Correction/not a retraction: The G20 video was real, but we did a poor job of contextualizing it.

By Jack Brummet and Pablo Fanque

A quick clarification on the story we ran yesterday on President Bush's reception at the G20 Summit, "Is President Bush Suffering From Leprosy?" We were troubled about this story from the get-go. Yes, the video was real. But even as we wrote and posted the story, we knew something wasn't quite right.

Let's face it, these people would shake hands with Papa Doc, Idi Amin, Sirhan Sirhan, Stalin, Carlos the Jackal, Herman Goering, or just about anyone in a position of power if it suited their purposes. Why would they shun W?

Daryle Conners confirmed reading about it later, and I independently realized late Friday night that we were probably seeing a clip of a "photo opportunity." President Bush, Merkel and the other leaders didn't shake hands because they all shalen hands a couple minutes previously. The handshakers were those not at the earlier photo-op. I'm not even going to look it up, because it is absolutely clear this is what happened! We got sucked into the blog/web hysteria on this one like everyone else. We should have known immediately what the context actually was. But it did give the Bush haters a chance to vent one more time (their time is running very short). You should have read the comments section on the HuffPo post on this!

Once in a while a story is just so tantalizing, you run with it (as we did in the summer over the Palin baby rumors that whipped around the internet like a tornado). And why not? After all, we're not some respectable blog with paying customers and advertisers.

When we print something scandalous, we want it to be completely true, or fictional from the ground up. Speaking of which. . .how was The President taken into custody last night when he was supposed to be at G20?
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