The Fox Nation web site ran with a headline that read, “College Thesis: ‘So-Called Founders Didn’t Allow for Economic Freedom.’” The problem is that the article they linked to contained text by Pajamas Media blogger Michael Ledeen, who fell for a piece of satire posted on the blog, Jumping In Pools. The satirical report on the supposed thesis paper by Barack Obama claimed that Obama attacked the founders and the constitution. The author of the original piece claimed that Time‘s Joe Klein obtained the thesis paper, which Klein denies.

Ledeen later apologized for falling for the satire:

LEDEEN: It’s a hoax, or a satire, depending on your point of view. Joe Klein has said that he never read any part of an Obama “thesis” from his Columbia days, and that’s conclusive, as far as I’m concerned.

The hoax/satire was written in August, so it’s not connected to any current event. I cam across it on Twitter, read the blog, found it interesting, and posted on it. I failed to notice that one of the tags was “satire.”

The Fox Nation later deleted the article.

Original Story

Sean Hannity is known for his hypocrisy, criticising what he is guilty of having done himself… Here is a transcript from his show attacking so-called smears about Bob McDonnell’s graduate school thesis paper. Keep reading below for a similar transcript of Hannity doing the same…

HANNITY: By the way, we’ve got to watch out, folks. We’ve been telling you about the lead that Bob McDonnell has in the state of Virginia; that lead is now cut in half. There’s been an all-out war declared by The Washington Post against Bob McDonnell, a solid conservative. And the effort to smear, besmirch, demonize, and impact that election is under full way here, and a lot of this has to do — well, they went through the great effort to dig up a graduate school thesis that he wrote, and they’re claiming that, well, he’s saying that “homosexuality, working women, and abortion are detrimental to traditional American families.”

McDonnell has repudiated much of the thesis during a conference call with reporters, but it doesn’t matter. I mean, it’s OK, that was, let’s see, 20 years ago, we’ll go back to opinions that he might have held at a time when he’s writing a thesis, which by design is supposed to be provocative, and yet they’re not holding Barack Obama accountable to the pastor whose church he still went to throughout the campaign until he had to get rid of the pastor. America’s chickens have come home to roost, U.S. of KKK –

HANNITY: Now if they put the same energy into — into investigating Barack Obama, I wonder if we would have had a different result in that election? You see how abusively biased the media can be? It’s unbelievable.

Perhaps he forgot that he smeared, besmirched and demonized Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton for their thesis papers, released more than 20 years ago.

HANNITY: Chapter six, the thesis. It’s a 38-year-old document that’s been rumored about, analyzed, debated, criticized, and defended. Until recently, few have read it because it was hidden away at the request of Bill Clinton’s administration for the eight years he was in office.

These 90 pages, steeped in intrigue and mystery, are the senior thesis of Hillary D. Rodham, Wellesley College class of 1969. Hillary’s thesis, elevated to mystical status from years of secrecy, is now available to anyone inclined to visit Wellesley’s archives.

It begs the question: Why was it so important to the Clintons to keep it a secret. How can the words of a 21-year-old political science major be so damaging and explosive? And most importantly, why did the Clintons ask Wellesley College to hide the thesis in 1993?

Once dubbed a Rosetta Stone, the answer may lie in the fact that it exposes the real Hillary Clinton. In her own words, it allows readers to decipher the true thinking of the former first lady and now 2008 presidential hopeful.

[...]

HANNITY: What’s the real reason behind the Clintons’ desperate attempt to have it banned? Many biographers see it as evidence of the Marxist and socialist views of the young Hillary Rodham — views that she tries to downplay depending on the political winds but clearly maintains today.

Original Story