When senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway coined the term “alternative facts” two days into the Trump administration, she was trying to justify press secretary Sean Spicer’s claims that news organizations had made the crowd at President Trump’s inauguration look smaller than it was. But maybe the concept has sticking power: On Thursday, Conway said the reason more people weren’t aware of “the Bowling Green massacre” was because “it didn’t get covered.” In fact, it’s because no such massacre ever happened. (Conway later said she misspoke and meant to refer to two Iraqi men living in Bowling Green, Ky., who were convicted of helping al-Qaeda attack U.S. troops in Iraq.)
What other “alternative facts” might help explain the past two weeks? Here are a few.
Trump’s taxes were released, reviewed and cleared by independent auditors, but then, accidentally, they were eaten by a reanimated velociraptor.
Stephen K. Bannon was not a white nationalist publisher. He was a comedy writer who owned a laundromat.
Sally Yates was not fired. She was abducted by “removable aliens.”
Neil Gorsuch was grown in a lab using the DNA of Antonin Scalia and Mister Rogers.
Rex Tillerson was never with Exxon Mobil, because he was a cultural exchange dancer from the Bolshoi.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but only because she was able to clone herself into an army of illegal voters who will later don headscarves and suicide vests.