Kellyanne Conway’s Credibility Questioned After ‘Bowling Green Massacre’ Flub

Carlos Barria/Reuters NEW YORK ― Television news executives are beginning to think twice about booking White House counselor Kellyanne Conway for segments over concerns her credibility has been too damaged. Not all bookers are pulling the plug on putting the close Trump aide on their shows. Her proximity to the president remains a draw despite the dubiousness of some of her claims. But recent statements in which Conway invented a terrorist attack that she blamed the media for not covering, along with citing “alternative facts” when pressed on baseless White House claims, has forced some to reassess her utility on air. As The Huffington Post reported Friday, the White House did not offer Vice President Mike Pence as a guest on CNN’s “State of the Union” even though he was appearing on the four other major Sunday shows. The snub followed a Politico report that the White House was “freezing out” CNN, which Trump increasingly attacks for being “fake news.” A CNN spokeswoman said the White House offered Conway as a substitute, but the network declined. On Sunday night, New York Times columnist Jim Rutenberg wrote that CNN didn’t only turn down Conway because of the Pence factor, but also due to “serious questions about her credibility” inside the network. CNN sources insisted to HuffPost on Monday that the White House’s refusal to offer Pence was the reason for rejecting Conway as a guest on “State of the Union.” But more broadly, sources said there has been a reluctance to book Conway because of credibility issues. The network declined to comment. Conway has been mocked over the past week after citing the “Bowling Green massacre,” a nonexistent terrorist attack, as justification for President Donald Trump’s executive order barring entry to citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries. “Most people don’t know [about the massacre] because it didn’t get covered,” Conway said Thursday on MSNBC. It actually didn’t happen. Though two Iraqi nationals living in Bowling Green, Kentucky, were arrested in 2011 for plotting to send money and weapons to al-Qaida operatives in Iraq, there was no attack. Conway said Friday on Twitter that she made an “honest mistake” and said Sunday on Fox News that she “misspoke one word.” However, Cosmopolitan revealed Monday that Conway had also referred to the “Bowling Green massacre” in an earlier interview with the magazine, and the White House counselor cited the “Bowling Green attack” in an interview with TMZ. Conway also recently defended the White House’s bogus claims about Trump’s inauguration crowd size by suggesting they had “alterative facts,” an Orwellian term that similarly inspired mockery and raised serious concerns that the Trump administration was attempting to create its own reality to justify its actions. One of Trump’s most dogged television surrogates during the campaign, Conway has remained a familiar face in TV news studios since he won the presidency. The Washington Post recently reported that Trump “respects her on-camera ability to dodge, defuse and deflect whatever comes her way.” But critics have questioned networks continuing […]

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