If it’s too good to be true, The New Republic is on it!
President Barack “Bitter Clinger” Obama claimed he totally goes skeet shooting “all the time” at Camp David, but White House press secretary Jay Carney couldn’t say for sure whether photographic evidence exists. Luckily, we have the resourceful “real journalists” at The New Republic to boldly scour White House parody sites for “proof.”
Sure did! Note the URL in the since-deleted tweet. It’s not whitehouse.gov, it’s whitehouse.gov1.info.
.gov1 not .gov RT @tnr: PHOTO: Obama shooting skeet at Camp David.http://t.co/6tD1mlLg … (from http://t.co/xSlgZysu )http://t.co/XEyjU202
— Sarah Parsnips (@WordsOfSarah) January 29, 2013
Photo of Obama at Camp David skeet range is from a spoof page: http://t.co/95MIeepU
— lesley clark (@lesleyclark) January 29, 2013
What else might have tipped TNR off to the fact that it was a spoof site? Oh, maybe a header that explicitly says “Not the White House” and “Parody of WhiteHouse.gov.
https://twitter.com/GDebenedetti/status/296309488733003777
And then there’s the disclaimer:
Disclaimer notes: Nope, this is not the official website of The White House. It's a parody of http://t.co/hYljbUyq.
— lesley clark (@lesleyclark) January 29, 2013
Disclaimers are hard. So very hard. TNR owned up to jumping the skeet gun, but not before deleting the embarrassing evidence.
Apologies, that photo tweeted out by @tnr is a forgery, on a fake site. Previous tweet has been deleted.
— Mike O'Brien (@mpoindc) January 29, 2013
We see it! We see it! Not the White House!
— The New Republic (@newrepublic) January 29, 2013
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OK, everyone. Apologies. Twitter sometimes leads to quick accidents.
— The New Republic (@newrepublic) January 29, 2013
Quick accidents and quick deletions. But Twitchy is forever.
Before TNR’s attempt to memory-hole the tweet, gun-grabber David Frum shared it with his followers, asking, “Have US politics reached peak dumb?”
He then apologized … for “mangling [the] joke.”
Sorry for mangling joke. I wasn't offering photo as authentic, was referring to emerging Obama skeet truther meme as "peak dumb"
— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 29, 2013
“Peak dumb,” indeed.
Update:
And in case you were wondering why that image looks awfully familiar:
Update:
Jammie Wearing Fool has more. Apparently someone at BuzzFeed also fell for the spoof pic.
http://twitter.com/JammieWF/statuses/296319199356256256
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