Hillary Clinton Hoax: Bloomberg News Blunders With Bogus Story Regarding Nancy Reagan Endorsement
It would have been the sweetest plum for candidate-to-be Hillary Clinton. Too bad it was as phony as a flying jackalope. Yesterday, media powerhouse Bloomberg News pounced on a purported scoop that Nancy Reagan, widow of former President Ronald Reagan, had endorsed Hillary Clinton in her fellow First Lady’s forthcoming bid for the office of President of the United States. As reported by Mediaite, the whole tale turned out to be a ruse perpetrated by the satirical “news” site The National Report. Bloomberg News removed the story from their site shortly after it was posted.
In their initial run at the story, Bloomberg crafted a banner image and lead blurb spotlighting some of the fantastic elements of the dubious dispatch.
“The widow of the Republican icon believes it’s time for a female president,” reads Google’s cached version of the Bloomberg story. “…and her son, Ron Reagan, maintains that Barbara and Laura Bush badgered Hillary to run.”
Politico.com reports that Bloomberg later reposted the article as a retracted story along with the following explanatory note: “This story has been retracted. We fell for a hoax. Apologies.” It’s worth noting that Politico‘s link to the reposted version is no longer valid, yielding a 404 error.
It was a convincing yarn in a number of respects. The original post by The National Report is still online and it provides the kind of details that could understandably fool casual readers at first blush. Ron Reagan Jr., the son of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, is quoted in piece, along with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
According to New York Daily News, Bloomberg wasn’t alone in experiencing fallout from the joke. In a short online item regarding the flap, the news outlet said that History Channel was “inundated” with calls over the story.
As previously reported by Inquisitr, Hillary Clinton is scheduled to announce her candidacy for the 2016 presidential elections via social media on Sunday, April 12. While it’s a safe bet that she’ll have a lot of high-profile endorsements from influential men and women, don’t count on Nancy Reagan to be in Hillary’s camp. When Clinton ran for president in 2008, Nancy gave a public nod to Arizona’s Senator John McCain. Indeed, the woman who Ronald Reagan famously referred to as “Mommy” has a history of endorsing fellow conservatives for public office. And while many progressives and old-school liberals may ultimately consider neoliberal Hillary Clinton to be a bit too right of center for their liking, she still falls well to the left of The Gipper on the political spectrum.
[Image from Chris Hondros/Getty Images]
