At this point, I assume that every sentient being outside of the Washington Beltway knows that Ron Fournier -- America's Sad Clown of Centrism -- is a joke. Some kind of shabbily-constructed, off-brand talking robot penis sent from a fucked-up Conservative Future to ruin everything up here by mindlessly bending every Conservative tragedy or a travesty into a surreal, treacly homily on how awful it is that "Both Sides" are to blame for everything.

But up until now, America's most famous off-brand talking robot penis from the future at least made an effort to pass among us by disguising himself as a "journalist". However, today Mr. Fournier crossed what used to be a very important line. Today, in order to fulfill his Prime Directive, Mr. Fournier fabricated a story.

He lied, in "print"(of sorts) in order to score political points.

Exhibit A: Mr. Fournier's tweet (I took a screen shot just in case Mr, Fournier tries to scrub his timeline):

Exhibit B: The original photograph of President Obama which Mr. Fournier mashed up with a shot of George W. Bush to make his obscene little point

Exhibit C:   As it turns out, the original photograph was taken Air Force One during a flight from Canberra to Darwin, Australia, Nov. 17, 2011. It was also used by the "All Africa" website which featured stories and photos from President Obama historic trip to Africa in 2013.

In other words, Mr. Fournier fabricated the story he desperately wanted to to be true by mashing up the actual photo of George W. Bush looking down at ruins of New Orleans with a photo of President Obama looking down at Australia from 2011 but implying that it was Obama looking down at Flint, MI today in order to "prove" that Both Sides are equally terrible.

Time was, this sort of thing would get a journalist fired.

But I guess we don't do that anymore. In fact, based on all available evidence, there is clearly a lot of money and career security to be had behaving this way.

crossposted from Driftglass.