From International Herald Tribune:

Dan Mirvish, who with Eitan Gorlin created an elaborate Internet hoax complete with a fake policy institute and a phony adviser to Senator John McCain. (Axel Koester for The New York Times)

It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.

And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.

This whole ridiculous scam was started by a pair of obscure filmmakers as a way of promoting an idea for a TV series based on the character, who was a valet spouting nonsense in support of Giuliani. Giuliani dropped out and the idea morphed into this latest incarnation.

They chose the name because all the Bush Neocon advisers have Jewish last names and Christian first names.

They then created this completely fictional character and ran with it.

They say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere.

“With the 24-hour news cycle they rush into anything they can find,” said Mirvish, 40.

Gorlin, 39, argued that Eisenstadt was no more of a joke than half the bloggers or political commentators on the Internet or television.

They conned some of the best? news teams in the country. –Now that’s sad commentary on the state of news reporting in it’s current format.
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The next hoax is going to turn out to be “Sex with a Hedgehog.” Assuming for the moment that anyone cares enough to give it a close look. –It’s on blogs all over the net and never seems to be filed in humor.

I read about it on Rich’s blog; My View of the World.

I called him and discussed it. After the initial laughter died down we agreed that it was extremely unlikely that the event actually occurred.

Especially when you take into consideration that the original –and as far as I have been able to determine– only source is The Sun.

We both are very suspicious. Rich immediately offered me 3 to 1 odds that it was a complete and utter fraud. –I declined to take the bet… I hate losing.

It’s still one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.