Shortly after President Obama announced he would seek congressional approval for military intervention in Syria, the White House issued a photo of Obama speaking on the phone with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that morning. It wasn’t an especially remarkable Oval Office image, but the right really didn’t care for it.
Drudge put the shot on his homepage and soon after, Tea Partiers, among others, wanted to know, “Does seeing President Obama’s foot on the Oval Office desk make your blood boil?”
The right’s preoccupation with stuff like this has been odd for a long while. Republicans were outraged back in 2009 when the president was photographed in the Oval Office without his jacket on, despite the fact that there are plenty of shots of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan in the Oval without their jackets on. Likewise, conservatives were incensed last week about seeing the president’s foot on his desk, though there are plenty of pictures of Republican presidents with their feet on the Oval Office desk, too.
But that’s not the funny part. This is.
After cracking the case of President Obama’s secret Muslim ring, WorldNetDaily’s latest scoop exposes Obama’s secret Muslim foot signals.
In her column, “Obama Sending Muslim Subtle Message?,” Andrea Shea King claims that a photo of Obama with his foot on the Resolute desk of the Oval Office is actually “a wordless message of support to the Muslim Brotherhood, Arab street and Islamic community in general.”
“It is, after all, common knowledge that the Arab world considers the bottom of one’s shoes the ultimate sign of disrespect,” she writes.
Yes, WorldNetDaily really did publish a piece that asked rhetorically, “Is it possible President Obama had a White House photographer release this official image to the world to send a wordless message of support to the Muslim Brotherhood, Arab street and Islamic community in general? To convey his disdain and disregard for all things traditionally American?”
As best as I can tell, this was not satire or an attempt at humor.
Remember, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) considers WorldNetDaily a legitimate news outlet, which publishes conspiracy theories he believes should be taken seriously.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."