The brain trust at Fox News has done it again. Their crack team of intrepid reporters (or is that insipid team of reporters on crack?), have uncovered another brewing scandal erupting from the Obama White House. The latest atrocity attributed to President Obama concerns an appalling decision on his part that unmasks the anti-American streak of hubris that Michele Bachmann has been warning us about for years.

During the current shutdown of the United States government (or “slimdown” as Fox News has deemed it), a wide variety of government services have been curtailed. This Tea Party driven abandonment of federal responsibilities has resulted in serious repercussions for many Americans including 800,000 workers who have been thrown off the job. Recipients of benefits for child nutrition, victims of natural disasters, and people seeking home loans, have also been adversely impacted by the GOP intransigence and obsession with crippling ObamaCare, no matter the cost to innocent citizens.

Amidst these hardships, Fox News is now reporting (video below) that the President has come to the aid of one particular national entity in order to keep it open to the public. It is the Museum of Muslim Culture that will be the beneficiary of Obama’s generosity as, according to Anna Kooiman of Fox & Friends, he will pay out of his own pocket to keep it operating. This revelation is just the sort of thing that will agitate the Tea Party crowd into fits of fury. And it affirms their long held beliefs that Obama is a secret Muslim who is bent on oppressing America with Sharia law.

There’s just on little problem: it isn’t true. The apparent source for Kooiman’s ludicrous story is a well known and highly entertaining satirical web site, The National Report. Their “news” item included obviously fabricated quotes from the President like…

“The Muslim community deserves our full acceptance and respect,” Obama said. “We have killed millions of Muslims overseas since the September 11th attacks. They are not all bad. In fact most of them are good. So during this shutdown, now is a great time to learn about the faith of Islam. I encourage all of you to celebrate the Muslim community, the ‘Sunnah’ and the magic of the ‘Quran’. All of this can be found at the newly re-opened International Museum of Muslim Cultures.”

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There is indeed an International Museum of Muslim Cultures located in Mississippi. However, it is not a federal property and, therefore, not subject to closure. Furthermore, the picture posted by the National Report was of the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin. Apparently the folks at Fox & Friends are not art aficionados.

Equally inane reports have been circulating that President Obama is deliberately seeking to create unnecessary harm by terminating services that will negatively impact the most people. Of course there is no evidence supporting that allegation, but that hasn’t stopped Fox News from reporting it or Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Tea Party) from announcing that his scandal-fixated, congressional witch hunt committee will investigate it.

Amongst the purposeful annoyances Obama has been accused of is the closing of the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. Like the other accusations, there is no proof that the White House had anything to do with that decision, nor would it make any sense from a political standpoint. But the same GOP representatives who voted to shut down the government, and the memorial, are now hypocritically pretending to defend the rights of the people who want to visit it. This perfectly illustrates the priorities of the right-wingnuts whose sympathies lean more toward old soldiers who want to look at statues than to hungry children or suffering tornado victims.

The National Report has fooled ignorant Tea Party types before. Their story alleging that “Obama Says Tea Party Members Fit Profile of Domestic Terrorists” was widely disseminated through the right-wing funhouse media despite the obvious satirical fakery. When you are unable to discern the validity of a news source whose other articles include “New CDC Study Indicates Pets Of Gay Couples Worse At Sports, Better At Fashion Than Pets Of Straight Couples,” there is something seriously wrong with your cognitive functioning. But I guess that goes without saying when referring to Fox News and, especially, the kiddies at Fox & Friends.

[Update] Anna Kooiman tweeted an apology saying “Just met w producers- I made a mistake yday after receiving flawed research abt a museum possibly closing. My apologies. Won’t happen again.” But that’s not nearly sufficient. She needs to apologize on-air, where she made the “mistake.” Fox media analyst Howard Kurtz ignored it entirely on his Sunday Media Buzz program.

And just as a reminder, Fox News isn’t particularly concerned with mistakes. Kooiman’s Fox & Friends colleague, Gretchen Carlson (who just got a new daytime show on Fox) once remarked that one of the things she likes best about working for Fox is that “When we make a mistake reading the news headlines, whereas at a [broadcast] network you’d probably get fired, instead, we’re like, ‘Eh, we screwed up.’”