GOP Rep Tweeted a Fake Obama Photo. Now He's Mad at Everyone For Pointing It Out

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Arizona Republican congressman Paul Gosar, who championed immigration policies so repugnant his six siblings came out against him in a recent reelection bid, has been on an odd Twitter tear. Last November, the representative clandestinely wedged a Jeffrey Epstein meme into a tweet about the Trump impeachment proceedings, and then followed it up a month later with a rather inscrutable attack aimed at the Clintons on Christmas Eve.

On Tuesday, Gosar continued his conspiracy-minded social-media spree by tweeting a doctored photo of an event that never occurred.

The image appears to show former President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, shaking hands and presumably palling around. In his tweet, the Republican lawmaker made it clear that he dislikes both men very much:

Link to tweet

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It didn't take long for reporters—and casual Twitter observers—to debunk the photo as an obvious photoshop. CNN's Andrew Kaczynski was one of the first to note that the photo was a poorly edited version of a real photo between Obama and former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Link to tweet

?s=20

https://www.gq.com/story/paul-gosar-fake-obama-photo?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=pol&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_mailing=Thematic_Ballot_01082019&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9f8cb24c17c6adf0e5d24&cndid=25394153&utm_term=Thematic_Ballot_Subscribers

[abqtommy]

1. Poor ign'nt reTHUGS think that accountability is related to financial records!

[CaptYossarian]

2. At least he didn't use a Sharpie.

[TwilightZone]

3. It was almost as obvious.

[gratuitous]

4. Gosar's first line of defense: I never said this wasn't photoshopped!

Gosar, though, knows his audience just like Boss Tweed knew his. Muckraking journalists wrote about Tammany Hall corruption all the time, but that didn't bother Tweed nearly as much as Thomas Nast's illustrations. Tweed knew his constituents weren't newspaper readers, but they could certainly understand Nast's editorial cartoons. "Stop them damn pictures," Tweed was reputed to have said to his cronies.

In the same vein, Gosar knows his supporters don't go in for a lot of reading, but not because they're illiterate or can't understand English like Tweed's supporters. So Gosar likes Twitter: Short, direct, not too taxing, and you can post doctored pictures. His people can grasp that! Getting called out for his lying ways obviously gets under Gosar's skin.