’t think so.

Is America a country or a continent?
Is North America a continent or a country?
What country is Canada in?

[MBinNYC]

09:41 AM on 11/13/2008

1) she says it in the clip posted above to an interviewer.
2) "South Africa" is not a region of Africa. Southern Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa are regions of Africa.South Africa is the country
3) America is neither a country nor a continent. The United States of America is a country on the North American continent. (eg "I pledge allegiance to the flag of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...."
4) North America was never a country
5) Canada being a country is clearly located in Canada.


Books, maps and education are clearly not your strong suit.

[MaximMaximus]

04:21 PM on 11/12/2008

Governor Palin shamelessly portrayed herself as someone she's not since the day she's been picked by Senator McCain as his running mate. On her first public speech to the nation, she knowingly and willfully mislead the American people in regard to the so-called Bridge to Nowhere. And even the press revealed the truth about the matter, she kept on repeating the same falsehood for at least 11 more times on teh stump! From where I come that is called dishonesty. She portrayed her as a fiscal conservative although her record shows that she actively lobbied for more pork for a low-population and oil-rich state which doesn't need any. She suggested that her tenure as the mayor of Wassila endowed her with executive credentials and such while it turned out the the zero-debt town she took over ended up being in $26M in debt. And the list goes on and on. What's perhaps most offensive is that she seems to be convinced that and easy smile and good look are enough to reach the top. She certainly needs a reality check. So far, all she did was to energize a very backward group of people, and offend lots of people with intellect.

[littlewing157]

03:42 PM on 11/12/2008

The ONLY thing Sarah Palin brought to the table were lies about Obama. She tried with all her might to convince the entire country--no, the entire world--that Obama was a dangerous terrorist sympathizer, anti-american, socialist, marxist, mysterious outsider. She prayed to her god for McCain and herself to win, not for the Right Man to win and God answered back, "No. you and your lies will never get you into the White House."
She needs to take care of her new baby and her other children properly before she can ever be trusted with any other position in life.
She already endangered her baby's health by having an amnio done (Pro-Lifers don't believe in amnio's because it increases the risk of miscarriage). She then endangered his life further when she allowed her amniotic fluid to LEAK FOR HOURS before getting to a hospital--which could have killed him. If a woman can't even give her all for her own special needs baby, she's not fit to take care of an entire country..

[Cubancoffee]

03:06 PM on 11/12/2008

"I had no reason to believe that someone would invent a persona, a blog, a foreign policy institution, a video with a fake Iraqi television station, a press release, and an organization or email entity to send out said press release."

I wonder if Mr. Wolfrum has an editor. Someone to tell him to track down this Eisenstadt person and get the story directly, rather than rely on some press release that landed from the ether in his inbox, complete with phony bells and whistles. What naievete.

[Cubancoffee]

03:14 PM on 11/12/2008

Excuse me, I meant to refer to Mr. Stein.

[myfreepress]

02:37 PM on 11/12/2008

Fake but accurate...

"to be clear, last week I was the one who leaked those things to a producer at Fox News who works with Cameron"

and "Did we outright give her a geography quiz when we started the prep? No, of course not. "

and: " Palin has accused her accusers of being “unprofessional…jerks…cowards… taking things out of context, and then tried to spread something on national news” and begun to cast doubt on the Fox News report, maybe she’s right to a certain extent."

Maybe she's right?

Hoax is Hoax. Made up is made up. Only a fool continues to believe what he has been told from the source is a lie.

[zenx98]

01:19 PM on 11/12/2008

Matt Laurer gave Ms Palin the chance to make good on her African geography. From the way she "hemmed and hawed" around without ever addressing or dismissing the issue she proved that there's more fire there than idle smoke,...no matter the source.

[MarianneEvans11]

12:47 PM on 11/12/2008

Oh, Who cares what they are saying about her and what she is saying back at them! Let's get her OUT OF THE NEWS....she's a "HAS BEEN" done that and lost! Back to Alaska where the days are long and the nights don't matter....LOL....Back to her tanning bed and tatoo store. I see she had her lips recently tatooed...They seemed to stand out in her interview when she returned to her job as Governor. I really wonder what they are saying about her in Alaska....the truth, Alaskans, the truth now...
She's like a bad date that just won't go away....

[miamia]

12:37 PM on 11/12/2008

What is she talking about when she says questions about the Continent versus the country of Africa?
Palin's not going away because our media is full of a - hole.s, who love this type of ignorance.