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02 Dec 2007 07:17 pm

When Did Lopez Know?

In her latest post to address the concerns about her unintentionally publishing fabrications by W. Thomas Smith Jr, National Review Online's Kathryn-Jean Lopez writes, rather broadly:

And for the record: Questions were brought to my attention in November and we addressed them in November.

So they were raised November 29 and she addressed them November 30? Or November 1 and November 30? Since the fact in question - an alleged swarm of 5,000 Hezbollah militia members - is not that hard to rebut, I assume it came late in the month. But Mitchell Prothero emailed me to say that this was brought to Lopez's attention "more than six weeks ago." I guess this can be cleared up by a few stored emails - and the difference between, say, four weeks ago and six weeks ago is not that big a deal. But it sure isn't an "immediate" response as some bloggers, i.e. Michelle Malkin, have asserted in NRO's defense. So when exactly was Lopez first informed of the accusations; and did she post a retraction only after Tom Edsall called to ask about the matter? Meanwhile:

We are taking a look at the Smith archive and will give you a full assessment in the coming days because we owe that to our readers.

Developing ... If you've been having a life this weekend, the following posts can catch you up on the story that has snowballed over the weekend: here's a summary of the first piece of news; here's Edsall's follow-up; here's Prothero's email.

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