Today, CNSNews.com's Fred Lucas brings a fresh angle to the attacks on Obama education official Kevin Jennings: Apparently, he was “recruited” by the administration. Cue up the Drudge siren.

But wait, there's more! According to Lucas, the Obama administration recruited Jennings in spite of the following “well-documented” matters:

Jennings became a lightning rod of controversy last year because he was the co-founder and president for a decade of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which promoted homosexual clubs in high schools.

Moreover, Jennings has been scrutinized for how he handled a 1988 incident by advising a 15-year-old to use a condom in a sexual affair with an older adult man, rather than reporting the possible case of statutory rape to authorities.

I am going to assume that when Lucas says that GLSEN “promoted homosexual clubs in high schools,” he's referring to their work creating Gay-Straight Alliances, which are “student clubs that work to improve school climate for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.” But that doesn't sound as scary.

Homophobic fearmongering aside, Lucas' handling of Jennings' counsel with a student is extremely mendacious. It is not “well-documented” that Jennings had “advis[ed] a 15-year-old” and thus failed to report a “possible case of statutory rape.” Indeed, the sole sourcing Lucas provides to support his false claim that the student Jennings advised was 15 is that ten years ago, while recounting events that occurred twelve years before that, Jennings said in passing that the student was a “High school sophomore, 15 years old.”

That's apparently the CNSNews.com definition of “well-documented.” The idea that Jennings may have misremembered or misspoken is not considered; it was said once, and it makes him look bad, therefore it is gospel.

For CNSNews.com's edification, between that passing reference in a speech and the present, GLSEN's lawyer stated in a 2004 letter that the “conversation” Jennings had was with “a sixteen-year-old student” and that there “is no factual basis whatsoever for” the “claim that Mr. Jennings engaged in unethical practices, or that he was aware of any sexual victimization of any student, or that he declined to report any sexual victimization at any time.” Moreover, Jennings' telling of the story in his 1994 book, One Teacher in Ten, strongly suggests that the student was 16 or 17 at the time Jennings counseled him.

It gets better. Lucas' falsehood that the student in question was 15 comes in the third paragraph of his article. He somehow manages to drop this into paragraph 16:

In October, a person came forward alleging he was Brewster and told news organizations that he was 16 at the time of his conversation with Jennings, which would have been the age of consent.

“alleging he was Brewster.” Isn't that precious?

Here's what actually happened.

In late September and early October, right-wing media jumped on Jennings' 2000 speech in which he said the student he had spoken to was 15 to accuse Jennings of covering up “statutory rape,” ignoring both his account in his book and the lawyer's letter.

On October 1, FoxNews.com's Maxim Lott contacted the former student via Facebook, seeking to confirm his network's already-reported falsehood that the student had been 15 when he spoke to Jennings. The next day, the former student responded to Lott, stating that he “was 16 when Kevin gave me the advice he gave me,” adding that "[i]t has actually been quite distressing to have heard otherwise on your broadcasts."

The same day, Media Matters published a statement from the former student as well as a scanned image of his current drivers' license, conclusively proving that he was 16 at the time of the incident in question.

Both CNN and Fox News subsequently acknowledged that the former student had come forward and stated that he had been 16 at the time.

That's what Lucas is referring to when he says that “a person came forward alleging he was Brewster and told news organizations that he was 16.” I guess that sort of evidence pales in the face of Jennings' “well-documented” passing recollection of events from more than a decade before.