Obama, known for his usual light-hearted banter with the press corps, had spent the latter half of the conference fielding questions on the global economic crisis, Libya and the 2012 U.S. Election.
However, sensing that his repetitive rhetoric was starting to "lose some of the crowd", Obama stopped, slammed his fist on the podium and declared: "all right, screw this! Who wants to hear something really funny for a change?"
"Let's forget about the economy for a minute, guys", said Obama. "I've got this one joke that will have you rolling on the floor in tears. Now do you wanna hear it or not?". Fuelled by a lack of response, the President emphatically repeated the question: "I said do you wanna hear it or not?"
"All right, here goes. Why do blacks get so afraid of having diarrhea?", he asked, pausing for some kind of response. "Because they think they're melting."
It took Obama roughly twenty seconds to realize that he was the only person in the venue laughing at the joke, while a group of black men on the front row apparently stormed out in protest.
"Hey come on guys, lighten up. It's just a joke", he continued. "Besides, black jokes aren't racist if a black guy tells them, right?"
As it became apparent that his joke had horribly backfired, the usually confident president started sub-consciously thumbing through his notes.
Mr Obama has since been advised to restrict his press conference humor to little anecdotes about Republican Presidential debates, as well as "maybe the odd quip about the standard of the White House's catering service".
Image credit: United States Federal Government. Public Domain.