Senator David Vitter misleads about Obama certificate issue (and Dave Weigel helps)

Someone wrote senator David Vitter about the Obama citizenship matter, and his office apparently replied as follows:

"Thank you for contacting me with concerns about President-elect Barack Obama’s citizenship status... I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue... Hawaii state officials have verified that President-elect Obama was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961, making him a natural born citizen."

Now, please go read the full 10/31/08 statement from those "Hawaii state officials".

As pointed out repeatedly, they only confirm that Obama has a valid cert on file. They did not confirm anything on the cert. They did not verify the cert on BHO's site. And, they most certainly did not verify that he was born in Honolulu. That's a FactCheck invention based on the 10/31 statement.

The Vitter office is on a retreat until Monday, and if I hear back I'll post an update.

The quote above appears in "GOP Senators Give Hope to Anti-Obama Activists" (link) in which Dave Weigel continues misleading about this issue. I've left several comments suggesting that he simply picks up the phone and calls Hawaii - and sent an email to his editor suggesting the same - without Weigel showing any interest in the basic journalistic task of verifying his assumptions.

UPDATE: I had a rather unproductive conversation with Laura McCann, editor of the Washington Independent, about this issue.

Thu, 01/08/2009 - 16:06 · · Importance: 4