Too good to pass up. Breaking: Phone book reveals Palin phone number RedState's Erick Erickson has a fevered take on our story on Tony Knowles' tw
September 3, 2008

Too good to pass up.

Breaking: Phone book reveals Palin phone number

RedState's Erick Erickson has a fevered take on our story on Tony Knowles' two-year-old opposition research book on Sarah Palin under the heading "Democrats Release Sarah Palin's Social Security Number."

His item is so wildly misleading that it's hard to know where to start, but the headline seems like a good place. First, if he knows that Democrats released it, he has better sources than I do.

Second, the Social Security umber is missing its last four digits. That is, it's already been redacted, in an apparent excess of caution by whoever prepared it from public record. You can't get very far with a five-digit Social Security number. (Similarly redacted Social Security numbers are available for a small fee on such sinister tools as Lexis-Nexis.)

The item's first sentence is also inaccurate. "The Politico has received an opposition research file from the Alaska Democrats."

The notion that we received the file from the Alaska Democrats appears to come from sources inside Erickson's head.

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