It's the story that keeps on giving for people in search of evidence of just how detached from reality Obama's fiercest online critics are. (I believe the malady is known as Obama Derangement Syndrome.)

In the wake of Obama's speech at the Tucson memorial service last week, desperate Obama haters flailed around in search of more reasons to hate the President of the United States. Chronically unreliable blogger Jim Hoft discovered a doozy: The White House had inserted “applause” instructions into the text of the memorial speech, prompting audience members to whoop it up.

But Media Matters completely debunked Hoft's comical claim and showed how the “applause” cues were part of the closed caption service provided for the memorial. You know, the closed caption service that recorded, in real time, all audible portions of the service, like when the audience spontaneously applauded.

But days after the very dopey gotcha was debunked, Hot Air's Morrissey dutifully tried to spread it around:

But one thing on which we can all agree is that that the White House wrote the speech, and apparently added “applause” indicators into Obama's speech that the university put on the Jumbotron in their captioning for the audience.

The university was responsible for most of the problems that did occur, and detracted from a very good speech from President Obama. But it's hard to imagine that the university inserted the "[APPLAUSE]" tags that went with the captioning on the Jumbotron on their own. How would the organizers know which lines were intended for applause space? That had to come from the speech provided to the organizers by the White House for the purpose of displaying the captioning, and obviously Obama gives the final approval on his speeches, as do all Presidents.

Right. The White House apparently added the “applause” indicators, on that “we can all agree.” As for the blindingly obvious explanation that the “applause” tags came from the closed captioning? Morrissey never considered that one.

To his credit though, Morrissey updated his post yesterday and conceded that the White House did not insert the “applause” signals. Morrissey even apologized. Hoft, though, remains eternally quiet on the issue, even though Morrissey, the far-right TownHall.com, and even Rush Limbaugh (not to mention Media Matters) have all thoroughly debunked his idiotic “story.”

Jim it's okay, just say you're sorry.