Yes, it's all over the blogosphere too. The spin is all about how stupid Rush Limbaugh is to be taken in by a hoax on Wikipedia, and not the least about how a hoax could be on Wikipedia in an article about a living person, complete with a forged/fictional citation. Apparently it is a given out in the world that one should not believe a word of what is written on Wikipedia, and no longer newsworthy.
Crockspot
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
I just heard about this from Keith Olbermann's show. Rush Limbaugh's researchers apparently grabbed a story from Wikipedia about Judge Roger Vinson and used it in one of his rants against health care. The story, describing the judge as a keen hunter and taxidermist who hung stuffed bear heads above his courthouse in order to put "the fear of God" into defendants, turned out to be false.
Apparently the judge doesn't hunt that much and prefes horticulture. “I’ve never killed a bear,” he told the New York Times on Wednesday, “and I’m not Davy Crockett.” He is the president of the American Camelia Society. The source cited in the Wikipedia article was dated June 31, 2003. "Thirty days hath...June." The New York TImes also reported that the editor who added the bogus story to Wikipedia at the weekend recently removed it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/us/16judge.html
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