Eisenstadt affair

"For the man who loves truth, and is truthful where nothing is at
stake, will still more be truthful where something is at stake; he will avoid
falsehood as something base, seeing that he avoided it even for its own sake;
and such a man is worthy of praise." (Aristotle, Nico.Ethics).

A year or so ago, the MSM circulated a report that Sarah Palin did not know Africa was a continent. I objected to Ms Palin's politics and to her born-again christian aspects and did not support McCain/Palin (or the Obama campaign, for that matter). Regardless, at the time, I found it difficult to believe that Palin would not know that Africa was a continent--the sort of basic geographical knowledge known by most
6th graders. Later, it was discovered the report was bogus--not merely a mistake, but a deliberate falsehood.

The story was originally attributed to one "Marty Eisenstadt," supposedly a low-level McCain staffperson. As most in Consumerland now realize,Marty Eisenstadt never existed. An actor purporting to be Marty Eisenstadt appeared in a few videos (widely circulated on Youtube), and had a blog of sorts, but the character was pure fiction: two obscure filmmakers, Eitan Gorlin and Dan Mervish, created the character of Marty Eisenstadt. Some of the leaks, including the "Africa is not a continent" ruse, may have started with other sources, but the Eisenstadt character made them popular and claimed to be the original source of various odd and defamatory comments. He spread the virus so to speak.

For a few months Eisenstadt was a near-pundit, offering his insights into the campaign battle with an anti-McCain/Palin slant. Even those who detested McCain't or Sarah Klondike should realize that "Eisenstadt" was lying, and engaging in a rather sophisticated type of defamation via media--or, rather, Gorlin and Mervish, politically leftist, spread lies, but used a phony character to do their dirty work. After Gorlin and Mervish were exposed, most Democrat regulars on the usual big Demo-Reg blogs like KOS and DU chuckled at the prank and applauded their skills at deception.

The democrats' acquiescence in the media-sabotage of Gorlin and Mervish was dead wrong. Anyone who values responsible politics should consider the Eisenstadt media-hoax a serious crime, bordering on a KGB or Goebbels-like misinformation spreading. A few demos argued, incorrectly, that the Eisenstadt hoax was a type of comedy or guerrilla satire, ala SNL or the Onion. That is not the case. We should support the right of comedians to engage in SNL-like satire, though SNL may verge on a type of misrepresentation at times. Gorlin and Mervish did not intend to entertain or satirize; they intended to deceive the public for personal and political gain (i.e. helping Obama/Demos win), similar to how a Madoff deceived investors into giving him millions for bogus investment schemes.

Liberals routinely insist they are the good guys upholding the party of liberty and justice for all. The Eisenstadt hoax shows otherwise. The Eisenstadt hoax shows that people with access to media power, including liberals, engage in machiavellian power-politics (ie winning is all) and fraud when it suits their needs. Fraud isn't satire. The authentic democrat should protest Gorlin and Mervish machiavellian tactics and also object to the hipsters who approve of the Eisenstadt hoax; the authentic democrat should, in fact, support the prosecution of Gorlin and Mervish for defamation, misrepresentation, and media-hijacking.