It may be a new year, but it’s the same old birthers. Truth schmooth… The latest news about the latest foray into Rod Serlingland comes via Mediaite which reports that a new birther chain letter contains information from a fake AP story claiming that the Supreme Court is taking up the “issue” of Obama’s “real’ citizenship:
If you thought 2010 was the future, think again. A phony new email chain letter — one of the antiquated viral sort leftover from the AOL era — is claiming that the case against President Barack Obama’s citizenship has reached the Supreme Court, based on a forged and typo-riddled Associated Press “report.”
The birther movement of angry citizens who believe President Obama was not born in the country and is thus ineligible to be president seemed to lose steam in the year since the 2008 election, but this new email spreading takes the accusations to a new level of ridiculousness based on fake news done poorly.
The message claims that college records of Obama’s from Occidental (under the name Barry Soetoro) prove he was receiving aid as a foreign student from Indonesia. But there’s one problem: the “AP” can’t seem to figure out where to put periods, commas or capitalization.
Mediaite points to these paragraphs from the email as being particularly fact-challenged:
Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments concerning Obama’s legal eligibility to serve as President in a case brought by Leo Donofrio of New Jersey .. This lawsuit claims Obama’s dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. Donofrio’s case is just one of 18 suits brought by citizens demanding proof of Obama’s citizenship or qualification to serve as president.
Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama’s campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records. Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still ongoing but that the final report will be provided to the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder. Mr. Holder has refused to comment on the matter.
Go to the link to read the “news story” email.
Faking a news story about does it when comes to a source’s credibility. There is, of course, the possibility that this could in fact turn out to be a hoax email sent out by someone to cast a bad light on birthers. On the other hand, how can any more bad light be cast on birthers — who insist Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. and might actually have been born in Kenya or perhaps Saudi Arabia, Italy, Iceland, the South Pole or on the moon despite evidence to the contrary — cast more bad light than birthers have already cast on themselves? Even Congress (with Republicans voting) effectively noted that it accepts as a fact that Obama was born in the U.S. (Things may look up for birthers if Lou Dobbs gets a show on Fox).
Some may respond to the original article (or even this post) by saying that it was meant to discredit conservatives. NOT! There are MANY thoughtful conservatives who reject the birther movement and realize Barack Obama has many other real world things for which he can be criticized and blasted.
Before you finish this post, be sure to click on the You Tube button below to totally capture this story’s ambiance:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.