april fools' day

Jake Tapper Is an April Fool

It’s April Fools’ Day, which means somebody had to come away with egg on his face for failing to maintain an overabundance of caution. And who better than ABC’s Jake Tapper! Tapper got an e-mail this morning from a “liberal activist” containing an excerpt and link from a Reuters news article reporting that John Yoo, one of the Bush administration’s most torture-friendly officials, had been arrested on war-crimes charges in Italy. Hint number one probably should have been that the link didn’t work, but then again, maybe Tapper just didn’t expect a potential April Fools’ gag to be so lame. Regardless, Tapper forwarded the e-mail across the ABC “internal news distribution system,” but soon after realized he had fallen for one of the classic blunders (the most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia), and a colleague confirmed it for him. Afterward, recovering from the incident, he tweeted, “War crimes + torture=comedy (?).” Yeah, not really. But Jake Tapper getting flimflammed? Kind of!

That Didn’t Take Long… First DC Journo Falls Victim to the Classic April Fools Prank [FishbowlDC/Mediabistro]

Jake Tapper Is an April Fool