Editors and fact checkers at several major news outlets were having a seriously bad case of "the Mondays" yesterday, as The Washington Post, CNBC, NY Times, Fox News and other major newspapers were duped by a Chamber of Commerce hoax perpetrated by the Yes Men at the National Press Club. An email with a fake press release was picked up by several outlets who wanted to be first on the scene to report the Chamber's position reversal on climate change.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce suffered the latest in a string of PR embarrassments yesterday. The AM news cycle kicked off with Senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett calling the Chamber's positions "old school" and their $100 million campaign for free enterprise "wasteful" in a harsh interview to Huffington Post. The Chamber claims that this campaign is a way to create jobs, but their underlying motives for the initiative (mainly to defeat regulatory reform) are being questioned by the White House and other powerful corporations more and more.

Hours later,  the Chamber got "punked" by the Yes Men, whose fake news conference in which the "Chamber" supposedly changed their position in favor of climate change legislation, also got covered by major news outlets. The events that unfolded at the faux press conference were hilarious. High profile corporate prankster Andy Bichlbaum (half of The Yes Men duo), who was posing as a 'special assistant' to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Thomas J. Donohue. Reporters were engaged in a serious Q&A with U.S. Chamber "representative" when Chamber rep Eric Wohlschlegel stormed into the Press Club, yelling that the press conference is a hoax and demanding to see everyone's business cards. Because how else can you legitimize anyone as a credible source in Washington, DC without the exchange of business cards, right?

The real Chamber rep and the fake Chamber rep then proceed to have a ridiculous stand-off, with escalating demands from Wohlschlegel to see Bichlbaum's business card and accusations of fraud coming from both sides. The confrontation ended with Wohlschlegel dispensing his business card to various reporters in the room, and doing his best to evade pointed questions about the Chamber's real stance on climate legislation currently in Congress, which the (real) Chamber opposes. As the finale, the Chamber rep grabbed the woman managing the sign-in sheet and demanded she turn it over.

This description doesn't do this event justice though, so please watch the video--as my coworker says, it truly is "comedy gold." And here's Rachel Maddow's interview with Mother Jones reporter Kate Sheppard, who was present at the yesterday's press conference stunt:

The Chamber's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days seem to be increasing in recent weeks. First there's the fallout from groups like Nike and Apple over their climate change policies and opposition to curbing greenhouse gases. Then they announce their sham of a plan to create 20 million jobs by relying on the same failed economic practices of the past that put big corporate interests ahead of ordinary Americans. MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan grills Tom Donohue shortly after, calling him out on his "nonsense."

Until the Chamber of Commerce changes their extreme views on issues like climate change, health care reform, financial regulations, and labor law reform, we foresee many more terrible, horrible, no good very bad days in their future.