Last time we checked, WorldNetDaily was running as fast from the birther issue as it could to avoid having to avoid having to apply the standards it applied to non-foreign-born Barack Obama to definitely-foreign-born Ted Cruz.
Now, WND is apparently comfortable enough with birtherism to actually redefine what a birther is. A July 5 WND article by Joe Kovacs carries the headline “Hillary goes birther, shouts out Obama’s ‘birthplace’.”
Wait — is Hillary challenging Obama’s eligibility to be president? No, quite the opposite, according to Kovacs:
uring a campaign appearance Tuesday with Barack Obama in Charlotte, North Carolina, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton intentionally re-opened the contested issue of where the president was born, firing a Twitter shot against her Republican opponent Donald Trump.
As part of her remarks about Obama, Mrs. Clinton tweeted out: “Someone who has never forgotten where he came from. And Donald, if you’re out there tweeting: It’s Hawaii.” –Hillary on @POTUS
No, Joe, “going birther” is what WND did pretty much every day for the eight years before Cruz ran for president. What Hillary did is what Kovacs and WND have refused to do on birther issues: tell the truth.
But Kovacs goes on to demonstrate the behavior actual birthers engage in:
Her comment refers to Trump’s push during Obama’s first term for the president to release his long-form birth certificate amid questions of his natural-born citizenship and constitutional eligibility to serve.
While the president claims he was born in Honolulu, there have been numerous questions, especially since a law-enforcement investigation by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, found “probable cause” that the birth certificate released by Obama was forged. Also, Obama mysteriously has a Connecticut-based Social Security Number, when neither he nor his parents ever lived there.Ironically, it was Hillary Clinton herself who started the birther movement in 2008, according to numerous news agencies.
Kovacs doesn’t mention that Arpaio’s so-called investigation — which included WND writer Jerome Corsi as a member — is a discredited joke. And Kovacs’ sole proof that “it was Hillary Clinton herself who started the birther movement” is a Breitbart article claiming that the Washington Post confirmed this,citing a strategy memo by Mark Penn, a strategist for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
But as the Post has also pointed out, the memo never questioned Obama’s citizenship or elligibility to be president — two pillars of the birther movement led by WND — and not only did her campaign never act on the part of the Penn memo suggesting she play up Obama’s “otherness,” staffers who did bring it up were admonished.
So Kovacs is the birther here by doing what birthers do — promoted false and discredited claims about Obama’s eligibility and citizenship. All the Orwellian redefining in the world doesn’t change that.