http://twitter.com/#!/erikmal/status/296309964018950145

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.”

http://twitter.com/#!/mdavisjd/status/296310678535426048

Sure did! Note the URL in the since-deleted tweet. It’s not whitehouse.gov, it’s whitehouse.gov1.info.

.gov1 not .govRT @tnr: PHOTO: Obama shooting skeet at Camp David.whitehouse.gov1.info/camp-david/ind… … (from whitehouse.gov )twitter.com/tnr/status/296…

— Sarah Parnass (@WordsOfSarah) January 29, 2013

Photo of Obama at Camp David skeet range is from a spoof page: bit.ly/3ZNsyw

— 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.

@tnr That’s fake (see the website says “Not the White House”?).

— Gabriel Debenedetti (@GDebenedetti) January 29, 2013

And then there’s the disclaimer:

Disclaimer notes: Nope, this is not the official website of The White House. It’s a parody of whitehouse.gov.

— 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 (@tnr) January 29, 2013

OK, everyone. Apologies. Twitter sometimes leads to quick accidents.

— The New Republic (@tnr) 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”

— davidfrum (@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.

Pathetic: New Republic Tweets Fake Photo of Obama Skeet Shooting, Hastily Deletes Itjammiewf.com/?p=23540

— JWF (D) (@JammieWF) January 29, 2013

Read more: http://twitchy.com/2013/01/29/oops-the-new-republic-tweets-parody-site-proof-of-obama-shooting-skeet-quickly-deletes/