and later in an interview with Howard Kurtz of Fox News, saying it was overblown because “I misspoke one word.” (By that, she meant, apparently,<br />that she should have said “Bowling Green terrorists” rather than “Bowling Green massacre.”)<br />And Ms. Conway was right when she wrote that “honest mistakes abound.”<br />A few days before that, WJBK-TV of Detroit walked back a report about a woman who died in<br />Iraq supposedly after Mr. Trump’s new policy blocked her entry to the United States.<br />But there’s a good chance you know that by now: that the supposed terrorist attack in Bowling Green, Ky.,<br />that Ms. Conway, a top presidential adviser, invoked on MSNBC last week to justify President Trump’s contentious travel ban never happened.<br />Then there are the regular Trump Tweets calling CNN or The Times “fake news.”<br />The Bowling Green episode made such a splash because it played directly into concerns<br />that the Trump administration would use untrue assertions to rally support for its agenda while denigrating as “dishonest” all the valid reporting pointing out the falsehoods.<br />Eventually, the Bowling Green memes led to mock street memorials with signs like “Never Remember.” They had<br />made it IRL, or “In Real Life,” which, the new administration is learning, has a way of sneaking up on you.
