Kennedy Goes for the "Fake but Accurate" Defense

I knew it wouldn't take long for the lefties to claim the UMass Dartmouth hoax story was "fake but accurate" (ala Dan Rather), but I didn't expect it would be a prominent Democratic Senator making that claim. James Taranto reports on Kennedy's defense of his use of the hoax story in an op-ed piece last week:

Kennedy, meanwhile, apologized for slandering America's dedicated law-enforcement agents by portraying them as totalitarian thugs.

Ha ha, we fooled you! Here's the actual Kennedy response as reported by the Globe:

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.

Like I said before, drunk or stupid, it's really hard to tell the difference.