You can't trust CNN, especially on controversial topics like immigration, trade, and the Obama citizenship issue. An example was provided yesterday as John King lied and misled about the indisputable facts of this matter.

Another example is provided by Ed Hornick of CNN (helped by Brian Todd, who in his report just makes something up that never happened ("Debunking the birther claim", politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/15/
debunking-the-birther-claim).

Hornick states:

The Obama team and the state of Hawaii released a certification of live birth, which documents the president’s birth on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu. This is not the original birth certificate. In Hawaii and other states, original birth certificates are not released when requested later.
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CNN has seen a copy of the document and verified that it is official.

That's either a heretofore-unheard-of bombshell, or Hornick is just making things up. The only group that has publicly claimed to have seen a physical copy of Obama's certification of live birth ("COLB") is FactCheck. No one at CNN has ever claimed to have seen a physical copy of the COLB.

One explanation Hornick might provide is that by "copy" he means the picture that Obama posted to his website. Such an explanation doesn't wash: Hornick makes it sound like CNN has some sort of special knowledge, yet anyone who's discussed this issue has seen the picture on Obama's site dozens of times.

Further, no one at CNN has (unless Hornick is releasing a bombshell) ever "verified" the COLB - either a paper copy or the picture on Obama's site as "official". Hawaii has never said that the picture on Obama's site is "official". (Chiyome Fukino did make that claim recently, but she's no longer in office.)

So, either Hornick has chosen to release two bombshells in one in a CNN blog post, or Hornick is just making things up. Which do you think it is?

To help you decide, Hornick also states:

Former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, has been quoted as saying, "I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records at the Department of Health. We issued a news release at the time saying the president was, in fact, born at Kapi'olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that is just a fact."

In that quote, Hornick is enabling a lie: neither of the two statements from the Hawaii Department of Health named a birth hospital. Lingle lied in that quote: she made a false statement and she has no interest in correcting it. Instead, she's allowing her false statement to continue to be repeated by those like Hornick. Instead of pointing out that she lied and trying to get a retraction, Hornick enables Lingle to lie.

Hornick also says:

Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo told the Star-Advertiser in July 2009 that vital statistics such as birth announcements were sent to the newspapers by the Health Department, which received the information from the hospital. These announcements were not sent in by the general public, Okubu said.

The article in question is here. I've spoken with Okubo, and I'd put her age in the twenties or thirties. The idea that she'd know the procedures involved almost 50 years ago is absurd, as is the idea that the procedures used in the 60s are the same as the ones used today. The past years have seen great strides in electronic information transmission, medical procedures, and patient privacy and the idea that they did things fifty years ago as they do today is absurd. Further, my knowledge of her is that she is not a reliable source. She even contradicted herself in quotes from the same article.

Hornick also states:

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, was a close friend of the Obamas and has repeatedly said he was around during the future president’s birth and childhood.

For those of you who haven't been following the Abercrombie issue, see his name's link above: he first said he was going to find the real certificate, then he said he had found a "recording of the birth" that was "written down", then he said he couldn't release anything. And, he misled about seeing Obama in the birth hospital and may have misled about seeing him as a baby.

Now, the above doesn't mean that Obama was born in Kenya; he was most likely born in Hawaii as he says. The issue is that he hasn't provided definitive proof. Instead, his defenders - Ed Hornick, Brian Todd, CNN, the rest of the mainstream media, political leaders, and so on - tie themselves into deceptive knots trying to delude people into thinking that Obama's proved where he was born. All of those who've taken Obama's side in this matter have lied and misled and have shown that they have no credibility.