Former ABC consultant Alexis Debat called to ask that I post this, the write up of the results of an ABC investigation into his work, and proposals to change its hiring practices regarding ABC news consultants. I told him that ABC Senior Vice President Jeffrey Schneider had reacted to his sending that around with the emailed comment, “Lol. Does he think he is vindicated? He shouldn’t. He is still a big liar.” Debat says in response, “I don’t think I’m vindicated. But it’s a big statement.” I used the opportunity of the conversation to ask Debat about parts of his earlier claims that did not check out – how he said it was an administrative misunderstanding on his part that he did not know he didn’t have a PhD from the Sorbonne. He said that he changed thesis advisors and departments to the political science department but couldn’t further discuss it. I asked him about the mysterious Rob Sherman, who supposedly conducted the interview for him with Senator Barack Obama. Debat said he had met him in a cocktail party in 2003, he was fifty-ish with gray hair, but he wouldn’t tell me what cocktail party or why he would have agreed to such an arrangement. About the fake interviews with Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others published under his name in the French journal Politique Internationale, Debat says he was stupid to sign his name to those interviews but it’s not fair to say he claimed to conduct those interviews. Asked further questions, he said he had only called to tell me to post the above and he had nothing else to say. More from the NYT.
