Farah: 'Investigations Have Concluded ...'

Last Thursday, nearly three weeks after April Fool's Day, the New York Times, once touting itself as "the newspaper of record" that brought readers "all the news fit to print," carried the following headline in its politics section:

"Evidence Aside, State Lawmakers Debate 'Birther' Bills."

Datelined from Oklahoma City, where state lawmakers were in the process of passing legislation that would require all candidates for all offices to establish they meet eligibility requirements before getting on the ballot, the lead of the story stated:

"Investigations have concluded that President Obama was, in fact, born in Hawaii in 1961, as he has always said."

Which investigations were those?

The story doesn't say.

But it does provide this startling new evidence to back up that claim: "Just this week, on the news program 'Good Morning America' on ABC, George Stephanopoulos produced a copy of the president's Certification of Live Birth, causing a potential presidential aspirant, Michele Bachmann, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, to say that the issue appeared settled. In 2008, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging that proof."

In another day, with another issue, this might be categorized as shallow or shoddy journalism.

After all, in 2008, the New York Times led the "birther" craze.

They were pushing the idea that there were serious questions of constitutional eligibility for a man running for president that year.

That man was Sen. John McCain. Now, I didn't support McCain for the presidency. I didn't vote for him. I even wrote a book urging Americans not to vote for him. But McCain had served in the House and Senate for 26 years. It was his second bid for the presidency. America knew the man inside out – including his birth in Panama when his father, an American citizen, was serving in the Navy. They also knew his mother was an American citizen.

But, for the Times, this was the right "birther" moment.

The media concern over McCain's eligibility actually led to hearings in the U.S. Senate that concluded he was eligible for one reason – both of this parents were American citizens. McCain had to show the Senate his long-form birth certificate to prove he was eligible. The motion carried 99-0 with one abstention, John McCain. Barack Obama co-sponsored the affirmative resolution declaring McCain eligible.

But that was then and this is now.

The Times never once questioned Obama's eligibility during the campaign. It never reported on those who did. It never asked for proof of Obama's eligibility. The flimsiest evidence was accepted on faith.

Question: Were both of Obama's parents American citizens?

Answer: No, according to Obama. He says his father was a Kenyan visiting student, a subject of the United Kingdom, who would have transferred U.K. citizenship to his son, if indeed Barack Hussein Obama I were his father. But we don't even know that with certainty, because the only eyewitness document that would confirm Obama's story is the long-form, contemporaneous form he refuses to release to the public. Furthermore, if Stanley Ann Dunham were actually his birth mother, she may have been too young to confer U.S. citizenship upon Obama, making him not a dual citizen but a U.K. citizen only.

No comments:

Post a Comment