A few weeks back, I wrote a post detailing how WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah's claim that forgery experts WND consulted were unable to "report conclusively that the electronic image [of Barack Obama's birth certificate] was authentic or that it was a forgery" contradicted the actual WND claim that those experts "found the document to be authentic. " Keith Olbermann seems to have noticed, and named Farah his "Worst Person in the World" on Jan. 5.
Now, Farah uses his Jan. 13 WND column to rebut Olbermann (though, curiously, no mention of me) -- but Farah is still obfuscating about Obama's birth certificate. After the usual insult of a critic ("I don't want to say Keith Olbermann doesn't have an audience, but last Tuesday he named me "The Worst Person in the World," and I just found out yesterday"), Farah writes:
I explained several weeks ago that Olberman, George Soros' front group Media Matters, Democratic members of the Congress and a host of other extremists in the media were suddenly touting a WND report that appeared to suggest an image of Barack Obama's birth certificate on his website was found conclusively to be genuine.Again, here's the problem with that - especially for those slow to comprehend basic facts.
At that time of that report, the best information WND had suggested the image of Obama's birth certificate was genuine.
Stop right there. The August 2008 WND article in question -- to which Farah again fails to link so his readers can judge for themselves -- did not merely "suggest" that the birth certificate was genuine; it unambiguously stated that it was:
A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there.
Farah's claim this time around is somewhat less of a lie than Farah's original statement that none of WND's experts "could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery," which utterly contradicts what WND originally reported.
Farah then tries to change the subject: "However, the veracity of that image was never the major issue of contention. Rather, the major issue is where is the rest of the birth certificate - the part that explains where the baby was born, who the delivery doctor was, etc."
Yet WND has spent considerable time covering something that is not a "major issue," while hiding its own previous coverage. For instance, a Dec. 1 WND article by Bob Unruh is devoted to so-called "imaging guru" Ron Polarik's claims that the certificate is "criminally fraudulent." At no point did Unruh mention WND's own reporting that the certificate is authentic. And as recently as Jan. 8, WND promoted an "Obama commercial they don't want you to see," which asserts that the certificate is "an obvious forgery."
In fact, WND has essentially disavowed the existence of that earlier article since its publication, refusing to acknowledge its claims in subsequent reports on the birth certificate issue.
While Farah seems to be suggesting that he no longer stands by the August 2008 article, at no point has he or WND ever explained why. There is no article in the WND database telling readers that its "authentic" claim has been superceded by more recent events.
Further, Farah suddenly pretending that the birth certificate on Obama's website is not a "major issue" because he got caught in a lie about it ignores the crux of the issue.
If that certificate is indeed "authentic" -- that is, found to have been issued by the state of Hawaii, derived from the "full" certificate Farah is panting over, with all of the information needed to meet requirements of residency for purposes such as obtaining a passport, which presumably also meets the requirements for establishing that Obama is a "natural born citizen" -- then demanding release of the "full" birth certificate is moot. (Indeed, FactCheck.org points out that the certificate "has all the elements the State Department requires for proving citizenship to obtain a U.S. passport.")
If this is true -- and Farah has provided no evidence that it's not -- then all of Farah's blather about how "WND has done its part to find out the truth" and how "so many Americans are losing confidence in their government to conduct free and fair elections according to the simple rules laid out in the Constitution" is just that. Does anyone really believe a man who has attacked Obama as "evil" and "an enemy of the Constitution," who has repeatedly lied about Obama, and whose website is a fetid cesspool of Obama hatred is concerned only about constitutional niceties and "the truth"?
Obama has been demonstrated to be a U.S. citizen by all reasonable standards. Farah needs to get over it.
(A version of this is cross-posted at ConWebBlog.)