Gary Tuchman misleads about Obama certificate (CNN, "Birthers")

Gary Tuchman works for CNN, thus we know at least three things about him: he's going to mislead about immigration, he's going to mislead about trade, and he's going to mislead about the Obama citizenship issue.

Examples of the last are found in "CNN investigation: Obama born in U.S." (link). To start, consider this sentence from the article:

Obama's 2008 campaign produced a certification of live birth, a document legally accepted as confirmation of a birth and routinely used for official purposes.

A certification of live birth ("COLB") is in many cases legally acceptable proof of birth [1]. However, that's not what Obama "produced". All he produced is a *picture* of what he claims is his COLB. No Hawaiian official has verified that what's on that picture matches whatever might be on file. Chiyome Fukino - after she left office - claimed that they match, but that's not an official statement and whether she's trustworthy isn't clear. FactCheck posted photos of what they claim is the COLB, but they also edited those photos after initially posting them without indicating that they'd edited them. They've also lied and mislead for Obama on this and other matters.

Note also that Tuchman - unlike John King and Anderson Cooper - is at least using the right name for the document; other CNN hosts have falsely called the COLB a "certificate".

Moving on:

Fukino went one step further, taking advantage of a state law that allows certain public officials to examine a person's actual birth certificate if there is a "direct and tangible interest."

Take a look at the law in question, 338-18: link. One would have to be very creative to twist anything in that law into allowing Fukino to reveal Obama's personal information. Various Hawaiian officials (Janice Okubo, Linda Lingle, Neil Abercrombie) have repeatedly stressed that it would be illegal for them to reveal someone's vital records. Yet, Fukino did it, and with the involvement of Hawaii's then-Attorney General. Tuchman is confused: Fukino did what she did in contravention of Hawaii's laws, knowing that "the fix is in": no one would seek to punish her under those laws.

Now, let's look at this:

Could Obama's 1961 birth announcement in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin be a fake? Some conspiracy theorists say yes. Longtime Honolulu newspaper reporter Dan Nakaso says no.

"It's not possible," Nakaso said. "Under the system that existed back then, there was no avenue for people to submit information that way. ... The information came directly from the state Department of Health."

Indeed, as CNN confirmed, all birth announcements at the time came directly from hospital birth records.

Nakaso has not only lied about this issue in the past (see his name's link above), he appears to be in his 40s at the most (twitter dot com/dannakaso). Someone who has first-hand knowledge of how announcements appeared in the papers would have to be at the very least in their mid-sixties, and more likely in their mid-seventies. CNN doesn't reveal what their "confirmation" consisted of. Considering how they've repeatedly lied about this issue I have no intention of believing their "confirmation" unless they reveal exactly who they talked to and I see the statements from those persons. There's an excellent chance that CNN's "confirmation" consists of little more than what Nakaso said.

Tuchman then discusses who could have seen Obama shortly after birth, first relying on a statement by Neil Abercrombie. Abercrombie would probably do handstands across burning coals if Obama asked. He's also made some possibly inconsistent statements about when he saw Obama. So, whatever he says has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Tuchman quotes University of Hawaii professor Alice Dewey, someone who's made a series of small donations to the Democratic Congressional Campaign (link). That's her right, but her recollections of Ann Stanley Dunham claiming that Obama was born in the U.S. also has to be taken with a grain of salt. (On a sidenote, the Dean of the University of Hawaii Law School hung up on me when I asked him valid, non-conspiratorial questions about this law )

Tuchman then quotes someone who thinks she might have seen Obama in the birth hospital. Then, he ends with a plea for "respect" from Abercrombie.

One thing is clear: CNN and the rest of the media have no respect for the millions of people who have legitimate questions about Obama's past and instead keep trying to sell them on the official story even if they need to lie and mislead.

Send a tweet to @GaryTuchmanCNN with your thoughts.

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[1] Hawaii's "Home Lands" program used to require a full birth certificate, until they changed the rules (link). That was probably due to this controversy.