Shooshie

So it was someone else who claimed it to Fox. Eisenstadt said it was him who had said it–that was the prank, not saying it in the first place (because he hadn’t said it).

“For anyone who has not yet figured this out yet, here’s the story in a nutshell:

The hoax in this case is Eisenstadt’s claim that he was the source for Carl Cameron’s report on Fox News. Cameron never spoke to Eisenstadt and did not use Eisenstadt as the basis for his reporting.

Got it? If you’re still confused, read the above paragraph a second time, or a third time if you need it. If you still have any doubts, read the New York Times story carefully. Its wording is a little less clear than it ought to be, but it also makes the point I just emphasized. Carl Cameron is standing by his story, and apparently Sarah Palin really was confused about Africa.”

We only know that a prankster claimed she didn’t.

The hoax only made sense because of Palin’s painfully obvious ignorance. If someone told you, as a hoax, that “Bill Clinton thinks Africa is a country, not a continent”, it wouldn’t be a good hoax at all.

I have met many people who confuse continents with nation states. Palin may well be one.

It explicitly says that this does not invalidate the claims and Palin’s own answer when queried about it was that it was taken out of context that she “could not distinguish between Africa the continent and Africa the nation”, which indicates to me that it’s quite true.