Hurricane Isaac is getting so much media attention it seems unlikely that anyone is watching this week's televised Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. To make matters worse for Republicans, President Obama visited social media site Reddit today where he was answered questions live.

Even before Hurricane Isaac made landfall, Nancy Grace, MSNBC, Fox News and CNN were all talking about the then tropical storm. Still, some GOP party platform news was televised, with the party bolstered by some polls which had Mitt Romney leading President Obama by as many as 8 or 9 percentage points.

Just when people were sucked into convention-watching mode, the split-screens showing an orange and yellow Isaac spinning and gaining strength became the focus. Schools are already being closed on Thursday and Friday in the Shreveport-Bossier area, far from the Louisiana coast.

Even President Obama seems to be stealing some of the elephant's thunder with his live question and answer session on Reddit. How do you know it was the real Barack Obama? People were asking that very question on the site.

"For proof, did he send you a picture of him holding a dated index card? Or did the Secret Service land a helicopter on your house," asked one Redditor of the site's admins. Another jokingly answered:  "He faxed a copy of his birth certificate."

The president fielded myriad questions from citizens concerned with the rough economy to those who were just curious about the White House's beer recipe.

Answering a serious question on how he would help small businesses, the president confirmed that he wanted to keep taxes down for small businesses.

"We've really focused on this since I came into office - 18 tax cuts for small business, easier funding from the SBA. Going forward, I want to keep taxes low for the 98 percent of small businesses that have $250,000 or less in income, make it easier for small business to access financing, and expand their opportunities to export," said President Obama. "And we will be implementing the Jobs Act bill that I signed that will make it easier for startups to access crowd-funding and reduce their tax burden at the start-up stage."

The presidential appearance unsurprisingly wreaked havoc on Reddit, causing the site to sporadically become unavailable for eager readers. That didn't stop the AMA from accruing more than 17,000 comments during the brief 30-minute Q&A.

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