As the controversy over CBS’ creative editing of Katie Couric’s interview with Sen. John McCain continues to grow throughout the day, the local conservative blogosphere has had this to say about it:

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… (are those crickets I hear?) …

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Instead, our good friend Fran Eaton, editor of Illinois’ self-proclaimed “conservative crossroads”, unwittingly posted a snarky Internet hoax about ABC News.

The hoax was apparently sent in earnest by an Ill Review reader named Linda Ward who seems to believe it. The urban myth purports to describe a behind-the-scenes story about Sen. John McCain’s most recent trip to Iraq and coverage of it by ABC News’ Martha Raddatz.

Problem is there is nothing true about it.

The hoax centers around the false claim that so-and-so’s niece “Katelyn” is stationed in Iraq and was assigned to Raddatz during her coverage of McCain’s visit. It goes on to claim that Katelyn told her Stateside mom that Raddatz asked 60 soldiers who they would vote for and 54 said Sen. McCain, 4 said Sen. Barack Obama and 2 said Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The hoax concludes with the obvious punchline that Katelyn’s mom watched the news that night, hoping to catch a glimpse of her girl on TV, and Raddatz’ actual aired story included 3 soldiers for Obama and 2 for Clinton, but no mention of any GIs favoring Mac.

As mentioned, it’s an Internet hoax and easily debunked by a 2 second visit to any number of fact-finding, myth-busting sites like Snopes.com, etc.

Illinois Review reader Kate Sykes even notes in comments that another conservative blogger, Michael Gaynor of Conservative Voice, originally ran that same hoax as fact a few days ago but then recanted and apologized today after being made aware of its complete fallacy. In fact, 3 of the 4 commenters to that same Review story note the hollowness behind the hoax (the first was apparently as snookered by it as Ms. Eaton).

What are the facts?

With a little more digging through the Internet tubes, one learns from other conservative bloggers that the alleged “original” author of the email, a retired US Air Force Maj. General, has disavowed ever writing, let alone sending, such an email.

Also, the timeframes and characters in the story are just plain off. ABC’s Martha Raddatz did not travel with Sen. McCain to Iraq and her report from Iraq came weeks after his trip. He went in mid-March and Raddatz’ report aired April 7.

Indeed, even the voter support tally in the hoax is off. Raddatz’ report included one McCain supporter (not “none”).

Snopes.com reports that Maj. Gen. Louis Buckman’s (ret.) statement is also available online, as is the actual ABC News segment by Ms. Raddatz and Jung Hwa Song from April 7, 2008.

Like the other Internet hoaxes swirling around this campaign (in particular, the lies regarding Sen. Obama’s faith), this “ABC in Iraq” fiction appears to be bogus through and through. The protagonist “Katelyn” likely doesn’t even exist.

Other conservative bloggers are correcting themselves and apologizing to their readers even as Ms. Eaton opened her retelling of the hoax as if it were true with the line:

How telling… IR Reader Linda Ward shared this infuriating tidbit with us today…

Now that it’s been quite clearly and thoroughly revealed that there was nothing “telling” or “infuriating” about this fiction, perhaps the good Ms. Eaton will follow the lead of her forthright conservative colleagues by issuing a mea culpa.

While she’s at it, maybe she can let the world know her thoughts on the real world story of Sen. McCain’s major Iraq gaffe and the liber… corporate media’s whitewashing of same.

UPDATE: That didn’t take long… Rather than discuss the error Illinois Review has erased the posting - no explanation as of yet.

UPDATE 2: Ms. Eaton’s post is back up with that mea culpa. She writes in part:

That’s a mistake we hope not to make again, but if we do, we will stand corrected.

I have certainly given Illinois Review and its contributors their lumps in the past for posting out and out fiction as if it were reality or ignoring/twisting facts in order to promote some special partisan interest.

Given that, I say in all sincerity: Good for Fran for owning up to this boo-boo.

I and others are still curious to know, however, what her and her conservative friends think of Sen. McCain’s major flubbing of the Iraq War’s timeline (esp. given that he knew that timeline 18 months ago) and the Eyeball Network’s own eraser job of same. Since the security situation has improved in Iraq to the point where Iraqi forces are much more capable of holding their own, the issue of when and how fast our amazing troops can come home is an important one.

OK, Fran… UPDATE x3: Apparently the snark smells too good over at Illinois Review and Ms. Eaton couldn’t resist. After writing her apology and explanation she decided to backtrack a bit with a second update…

You’ve got to chuckle as we read the big news of the day throughout liberal Illinois-based blogs that Illinois Review’s credibility is somehow hanging by a thread because we posted a bit sent in by an IR reader that proved to be fiction rather than fact.

This one blog is certainly not the whole of the liberal Illinois-based blogosphere, and as of this writing I’ve been the only blogger that I can find to even remark on Ms. Eaton’s posting of the hoax and gracious mea culpa. And I didn’t say Ill Review’s credibility was hanging by a thread… I just pointed out the well-documented errors in Ms. Eaton’s post.

She may also wish to note that the “big news of the day” is actually related to the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee’s major gaffe on Iraq and CBS’ sweeping of it from last night, to which I’ve been repeatedly referring. In other words, neither she nor I are “the big news of the day”.

Apparently somebody flipped the partisan light switch back on over at Ill Review… oh well. Chuckles indeed. Here’s to hoping Snopes is now at least bookmarked on the Reviewers’ PCs.