The Yes Men Make Chamber of Commerce Look Like (Bigger) Dinosaurs
The Chamber of Commerce held a press conference in DC today to declare that it's ending its longstanding, controversial opposition to climate-change regulations. No it didn't. [UPDATED with fun media clips below!]
It was The Yes Men, of course, the liberal group behind the Fake New York Post and the Fake New York Times and plenty of other, similar stunts in which they pose as representatives of some evil corporate entity and pretend that said corporate entity has acquired a conscience, thereby embarrassing said corporate entity when it turns out, no, it was a hoax, Dow Chemical really isn't giving shit to Bhopal survivors, or whatever.
Today's stunt sounded especially good, though, because a guy from the real Chamber of Commerce burst in and caused a scene! The Washington Post was there:
"This guy is a fake! He's lying! This is a stunt that I've never seen before," said Eric Wohlschlegel, an official at the actual Chamber of Commerce, who said he'd heard about the hoax event from a reporter who'd mistakenly shown up at the chamber's headquarters...
Afterward, he said the chamber's position had actually not changed: they have called for "strong" legislation on climate change, but they do not support the bill passed by the U.S. House this summer.
"It is a very sad day," Wohlschlegel said.
Haha! Very sad day for you, dude! The Yes Men's fake newspapers are always too earnest to be funny but these things are, in fact, funny. We haven't found any video of this one yet, but enjoy their Dow Chemical hoax, below. [Pic via]
UPDATE: Here's a screenshot of the Reuters story that briefly went out on the wires falling for the hoax. And below is a clip of Fox Business reporting the Chamber's new position as breaking news, via Enviroknow (which has a clip of CNBC falling for it as well).