A Lesson in Internet Reading Comprehension

"After breakfast me and Milhouse are going down to the ravine.  We got a tip from a six year old that there's a dead martian down there." - Bart Simpson

I saw goofy little stories like this one and this one and this one on-line last week.  They amount to nothing that could be called news and I didn't even include them in the Friday Link Dump.  Then I check in on Simpsons Channel this morning and what do I see?  

Barack Obama on The Simpsons?

Sigh.  All of the above links can be traced to this post on the website of the British tabloid The Sun.  Here is the full quote from James L. Brooks:

"We’d love to have Barack on the show. No president has agreed to do it yet but we’ll keep asking.  We’re putting all the right signals out."  

That's it.  Brooks, speaking to a British newspaper, said they'd like to have Obama on the show.  Nothing more to it than that.  Of course The Sun, being a tabloid, has the headline read:

US President Barack Obama and British comic Russell Brand are being lined up for an appearance in The Simpsons

I'd say that's overstating the case a bit, but it was enough and the internet took it from there.  

Would Obama want to do a guest voice on Zomibe Simpsons?  I have no idea, that's up to him and the people around him.  For his sake I hope they're either not thinking about it or decide not to do it.  There's no sense tarnishing his image by associating him with a dying television show.  

But one thing's for sure, having Brooks mention that they'd like to do it is a far, far cry from what these stories and headlines imply.