‘Harry Reid beaten up by brother’ story a hoax to punk conservative media

Pfeifer told the Sun that his motivation behind the fabrication was to discredit right-leaning media. “Can I set off a domino effect where people say, ‘We’re sick of this,’ and start turning away from this kind of media or maybe boycott their sponsors?”

Pfeifer did say he “would like to apologize” to Harry and Larry Reid for making up the story. “What I did was (expletive) up,” he said.

Pfeifer did not respond to a request from the Examiner as to whether he felt he had the moral high ground, having fabricated a potentially damaging tale.

On his Power Line blog, Hinderaker defended himself [ME: READ THE WHOLE THING]. “I, of course, couldn’t vouch for the veracity of Elliott’s story, and I didn’t,” he wrote, noting that when he originally published Pfeifer’s claims, he was sure to state that he couldn’t prove them.

“I was very clear about the fact I didn’t have first hand knowledge whether the story told by Larry Pfiefer was true or not, or accurate or not,” Hinderaker said in an interview. “Obviously, had I known he was a liar, I would have just hung up on him.” Of Pfiefer’s motivations to spread the false rumor, Hinderaker said, “If I had to give you my best guess, it is that he’s an attention seeker.”