Barack and Michelle Obama are in Riyadh today to meet with Saudi Arabia's new ruler, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. Footage of the king receiving the U.S. delegation aired on Saudi TV, but several western commentators noticed something strange about the footage that made it to YouTube: There's a big ol' ovoid blur where Michelle Obama should be.

MSNBC's Chris Hayes was one of the first to spread the story that Saudi TV had blurred Michelle out of the picture, borrowing the coinage "blurka" to describe the apparent censorship of the First Lady's exposed hair. He had to take it back shortly afterward, though, because (as Ben Dreyfuss at Mother Jones and several Saudi TV viewers on Twitter pointed out) the story was complete bullshit.

As much as people like wacky British conservative and former member of parliament Louise Mensch (no fan of Saudi Arabia) loved the #blurka story, it was based on the false assumption that the TV station had added the blur.

Actually, footage of Michelle Obama aired uncensored in Saudi Arabia:

The blur was added after the fact by the person who uploaded it to YouTube. Previous videos posted on that account were censored in the same fashion.

R.I.P. Blurghazi, 2015-2015. Here is Chris Hayes with a short, but poignant, remembrance:

[h/t Mother Jones]