So, yesterday was Talk Like a Pirate Day, and the president's social network team decided to join the parrrrty by tweeting a 2009 photo of Obama pretend-meeting with a pirate — actually speechwriter Cody Keenan in costume — "for use in the President's humorous speech to the White House Correspondents Association dinner."

But leave it to Fox News, the pirates of cable news, to take all the humor out of an incredibly harmless gesture that shouldn't even be on any serious news program's docket, let alone its focal point.

Fox & Friends, not known for being very thorough in their vetting of content, asserted that the photo was snapped yesterday, and, likely taking its cue from Drudge, claimed Obama preferred to meet with the pirate than with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

That meeting didn't take place due to scheduling conflicts, so the two spoke on the phone for an hour instead.

But the truth hardly makes for a compelling narrative, so instead host Brian Kilmeade informed Fox News viewers that "this pirate got a sit-down in the Oval Office yesterday." Quipped Steve Doocy: "So much for the Middle East peace."

Fox & Friends was later forced to issue one of its infamous "clarifications," tweeting "the picture we aired this morning of the President & the pirate was from 2009."

But TPM commenter Patricia Puzzo has the last word on this: "I'd rather he met with a pirate than Netanyahu anyway."

[H/T: New York Mag, photo via White House Flickr, video via TPM]