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.
Right. Fake, but accurate. Sounds familliar.
Here's an excerpt from the Senator's op/ed:
Just this past week there were public reports that a college student in Massachusetts had two government agents show up at his house because he had gone to the library and asked for the official Chinese version of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto. Following his professor's instructions to use original source material, this young man discovered that he, too, was on the government's watch list.
Think of the chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom when a government agent shows up at your home -- after you request a book from the library.
Incredibly, we are now in an era where reading a controversial book may be evidence of a link to terrorists.
Clearly, the Senator believed the story and was using it to make a broader point about domestic espionage. If he were an honest person he would retract that part of his column and apologize for misleading readers.
Sadly, Ted Kennedy is not an honest man.