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LITTLE REDS BOOKED
Molly Ivins and James Carville lied to the American people! Well, not really, but they did repeat information that was later shown to be false—which is the same thing, if you’re one of them Bush-hatin’ folks, yessir (must ... stop ... channelling ... Ivins).
The claim: that a Dartmouth student was questioned by Homeland Security agents after making a library request for Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book. Who fell for it, besides Carville and Ivins? A surprising number of gullibloggers and fellow members of the Frightened-American community.
Some doubted the story from the outset. For others, news that the story was wrong merely caused them to mutate it into further fake-but-true evidence of Smirkler the Hurricane Monkey’s wicked plans to imprison everybody in Intelligent Design re-education camps:
The report of the FBI harassing students over Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book is apparently a hoax, but that it was so plausible says volumes of how we view our government.
Yes. Yes, it does.
UPDATE. Instapundit, who was on to this early, has more.
UPDATE II. Bunch of other links—the Huffertonians were also stooged by this—at Conservator.
UPDATE III. Nice post from Gryphen.
UPDATE IV. Second thoughts at Daily Kos.
UPDATE V. Ted Kennedy, who cited the bogus report in a newspaper piece, uses the fake-but-true defence:
Laura Capps, a Kennedy spokeswoman, said last night that the senator cited ‘’public reports” in his opinion piece. Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy’s broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.
UPDATE VI. Islamic site Khilafah.com is still reporting the story as fact.
UPDATE VII. Rep. Jay Inslee: “The kid checked out Mao Tse-Tung’s Little Red Book for research and ended up with two FBI agents on his doorstep. That’s unnecessary and causes more fear and concern than security. I’ve seen that over and over again.” Sure you have.
UPDATE VIII. Gary McGath reports that “a variant of the story has popped up, with the locale changed to California.”
It is plain as day that “confession” was coerced by the pResident’s fascist goons.
/kos
For others, news that the story was wrong merely caused them to mutate it into further fake-but-true evidence of Smirkler the Hurricane Monkey’s wicked plans...
I do not believe for a minute the paranoid left will accept this revelation. Bill Burkett’s TANG “memos” were absolute fakes but, according to innumerable trolls, the information contained in them is absolutely “undeniable.”
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 12 24 at 02:19 PM • permalinkAfter we’re finished torturing the sheep, let’s go after Ivins and Carville.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 12 24 at 02:40 PM • permalinkAs Insta says, why the hell are they protecting the identity of a 22 year old? I want this idjit named so we may all properly laugh at him, and those who believed him.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 12 24 at 02:49 PM • permalinkMr. Bingley,
Do you think for a moment that if the kid had been a Young Republican and made up a lurid story about the actions of a Leftist professor his identity would continue to be protected?
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 12 24 at 02:56 PM • permalinkThis is like what, the fourth or fifth lefty hoax to suppurate off our campuses in the last year or so?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 24 at 03:55 PM • permalinkI think the poor kid was intimidated by brownshirt digital goons who forced him off the environmentaly-friendly bicycle path he was on while travelling between classes with their ford f-150 with the rusty gun rack and case of longnecks in the back. yeah, and then they beat him about the head with rolled up copies of the Warren Commission Report while chanting ‘whitewash! whitewash!”, only since he’s such a tough kid naturally there really aren’t any bruise for you to see. and that rain last night unfortunately washed away the tracks from the F-150, but man, it happened! Really!
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 12 24 at 04:10 PM • permalinkIt’ll be at least a week before Molly Ivins learn it’s a hoax. She’s holding her traditional Xmas Eve celebration: unconscious in a south Austin bar, face down in a gin & alfredo sauce cocktail.
But seriously, where can I get the mailing list for the “reality based community”? Talk about a golden opportunity for selling tinfoil trailer park timeshares in Florida.
From Instapundit: “Williams, an associate professor of Islamic history, said that the possibility the government was scrutinizing books borrowed by his students ‘disturbed me tremendously.’” What “possibility”,JACKASS? It didn’t happen so there is no evidence of a ‘possibility’. Something that never happened disturbs you, but you are not sufficiently disturbed by something unacceptable that DID happen, namely, the lying by one of your “Islamic History” students, for you to denounce the liar publicly, especially in the light of the damage done to the image of YOUR government. Why does it not surprise me that a student of Islamic History would learn that lying is an honorable act, especially in a university? By the way, does your school have a professorship in Christian History, Jewish History, American History?
The possibillity that the sun is in fact a creme puff disturbs me tremendously..
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 12 24 at 08:47 PM • permalinkTry this for a bit of home-grown dissent crushing.
Tawana Brawley’s story was false, but it underscores the problem of racism in this country. As did the other phoney racist incidents at several college campuses.
The TANG memo was false, but the issues it raised about Bush’s guard service are true.
The Li’l Red Book incident was a hoax, but the dangers it illustrates about the Patriot Act are real.
Jesus Christ, is there any screeching leftist position that’s defensible with actual evidence? If these issues are so obvious and pervasive, shouldn’t real incidents outnumber hoaxes by, I dunno, at least one?
This story has now been admitted to be a hoax:
Student Admits Hoax in Claim That Federal Agents Visited Him in Wake of Mao Book Request
Posted by John McAdams on 2005 12 24 at 11:59 PM • permalinkI predict that this story will become another “plastic turkey.” By that I mean that however many times the story is debunked, it will cotinue to be cited as fact by the true believers. This will go on for years, and like the plastic turkey story, will never die. Invincible ignorance indeed.
Wait. I take that back. It’s not ignorance. Ignorance can be cured by education and information, but stupid, like ugly, has no cure.
The term “hoax” suggests some type of mischievous prank. Whilst hoaxes can be malicious, they are also frequently light-hearted.
What happened here wasn’t a “hoax” but quite simply, a lie.
Tim pointed this out correctly in his report, many others are apparently trying to assign a more light-hearted view of it.
Now chrisbg99, you’re attempting to a apply logic and common sense to people who are clearly incapable of it.
I still think I smell plastic turkey cooking…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 12 25 at 02:14 AM • permalinkHey now. Extra words keep sneaking into my comments. What gives? I haven’t had that much to drink…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 12 25 at 02:16 AM • permalink"Stupid, like ugly, has no cure.”
True, ErnieG, true. But at least you can put a paper bag over ugly.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2005 12 25 at 05:21 AM • permalinkIt was obviously of mischievous intent by the yet un-named student of Islamic History, given that all you have to do is Google “Little Red Book - text” and you get hundreds of translations in the public domain.
Why one would bother with a library (do they still have those?) and an inter-library transfer is completely beyond me.
Stupid is as stupid does, I guess.
a Dartmouth student
The well-known Ivy League school Dartmouth College is located in Hanover, New Hampshire. The student in question attends the obscure UMass Dartmouth, which is little more than a commuter school.
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2005 12 25 at 12:11 PM • permalink# 36, what do you mean, “to your regret?” Reading all five pages of Huffblog comments was an hour of pure joy, total absurdity with minimal mediation of human reason, skepticism or awareness of the outside world. Doesn’t it bring you some warm and fuzzy feeling to know that these idiots actually believe that they are living in a totalitarian prison-state, which is more or less what they deserve? Doesn’t it relieve you of any remote speculation that the Kos Left will one day organize itself into an effective political force? Doesn’t it reassure you that their influence is limited to the tiny, geographically delimited circles of the righteous who would believe an anonymous undregraduate’s story about the rise of the police state in America? When said undergraduate was so clueless that he actually chose The Little Red Book (instead of, say, something relevant, like the writings of Sayyid Q’utb or that recently published collection of Bin Laden broadcast transcripts) as the target of his imaginary surveillance. Come on, doesn’t it all just warm your heart?
Posted by dsmith_michigan on 2005 12 25 at 09:31 PM • permalink"But when Dr. Williams went to the student’s home yesterday and relayed that part of the story to his parents, it was the first time they had heard it. The story began to unravel, and the student, faced with the truth, broke down and cried."
He broke down and cried? Obviously he’s from the left. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in the Evil Death Cult Known as Neoconservatism break down and cry. Well, except for those who miss out on being promoted from minion to henchman. They cry like little bitty girls.
But that’s only to be expected.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 12 26 at 11:29 AM • permalink"The story began to unravel, and the student, faced with the truth, broke down and cried."
Cried?!! Cried!? There’s no crying in Islamic History!” (Channeling Tom Hanks.)
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2005 12 27 at 05:12 PM • permalink
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Nothing like a widely spread hoax to help weed out the insane…