Well, this is just ridiculously over the top, even for Drudge. This beats their headline last week about the administration's new Medical Marijuana policy that was coupled with a "corresponding" photo of Obama surrounded by black school children.
As everyone knows, the White House released its visitor log on Friday (or at least the partial list, with the names that were requested).
And as everyone knows, it got the right wing echo chamber into a frothing frazzle, as the names William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright were there...
...and as everyone in the fact-based world and every news outlet now knows, and as fellow Kossack, BarbinMD recently pointed out, these were not the same William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright:
White House ethics counselor Norm Eisen:
Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few "false positives" – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else. In September, requests were submitted for the names of some famous or controversial figures (for example Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly ("R. Kelly"), and Malik Shabazz). The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.
Well...
THE DRUDGE REPORT WAS APPARENTLY THE LAST ONE TO NOTICE:
Now, I took this screen shot after I sent them two messages.
In the first message, I simply alerted them to their mistake and requested that they correct it. I concluded this first message by telling them in the most polite manner I could that everyone was laughing at them.
In my second message, I pointed out that they should have probably picked up on the fact that these were not the same William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, because - wait for it - their OWN MSNBC LINK to the story made that perfectly clear:
The White House warns that many names that may appear familiar — and controversial —do not in fact refer to the most famous people to carry those names. Jeremiah Wright is on the list, but it's not the president's former pastor. Michael Jordan is not the basketball player. This Michael Moore is not a filmmaker. And William Ayers, who took a group tour of the White House, isn't the former radical from Chicago.
Now - to their credit, at last look, Drudge has changed their headline, omitting (to the crushing disappointment of many a Freeper, I'm sure) the names of Ayers and Wright.
So - what have we learned from this?
A) The people at Drudge Report don't even READ the stories they post as headlines.
B) After Limbaugh and the rest of the right wing echo chamber fell for the hoax about Obama's college thesis, and now this - we can pretty much accept as fact that the right wing echo chamber never reads the stories they spread around.
C) The White House apparently has a very good sense of humor. To wit, from the MSNBC article:
The White House could have avoided some of that sort of confusion by providing more information on the visitors, such as an employer name and the city they hail from
Yes. They could have. But then it wouldn't have been quite as fun. ;-)