"Counterpoint" Extra: Lying or Incompetence?

God Help Him If He Ever Had to Face Mike Wallace!

Forced to answer questions in the public spotlight, Mark Hyman withered under the unyielding interrogation of . . . Deborah Norville.

Deborah Norville is to television interviewers what “It’s a Small World” is to amusement park rides. But even she managed to scrape through the Sinclair façade. During an October 21 interview, Norville questioned Hyman about the “newsworthiness” of “Stolen Honor,” given that the Swift Boaters had gotten tons of airtime and newsprint devoted to them.

Hyman assured her that, no, this was an entirely new group of people completely unrelated to the Swifties.

But Mark, what about this press release from September 29th officially announcing the merger of the Swift Boat vets with the group who put together “Stolen Honor”? It’s not just that these two groups have had contact or share some members; they’re officially the same group, and had been for nearly a month before Hyman told his whopper to Ms. Norville.

So either Mark Hyman knew about this and willfully misrepresented the facts (which makes him a liar), or he wasn’t aware of some basic information about the source of Sinclair’s “exclusive” news story, which makes him journalistically incompetent.

Which is it, Mark? We’re just wondering.

And that’s an extra Counterpoint.

Check out the Media Matters site for the full scoop on this, as well as several other well-documented articles taking apart the falsehoods behind “Stolen Honor” and Hyman’s recent encore of his distortion-filled rants about John Kerry’s war record.