The Obama Interview Hoax and the Curious Story of Rob Sherman

It's a very odd story about a fabricated interview with Barack Obama. Howard Kurtz has it here, about "Alexis Debat, a former French defense official who now works at the Nixon Center, published the interview in the French magazine Politique Internationale." Debat claims that a "Rob Sherman" did the interview for $500, and then gave it him, based on Debat's questions. That's apparently the Rob Sherman, an infamous Chicago-area atheist activist and radio show host. I contacted Sherman and he told me, "It's all a scam. He concocted the story." Sherman said, "I don't do betrayal. I don't do scams." Sherman theorized that Debat came across his name in one of the Tribune stories, and desperately hooked on to it to explain the fabricated interview. Stories on this will be published tomorrow, but that's the exclusive for now.