Someone found secret line of code on the GOP website — and it's ridiculous and ironic

"Unlike Obama, we are working to fix the problem... and not on the golf course," the error message was meant to say

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published December 29, 2017 11:54AM (EST)

 (AP/Michael Conroy)
(AP/Michael Conroy)

A Donald Trump-related political website tried to make cheap jokes about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in its error message. But it couldn't even do that correctly.

The revelation came to a grateful world by Christopher Igraham of The Washington Post.

You may have noticed that the code is written to display the following message in the event of an error:

"Oops! Something went wrong. Unlike Obama, we are working to fix the problem... and not on the golf course."

As Paul Glenn from Vice pointed out, the intended burn will never be seen by its intended audience because of an error in the JavaScript.

Ingraham continued his reporting on the issue over the subsequent two days.

One major irony here: Although Trump frequently took jabs at Barack Obama's golf playing habits while his predecessor was in office, as of last month Trump had played golf 35 times since taking office — and that's only counting the occasions which were confirmed by third parties, since Trump's staffers have refused to confirm when the president plays golf.

Trump went golfing nearly 50 percent more than Obama did in his first year.

The website link provided by Christopher Ingraham has now been fixed and includes an informal survey about Trump's performance as president so far. Interestingly, when asked to rate the comparative performances of Obama and Trump in office, the website only offers the options of "great," "good," "okay" and "other" for Trump — but adds the option "poor" for Obama.

Another question reads, "Do you believe the Fake News Media will fairly cover President Trump’s first year approval rating?"


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

MORE FROM Matthew Rozsa


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Barack Obama Donald Trump Hillary Clinton