Timothy Egan of the New York Times offers "Building a Nation of Know-Nothings" (link) in which he takes the right wing - and Rush Limbaugh specifically - to task for encouraging false beliefs. To a certain extent he's got a point, but you might expect a self-appointed arbiter of what is and what isn't true such as Egan to be able to get his facts straight. Instead, he's a more polished, much more subtle version of that which he decries.

Here's an example of Egan's sloppy thinking:

Take a look at Tuesday night's box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate... "Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday - not that we've seen any proof of that," he said on Aug. 3. "They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven't seen any proof of that." Of course, there is proof as clear as that baseball box score. Look here, www.factcheck.org, for starters, one of many places posting Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate.

1. Egan can't even get the name of the document right, probably by design. The picture on FactCheck's site and the related photo on Obama's site is of a certification, not a "certificate" as Egan states.

2. As discussed at the FactCheck link, they aren't a credible source on this and other matters. And, the two people who they claim reviewed the document are not document experts.

3. The score of a baseball game is verifiable from multiple independent sources and from personal observation. The same isn't true of the picture. The correct analogy would be if someone posted on their site a photo of a box score from an old, out-of-print newspaper that has no archives and asked you to trust them that the photo hadn't been altered. You have no way to verify that the photo is an accurate representation, and you'd be forced to trust the site operator. While there's very little chance that Obama altered the certificate shown on his site, he - like FactCheck - hasn't proved to be very credible (see Obama misleads). Egan believes Obama and FactCheck; if they changed their tunes he'd simply fall into line. Egan isn't being skeptical in the true sense: he isn't an impartial observer but simply a hack.

See the Obama citizenship page for my extensive coverage, and if you've been programmed to automatically reject any discussion of that topic please take a few seconds and see my angle on this issue.

Egan also claims as a fact that Obama is a Christian. In a loose sense he certainly is. However, it's false to claim that we know for a fact that Obama is not a Muslim. It's also false to claim that we know for a fact that Obama is a Muslim. If you claim to know what religion someone actually *is*, let me know how you bugged that person's conversations with their God, Gods, or lack thereof. It's correct to claim that Obama is a professed and a practicing Christian, because that's an actual fact. Egan isn't making that distinction because his goal isn't rigorous thinking but simply defending Obama.