Claim:   Photograph shows Barack Obama holding a telephone upside down.

Status:   False.

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, March 2008]

When you are faking a pose for a camera photo opportunity, at least you can get the phone turned in the right direction! And he wants to be President???

Origins:   One joke that never seems to get old — or at least never seems to get old enough to die off — is the picture of the politician holding a telephone upside down (last seen applied to President Bush in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina).

Few (if any) prominent political figures are really clueless enough to both unknowingly pose holding a telephone upside down and approve the release of publicity pictures displaying such a faux pas, but for the record we note here that the above-displayed image of Senator Barack Obama in a similar pose is merely a digitally manipulated version of this photograph:


The appearance of a clock (set to 3:00) on the far wall has also been added to the manipulated image, presumably as an allusion to Senator Hillary Clinton's controversial "3:00 AM phone call" campaign commercial:


Last updated:   1 April 2008

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