The Progressive Suckered By Student’s Homeland Security Story

The story has been admitted to be a fraud. But it’s one that perfectly fit the left’s template of Bush’s America with jackbooted Federal agents running out of control.

No, in reality no agents from the Department of Homeland Security visited a student who merely ordered Mao’s “Little Red Book” through interlibrary loan.

So who got suckered? James Carville.

And also Ted Kennedy and Molly Ivans.

And now also Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive magazine.

Rothschild quotes the initial story. He also quotes Homeland Security saying they haven’t been able to verify the story. And the quotes university officials at the University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth about how bad this is.

He largely sanitizes the story, removing the elements that created widespread doubt in the blogosphere.

In all fairness to the left, however, the conservative site Newsmax.com accepted the story, and a reader posted it on Free Republic. In the latter case, of course, the story wasn’t posted by the editorial staff of Free Republic.

Also suckered: Professor Christopher Pyle, leftist professor and opponent of the Patriot Act.