Slate’s Christopher Beam has something to get off his chest.
In a post last night, Mr. Beam, who writes the website’s ‘Trailhead’ blog, confessed that he may have accidentally set off the ridiculous Barack and Michelle Obama "terrorist fist-bump" meme that found its way into this week’s New Yorker‘s cover illustration by Observer contributor Barry Blitt. That cover has spawned more op-eds, blog posts, news segments, and articles than, frankly, Media Mob is willing to link to, making it the most talked about magazine moment in history since Miley Cyrus bared her back in Vanity Fair, lo, two months ago.
According to Mr. Beam, while attempting to summarize some of more bone-headed misinterpretations of the Obamas’ post-nomination lock fist-bump on June 4th, he accidentally misattributed a statement about the gesture being a "Hezbollah-style fist jab" made by an anonymous commenter the website Human Events with a post on the same site by Cal Thomas. Writes Beam:
Whoops! Add another footnote to the already too-long endnote about those pesky anonymous commenters and how they’re ruining everything.