National Review lies in anti-Birther editorial ("Born in the U.S.A.")

National Review offers the editorial "Born in the U.S.A." (peekURL.com/zkdwktb) about the Obama citizenship issue. Not only are they aping the title of a deceptive FactCheck page about this issue [1], and not only are they using similar statements to those used by FactCheck, but they're lying almost as badly as FactCheck does. I'll only discuss this part:

The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced - the document is formally known as a "certificate of live birth" - bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate - which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested. In other words, what President Obama has produced is the “real” birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii’s health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama’s birth certificate is identical to that in the state’s records, the so-called vault copy.

The article's post time is currently given as July 28, 2009 4:00 AM, presumably Eastern. Some time that appears to be around 9pm Eastern of the day before, Chiyome Fukino issued her new statement. It's my strong hunch that this editorial was written before that time, but - just to be extra generous - I'm going to assume that the editorial was edited after that time and reflects the National Review's current idea of the truth. Despite that, they're still lying:

1. The statement "several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate" is false. No Hawaiian official has ever said that. Read the actual statements from October 2008 and yesterday, and compare that to the National Review's lie. In neither statement do they say anything about the picture on Obama's site. Further, aside from a statement from Janice Okubo that she won't confirm, no other statements from the Hawaiian government confirmed anything relating to this issue. The last sentence in the National Review's quote is false for the same reasons. Those aren't just minor points: if NRO doesn't even understand what those earlier statement actually contain but is instead going off distorted Associated Press summaries, can their opinion be trusted?

2. The document has not been inspected "by reporters". The only people outside the Obama camp who claim to have seen a paper copy are FactCheck. As discussed at that link, they aren't exactly a credible source. They also aren't document experts, nor did they call in document experts. Per their page [1], those who they claim saw the document were their "representatives" and "staffers", not reporters. And, their pictures were later silently recompressed and edited to remove camera data that had a date months earlier than the pictures were supposedly taken.

3. National Reviews wants to deal with this "formally", but they can't even read what it says on the picture on Obama's site. The document in question isn't a "certificate of live birth" as they state, it's a "certification of live birth". To some that might be a small difference, but when dealing with legal issues seemingly minor issues can be very major. I recently updated a few posts in which I'd made the same error because I care about getting things right. Obviously, the National Review does not.

Also: in comments on an earlier post, Smitty says that NRO has added things to this editorial; if anyone can do a diff please leave a comment on this post.

Please send brief, polite emails that focus only on the lies discussed above or other lies in the editorial to one or more of the following: letters *at* nationalreview.com, JonahNRO *at* gmail.com, klopez *at* nationalreview.com, amccarthy *at* nationalreview.com, author *at* victorhanson.com, hemingway *at* nationalreview.com, comments.kurtz *at* nationalreview.com

UPDATE: I had the links for the press releases reversed, now corrected. Also, the links with the red "S" after them are links to "summary pages" that contain a list of our coverage of that specific person, group, or topic. Some of those include a summary at the top; others are simply lists of links to posts. Hovering the mouse over a link with a red "S" should bring up a window containing the first part of the summary or at least the number of posts about that topic.

UPDATE 2: I sent emails to the first five NRO writers listed above shortly after post time and then another today just to KLo asking if they wanted to say anything. I didn't receive any responses. Another email address that I should add is NRO's new editor, Rich Lowry: comments.lowry *at* nationalreview.com

Also, this page unfortunately engages in ad homs and I haven't read the whole thing but it might have some interesting information on the editorial and on FactCheck.

UPDATE 3: Andrew McCarthy posts "Suborned in the U.S.A./The birth-certificate controversy is about Obama’s honesty, not where he was born" (link) in which he points out some problems with the editorial.

[1] factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

Comments

If that document can pass for real i have one that states hitler was born here in san diego in 1888, so why can't hitler be president or some monkey from south america?

My opinion is that Obama was born in Hawaii and therefore qualified to be president. Still I would like proof of my opinion. And if that is the case, why doesn't the president who campaigned on the promise of bring greater transparency to the White House simply release his birth records? This exactly the point Lou Dobbs has been making. Yet Dobbs has been accused of being a "birther". It leads anybody who is remotely skeptical to speculate that there must be something that has not been revealed that would endanger the carefully crafted lifestory that Obama and his guru Axelrod have so far promoted. Is it possible that Obama as a child had his name changed when he was adopted by his stepfather and or changed again when he moved back to Hawaii to attend prep school and live with his grand-parents? The Obama campaign has relentlessly tried to downplay the facts that while living in Indonesia Obama was being raised as a Muslim. Barack was registered as a Muslim and received Islamic instruction in Indonesian schools as religious training was required by law. This being the only formal religious exposure Obama had prior to his politically calculated association with Rev Wright. The MSM followed the Obama campaign's lead to the point of accusing those who mentioned these facts as racist haters. As a Democrat, I must mention that our side fought for years to have Dubya's military records be released. And rightfully so in the public interest of full transparency concerning those running for president. However, the hardest of the hardcore Democratic partisans accused Bush of being AWOL from the TANG. This misguided hyper-partisanship only helped lead to the infamous Dan Rather forgery fiasco that only made the partisan Democratic base look positively wacko in many eyes. However, all along there was a more likely scenario as for why Bush was able to leave the TANG and face no penalty. As Bush admitted numerous times, he had become a heavy drinker and "recreational" drug user by the early seventies. By 1972 and the Vietnam drawdown along with the phase out of the notoriously demanding late 50's era jets that the TANG were flying, it was decided that numerous "less fit" TANG pilots who might have trouble meeting tougher drug and alcohol standards and testing being imposed by the DOD were to be released early from duty. Meanwhile combat experienced pilots familiar with newer aircraft were going to be rotating into the TANG. While this sounded bad for Bush, it was in fact a broad based Pentagon policy launched in the wake of the Vietnam withdrawl as a means of coming to term with the 60's drug era. And there was a promise by the Pentagon to observe some levels of confidentiality at the time. Clearly the MSM failed to do their duty and inform the public concerning Bush's drinking and drug use history prior to the 2000 election. The Bushies were guilty of a lack of transparency just as the Obots are toda

No. The MSM produced a fraudulent document which brought down the heir to Walter Conkrite--Dan Rather. In that instance the MSM created a document to discredit the sitting president. In this instance, it is the lack of disclosure by the MSM and the "Transparency" promised by the current administration which obfuscates the truth. Either way, we are fucked as a country.

"Either way, we are fucked as a Country"? Well yes, but it's not over yet. A lot has to happen to recover from the onslaught at hand. Namely a true conservative needs to step up and get elected. Obama is WELL ON HIS WAY to setting Liberals and the Democratic Party back to the same position they were,and actually much worse than at the end of the Carter Administration. It clearly will get to the point where the MSM and the Dems will have to account for his crippling of the Economy, Health Care, soaring Energy cost, Lost jobs and the looming Amnesty just to name a few. I feel we need to abandon "globalism" "free trade" and the "free movement of labor" and instead circle the wagons and protect American jobs. Next threaten to stop imports if a even level of trade cannot be agreed upon. Or better yet, make it to our advantage. Sounds crazy? Fuck no! We need to recreate our manufacturing base. Add tarrifs to imports if they refuse to go along. Tax job outsourcing to the point of not being worth it. End all visa job taking programs. And repatriate the 30 million or more squatters already here......and guess what? With the slow and diliberate introduction of these protections for American citizens, we would eventually get back to work and back to producing products that say "Made In America". Besides thats the fucking job of these elected officials....to watch our ass. But if they continue on this 3 decade old path of greed and multiculti crapola.....then yes, we are fucked as a Country. Now get out of my lane, or get run over.

petty bourgeois I do not believe anybody has proved who created the Bush TANG forgeries. It does not appear that the MSM created the Bush forgeries then or the dubious Obama "COLB" now. Dan Rather foolishly ruined his career nonetheless. The Bush forgeries had the effect of ending perfectly legitmate inquiries into Bush's military service. Dubya and Karl Rove could not have asked for more. In both cases it is very possible that Bush operatives then and Obama operative now have been behind fraudulent documents and misleading testimony in order to bend a sycophantic MSM to their will and mislead the public.

Anonymous | 07.29.09 - 11:45 am = llamajockey

Your linking protocol is totally non-standard. You use the kookiest scheme I've ever seen which is to a) not hot link the URL's, or, you use an arcane shortner which then still has to redirect to a second site, before going to your reference. Here is what's bizarre: your written material is highly, highly dependent on your citations. But you make it uber laborious for the reader to even get to your citations. Objectively speaking, your site is cranky and not journalistic.

"Objectively speaking, your site is cranky and not journalistic." If the left has their propaganda, we can have ours too. Hasn't LaGuardia been dead for some years?

all the above are monkey butt's. Obama is our enemy and you monkey butt's put this monkey in office, by the way we have no country it ended in 1945. the next president will be more fun, and will be from mexican that would be total justice for all black people and many whites.

fiorello needs an uber tuber

Wow. You still won't link directly to the NRO article that forms the the basis for this blog post. Instead you use a URL shortner in parenthesis, that is itself not a live link. Perhaps you should have an explanatory note in the margin of your blog, something like "This blog does not observe linking protocols." Or perhaps you could try "This blog does not link because I don't like to drive traffic to the articles that form the subject of my posts."

LaGuardia does like the style. Tough shit. It has nothing to do with the sources being cited. Can't you find something relevant to complain about other than "linking protocols?"