MORE CLUES CLOCK CONTROVERSY WAS MANUFACTURED

Some critics have warned that Ahmed Mohamed's stunt was just that (Hat tip: Accuracy in Media):

President Obama’s public backing of a Texas high school freshman, who got national headlines last week when his homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb by teachers, could be causing a headache for the White House and other supporters as questions are being raised about the motives in the case.

Fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed’s father has said he now plans to withdraw the freshman from MacArthur High School, and said Monday that they intend to visit New York City where he says they will meet with dignitaries at the United Nations, before making a pilgrimage to Mecca and later visiting Obama at the White House, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Oh, they're going to visit Saudi Arabia, are they? Despite how awful the country is, chances are the clock would meet with less favorable reviews there.

[...] amid huge support online for the family, there also has been growing criticism and doubts about the motive behind the incident.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins linked to a video posted to YouTube by electrical expert Thomas Talbot, which closely scrutinizes a photo of the controversial clock.

In the video, Talbot argues the clock is actually a commercial alarm clock, removed from its casing. Features of the clock such as the printed circuit boards and ribbon cables are indicative of a manufactured product, he explained.

Dawkins asked, “If this is true, what was [Mohamed’s] motive?”

Mohamed’s father has a colorful history of his own. Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed announced in February that he planned to run for president of Sudan, as he also did in 2010, the North Dallas Gazette reported. In 2011, he defended the Koran when controversial pastor Rev. Terry Jones put the book “on trial."

On HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban also expressed concerns about the family’s involvement. While calling Ahmed a “super smart kid,” he said that when he spoke to Ahmed, "his sister, over his shoulder, you could hear, listening to the question, giving him the answer.”

Maher, a left-wing comedian, also expressed skepticism, saying “the people at the school thought it might be a bomb, perhaps because it looks exactly like a [expletive] bomb.”

Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Napolitano said that if the whole thing was a fraud, and the family was involved, they could be open to legal charges.

“It now appears as though this was a purposeful hoax," Napolitano told Fox News' Megyn Kelly Monday. “If the parents were involved now you have a fraud going on as you have funds going on for him right now,” he said, adding that the two funds to raise money for the family now amount to over $20,000.

Napolitano added that this could turn out to be a politically difficult issue for Obama.

"If this was part of a purposeful stunt and if the parents were involved in this and if everybody from Mark Zuckerberg to President Obama fell for this, this is not good," Napolitano said.

[...] Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin blasted Obama over his involvement in the clock controversy on Saturday, saying in a Facebook post his remarks were "about as presidential as a selfie stick."

"By the way, President Obama's practice of jumping in cases prematurely to interject himself as the cool savior, wanting so badly to attach himself to the issue-of-the-day, got old years ago," Palin wrote.

It already looks more and more like this was all a deliberate hoax, and the White House would do better to uninvite the family from visiting.