Ed Morrissey must think that Hawaiian state law is a "Birther theory"

Low-level conservative commentator Ed Morrissey of HotAir recently got a special treat: a shout-out from Media Matters for America in their article 'Unlike Dobbs, some conservative media think birthers are "nutburgers"' (by Julie Millican, mediamatters.org/research/200907220051). Rather than criticizing him, they were giving him a cookie for helping "[to] debunk[] the birth certificate rumors" about Barack Obama, linking to Morrissey's "The sadly obligatory SCOTUS birth-certificate post" [1] as proof of just how reasonable he was.

Just one problem: the HotAir post they linked to contained a series of updates as Morrissey realized he'd gotten things wrong. And, a couple more updates are necessary since he's still spreading disinformation.

In an attempt to help (of a fashion), I renewed our treasured acquaintanceship by sending him an email detailing what he got wrong. He wrote back that he had no interest in getting into an email debate about "Birther theories".

What he got wrong that time is what he referred to as "Birther theories" is actually clear-as-a-bell Hawaiian state laws, as detailed below.

1. He says:

The State of Hawaii only keeps birth certificates from births in Hawaii.

On the same day he posted that, I pointed out that he's wrong. Those born outside Hawaii can obtain valid Hawaiian birth certificates. The full text of that part of Hawaii's Revised Statutes is at that link, and here's a direct link to it at hawaii.gov. Apparently Ed Morrisey thinks that's a "Birther theory".

2. He says (this part was quoted by MMFA):

The state of Hawaii has repeatedly insisted that their records show Obama was born in Hawaii, as the Certificate of Live Birth states.

That's not only completely false, but he's in effect accusing Hawaiian officials of breaking the law. Here's the direct link to the law on hawaii.gov that forbids disclosure of private records. For Hawaiian officials to "repeatedly insist[]" that Obama was born there, they'd have to break that law. The fact is that they haven't broken that law, because they haven't "repeatedly insisted" that Obama was born there. Instead, they've simply stated that Obama has a valid certificate on file. That press release references the law at the hawaii.gov link. In fact, the same HotAir page, in "Update IV", quotes the portion of that press release where they say they can't reveal the information because of that law.

Please write Ed Morissey at tips *at* hotair.com and suggest that he tries to do some research before helping MMFA spread disinformation.

[1] hotair.com/archives/2008/12/04/the-sadly-obligatory-scotus-birth-certificate-post/

Thu, 07/23/2009 - 15:17 · · Importance: 4