I'd believe it was all a hoax but a lot of conservatives have seen it including Rush and said it was terrific.
So unless the plan always was for conservatives to praise the version they saw and then make cuts and changes, I'm not so sure it's misdirection.
It could be ABC is slowly realizing that being one of many consistently left-leaning media outlets is not good business.
It's not beyond possibility, there has been a change in philosophy at the network. If they're testing their toes with the idea of becoming more balanced, one of two things will happen.
1) Either they'll be terrified of what is happening, and fold, never to be heard from again as they continue the slow leftist slide into journalistic irrelevance. Or,
2) They'll see clearly for the very first time - they've been raising a lion in their house by constant leftist slant, and if they don't stop feeding the lion they're going to be the animal's next dinner.
I'm hoping this serves to wake up a lot of journalist types.
Despite their obvious bias, most believe pretty deeply in the First Amendment.
This might be just the sort of thing to get them worked up and actually thinking independently of the Democrat party establishment for the first time since Vietnam.
At long last.
If this doesn't wake them up - they're not sleeping, they're comatose.