As you may have heard, President Obama clapped on Politico at the White House Correspondent's Dinner the other night. Politico, feeling humorous (or something) responded.
President Obama presented a revised version of history at the correspondents’ dinner on Saturday night when he unveiled issues of POLITICO from previous centuries. And while POLITICO certainly didn’t exist during the Civil War or the fight for America’s independence, the White House (or the group they outsourced this part of the comedy routine to, at least) appears to have used a different “source” of news that also didn’t exist then to provide the context of the fake articles – Wikipedia.
Here’s the first sentence of text for the “Lincoln Saves Union!” headline (subhed: “But Can He Save House Majority?”): “In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed.”
And here’s the account from Wikipedia, the user-edited database: “In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed.”
The same goes for the White House/POLITICO "stories" for “Japan Surrenders! Where’s the Bounce?” (Wikipedia entry) and “Talks Break Down, Independence Dead” (Wikipedia entry).
Two more things: The WH parody needs to check the spelling of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s name, and Emperor Hirohito was born in April, not August.
Hilarious?