Spoof 'Times' puts Obama on notice

It's marvellous what the mere election of a new president can do. Commuters in New York went to work yesterday digesting the astonishing news in the New York Times that the Iraq war was over, all American troops were on their way home and a whole new universal healthcare package had miraculously passed in Congress.

It was an extraordinarily elaborate hoax that involved printing as many as one million copies of a phoney New York Times. "USA Patriot Act Repealed", one headline trumpeted. "National Health Insurance Act Passes," said another.

Everything looked exactly like the real New York Times except the slogan by its masthead "All the news that's fit to print" became "All the news we hope to print." The truly observant might have noticed the publication date – 4 July 2009. It was a policy wish-list from an anonymous group of liberals. Barack Obama is on notice: these are the headlines radical supporters are expecting when you are in office. Some reports credited a progressive liberal group with a history of pranks called The Yes Men for the spoof which, we were informed, took more than six months to set up. For those that missed out, copies of the newspaper were changing hands at Union Square for $30 each.