A spit-take-inducing story about a McDonald's restaurant in Massachusetts requiring applicants for a cashier job to hold at least a bachelor's degree along with 1-2 years of experience went viral yesterday after being republished by the Washington Examiner along with a "thanks, Obama"-style write-up courtesy of Washington whisperer Paul Bedard.

"Sadly we've taxed-and-spent our way to an economy in which there's intense competition for just about any job," Bedard quoted Generation Opportunity president Evan Feinberg as saying.

But nonsensical generalizations aside, the independent McDonald's franchise that sparked this latest wave of misdirected blame says it never set any such requirements for its potential cashiers.

"There has been some misinformation reported by an independent job site with no relationship to the Winchendon, Massachusetts McDonald's," restaurant owner Lori Ruscito said in a statement. "The original job posting, which could be accessed through McState.com, did not require a bachelor's degree. We are working diligently to have the misinformation removed from the site but to date the website has been unresponsive to our requests."

I've reached out to Feinberg for a follow up comment and will update if/when I hear back.

UPDATE: Feinberg responds with the following statement:

There are reports questioning whether the ad I was asked about was for real. Either way, we are constantly hearing from college graduates who are flipping burgers or out of work completely, so I wouldn't be surprised to see employers trying to hire them for jobs they are laughably over-qualified for.

[screengrab via YouTube]