UPDATE, 10/14/08, 8:12 a.m.—

GAWKER GETS IT WRONG AGAIN ... AND MALIGNS ME: Four days ago in the post below, I exposed how Gawker fell for a forgery that purported to be Sarah Palin's SAT scoresheet but was actually a Photoshop job—made by someone who stole my own scoresheet off my blog and pasted in bad grades. Last night, Gawker admitted it fell for a forgery—and maligned me by claiming the bad grades were mine. This morning, it backtracked—read more here.

My original post, published 10/10/08:

Gawker—the same online rag that called me a "Crazed Christ-Loving Re-Virgin"—is engaging in some craziness of its own: It's asking readers to judge the validity of what it says may be "Sarah Palin's High-School Grades"—but is in fact a forgery made from my SAT scoresheet, which I posted in January 2004.

A sleuth on the Straight Dope message board identified my scoresheet as the source of the forgery.

The forger lowered the grades and scores on the printout to make Palin, an honor-society member, look like a mediocre student—but wasn't smart enough to hide the obviousness of the Photoshop job. Still, Gawker publisher Nick Denton—who earlier published e-mails stolen from Palin's personal account— asserted the fake was credible: "The grades are mediocre—appropriately the small-town girl scores a D in foreign language—but not so dreadful as to immediately stretch credulity. And the first five digits of the social security number do match Sarah Palin's."

UPDATE: The forgery appears to have originated with a purported "Background Report" on Palin that was posted anonymously to a Web site. It was swiftly swallowed blogs such as Daily Kos ("it sure seems credible"), and Wonkette ("a 425 verbal sounds about right"). None of them apparently noticed or cared that the front page of the "report" revealed it to be an obvious fake: The document, which features purported DMV records from 2006, bears a "RECEIVED" stamp dated "6-24-03."

And now, I will attempt to leave all this bloggy excitement behind for a while, as I am currently pursuing a master's degree in theology and need to study for midterms. And no, my GRE scores will not be forthcoming.

TRACKBACK:

• Ace of Spades observes,"Obamasphere So Scary Smart It's Taken In By Another Moronic Hoax."
  
  
• NewsBusters' Warner Todd Huston also notes the story: "Fake Palin SAT Scores Fool Left-O-Sphere." And now the whole world knows I had a B average, 700 verbal, and 640 math.
  
  
• And this just in: Daily Kos' Jimmy Crackcorn really does care—he's apologized. He also includes a neat animated graphic superimposing the forgery over my own scoresheet. The irony is that my high-school grades have now been exposed to hundreds of thousands of strangers—while Sen. Barack Obama's Columbia University transcript remains hidden at the candidate's insistence.
  
  
• Examiner.com's "College Admissions Examiner" Lauren Starkey posts the forgery [now removed—see update below] and, when called on it by readers, comments, "all I can find is mention of a debunking on a couple of right sided websites. If and when I hear it from a source that doesn't refer to 'liberal idiots' (and worse), I'll take down the post and note that it was a fake."
  
  UPDATE, 10/12/08: Starkey has apologized "to those who were offended."