Over at The Corner, Byron York has had to post an item officially alerting the right wing of the blogosphere that an article purporting to be a genuine interview with Michelle Obama, is in fact a fake. The article, from an organization calling itself "African Press International," claims to have gotten a phone call from an irate Michelle Obama, in which she railed at the outlet for "spread[ing] rumours created by American bloggers and other racist media outlets in their efforts to damage a black man's name," and "evil people who are out to stop her husband from getting the presidency." The fake Michelle Obama insists that her husband "loves his country" and promises the organization favorable treatment if they "write a good story about her husband."
Naturally, a mere contemplation of the obvious should have short-circuited the belief that this interview was real, thus sparing York from having to point it out. The Obama campaign has been, throughout the season, notoriously disciplined and highly aloof from the press, so it's unlikely that Michelle Obama would have the green light to be calling up random bloggers to yell at them. If she did, she'd be doing that all the damned time! But Michelle is clearly working hard to avoid courting controversy. For crying out loud -- her appearance on "Paula Deen's Party" could be aptly described as "rigorously on-message," and all she was doing was frying some shrimp with one of the most ridiculously lovable hosts of the Food Network.
Beyond that, there were obvious signs that the interview, and the organization, is fakety-fake McFake. For example: there are two "r's" in "Farrakhan." "Inauguration" is not spelled "innoguration." And you'd think that a writer for "African Press International" would be clear on the concept of capitalizing one's own publication's name. Nevertheless, these obvious signs proved too elusive for some people, hence Byron York's involvement.