Dancing with the Starrs

Is this a belated April Fools’ joke at the Atlantic? Layers and layers of fact checkers and editors getting an early jump on the holiday weekend? In any case, Daniel Indiviglio, a blogger and staff editor at the Atlantic and former investment banker runs this shock headline:

Kenneth Starr Charged With Running $30 Million Ponzi Scheme

It’s followed by this striked-out text:

Somewhere, Bill Clinton is smiling. One-time special prosecutor who uncovered the dirty details of the former President’s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky has been engaged in some bad behavior of his own, according to the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission.

Correction: Apparently there are two famous Kenneth Starrs. The one charged is an investment advisor to the stars, but not the former special prosecutor. Apologies to Bill Clinton if we got his hopes up — and to the other Kenneth Starr.

Kenneth Starr, notable Hollywood investment advisor — not the former special prosecutor of the same name who detailed the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair — is being charged with running a $30 million Ponzi scheme. Complaints have been filed by both the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission.

Note that Indiviglio apologizes first to Bill Clinton, and only then to the eponymous subject of his story.

(Headline via Lachlan Markay of Newbusters.)

Update: As William A. Jacobson of Legal Insurrection writes, “even crackerjack journalists sometimes forget that in the billions of people in the universe, there is a chance that two such people have the same name. And at Columbia School of Journalism, there is a special course on fact checking using Google and Yahoo. But someone at The Atlantic didn’t take that course.”