Furor over false Obama report

The week's news at a glance.

Washington, D.C.

An unsubstantiated report that Hillary Clinton’s camp was spreading a claim that Barack Obama once attended a radical Muslim school brought sharp denials from both Democratic campaigns this week. Insightmag.com, a conservative Web site owned by the Unification Church, sparked the dust-up with an unsourced claim that the Clinton campaign was about to reveal that when Obama was 6, he attended a madrasa in Indonesia. Several news outlets discredited the story, but not before Fox News and conservative radio picked up the claim and ran with it. Obama said he never attended such a school, and the rival Clinton campaign said it knew nothing about the story. Insightmag.com insisted the report is “solid,” but Fox admitted it should have checked the facts before airing it.

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