Something very very important happened yesterday, the most important event in human history since the invention of fire: the president and the vice president went out for hamburgers.
This event was so exciting and significant that every major media outlet covered it: the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the Associated Press, an overseas publication, and let's not forget our own NBC Washington. The question, of course, is why.
The press has always been fascinated with Barack Obama's eating habits. Remember that time he admitted to loving waffles so much he would rather eat them than discuss the rather uncomfortable topic of fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter's views on the Middle East?
"Senator, did you hear about Jimmy Carter's trip. He said he could get Hamas to negotiate?" a reporter asked Obama Monday as he ate his waffle, sausage and orange juice with Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., who ordered pancakes.
Obama responded: "Why is it that like I can't just eat my waffle?"
The half-eaten waffle was later put up for auction on eBay before authorities made the seller take the listing down, for reasons of grossness.
But back to Obama: we know he hates beets, and while he's been spotted drinking beer at a Wizards game, he's hardly a devoted boozer like his old hero FDR. He loves arugula and organic foods, enough that he's going to try to grow his own in his filthy back-yard garden.
Add it all up and you see exactly why the press was so fascinated with his burger run: President Obama can't possibly like hamburgers. He is, after all, the sort of guy who probably eats pizza with a fork. What terrible plot is our president hiding from us, that he would perform this ludicrous diversionary stunt?
If you wake up tomorrow morning to discover we've bombed Canada, or outlawed the mongoose, well then there's your answer. Till then: vigilance.