Obama WAS In Paris; Ultra-Orthodox Racists Photoshopped Him Out

Washington, January 13 – White House officials on the defensive over President Obama’s apparent absence from Sunday’s rally in Paris were taken aback by the charges that he had neglected to attend or send high-ranking representatives, since he actually was present – but then the officials were unable to rebut the accusations when they discovered that all the image and video files of the president in the front row of the demonstration and memorial service had been edited by racist Jewish religious radicals to remove evidence of his presence.

Furor over President Obama’s ostensible failure to show sufficient solidarity with France and the victims of recent terrorist attacks there focused on his assigning the task to the US Ambassador in the French capital, and the failure to insist that a higher-ranking official represent American sympathy and support even while Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris. But before White House spokespeople were able to rebut the charges of presidential diplomatic and political incompetence, they found themselves unable to find audiovisual evidence, despite seeing it themselves just minutes before. In fact administration officials were unable to find the original files even on remote servers and in independent or foreign hands, the hackers had been so thorough.

A brief investigation found that the devices and servers where the files had been stored were hacked, and the images an videos had been cut or otherwise modified so convincingly that the officials themselves began to doubt their ability to recall events. The files bore only the telltale signs of tampering,  by the same organization that photoshopped women leaders out of the same images for an ultra-Orthodox Jewish publication in Brooklyn. That outfit did not want to accept images of a prominent black man at an event partially sparked by the deaths of Jews at the hands of a black man.

An official speaking on condition of anonymity confided that the administration decided it would be less damaging to its image if the reports of Obama’s non-attendance were treated as true than if the White House had to admit it fell prey to a cyberassault by religious fanatics. French leaders were contacted and asked to play along, at which point President Hollande’s office developed the idea that a drama with Netanyahu could be fabricated, and the Israeli leader could be insinuated into the images in place of Obama. Netanyahu was in fact not initially encouraged to attend, but was then reported as changing his mind at the last minute and prompting an inexplicable reaction from Paris that involved inviting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as well. The anonymous official explained that the drama surrounding Netanyahu and Abbas, and Netanyahu’s gradual appearance front and center, were intended to cover up Obama’s sudden disappearance from the photos and video.

The French were initially reluctant to assist because they did not wish to complicate the show of unity by condoning the apparent presence of a Jew, which could fracture that unity. But ultimately the Hollande administration relented when Obama reminded them that nice words or gestures toward Jews would be forgotten within two weeks and France could go back to openly favoring Israel’s enemies.