Dobbs joins right-wing media promoting birth certificate conspiracy theories

Written by Andrew Walzer

Published

Lou Dobbs has joined the ranks of right-wing media figures who have repeatedly advanced discredited conspiracy theories about President Obama's birth certificate.

UPDATE, July 22, 2009: In light of CNN host Lou Dobbs' recent promotion of conspiracy theories about President Obama's birth certificate, Media Matters for America is re-publishing the following item, which was originally posted June 18.

Throughout the past year, conservative media figures have advanced various versions of the discredited myth that Barack Obama has not produced a valid birth certificate, is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, and is not eligible to be president. For instance, as recently as June 10, Rush Limbaugh said, “Barack Obama has one thing in common with God. Do you know what it is? God does not have a birth certificate either. ... God does not have a birth certificate, and neither does Obama -- not that we've seen.” And on the June 8 edition of his radio show, G. Gordon Liddy claimed Obama was “born” in Kenya.

Alleged Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter and white supremacist James W. von Brunn reportedly also was -- in the words of Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall -- “apparently a 'birther,' one of these folks who claims that Barack Obama is not the legitimate president of the United States because he is not a natural born US citizen.” The New York Daily News also reported this claim.

Rush Limbaugh

Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later? See, I think this is about something else. You know what's really percolating out there? And I've been laying low on this because it just -- it hasn't met the threshold to pass the smell test on this program. But this birth certificate business, this lawsuit that a guy named Phillip Berg filed in Philadelphia in August for Obama to produce his genuine birth certificate, and he still hasn't replied, he hasn't done so.

[...]

And this birth certificate business -- I'm just wondering if something's up. ... Let's say, for example, that somebody does come up with proof that Obama -- something's screwy with his birth certificate, and something's screwy about the fact that he's allegedly a natural citizen, American citizen but may not be, dual citizenship, born in Kenya, who knows, there's all kinds of stuff out -- so what? What's gonna happen this late in the campaign? Do you think, if it's proven, that they're gonna dump him? That's not gonna happen. But there's still -- these are just questions that I have."

Fox Nation

A May 28, 2009, headline on The Fox Nation website asked: “Should Obama Release Birth Certificate? Or Is This Old News?” From The Fox Nation:

fnbirth

The Fox Nation's birth certificate headline linked to a video of WorldNetDaily correspondent Les Kinsolving asking White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to “releas[e] a certified copy of his long-form birth certificate.” In the video, Gibbs notes that Obama's birth certificate is available for anyone to view and that “this question in many ways continues to astound me.”

Michael Savage

He won't even produce a birth certificate. Don't you love that? Something as basic as Obama's birth certificate now is an issue. I mean, if he's got nothing to hide, show it to me. Doesn't exist. It does not exist, they can't find it in the Hawaii government. It's never been produced. The one that was produced is a forgery.

Obama is an unknown man, may not be a citizen, surrounded by radicals, surrounded by terrorists, that we have no choice. ... I will never work for a man who has a birth certificate nobody can find. ... How is that possible, when he has no known birth certificate?... Mr. [Jerome] Corsi went over to Kenya to investigate his relatives in Kenya, and he was arrested by the Muslim leader of Kenya because Mr. Corsi uncovered the true birthplace, I believe, of Hussein Obama and the connections that exist between Barack Hussein Obama and this Muslim leader, and what this Muslim leader said he would do after this election...There are websites out there that have been filed in federal courts in Philadelphia where a Democrat attorney had to file a federal lawsuit to obtain a simple copy of this alias, Barack Hussein Obama's birth certificate. ... Especially since this person is not only a federal employee working in a federal agency as a senator but he's preparing under our Constitution which requires birth on U.S. soil, and instead of complying with his request, Barack Hussein Obama, or Hussein, sent his SA to Philadelphia to fight a simple request to show a valid birth certificate... And so, ladies and gentlemen, we do not even know where Hussein Obama was born, we cannot find a legal birth certificate for him.

He could change the rules on that, since we don't know where he was born. His party won't produce his birth certificate. ... It doesn't matter that he doesn't have a birth certificate. It doesn't matter that he may not be an American citizen.

There's some other reason that he's leaving the mainland of the United States in the midst of this toe-to-toe struggle right now, and it's got to do with his birth certificate. ...1-800-449 -- but please go to MichaelSavage.com and look at the alleged birth certificate. Look at it very carefully ... It's the birth certificate issue, you fools, you.

And, oh yes, our condolences to his grandmother who raised him, who he so bravely visited last week -- shockingly, out of nowhere, in the, in the last days of a campaign -- while the rumors of his birth certificate not being valid were circulating throughout the Internet. Shockingly, Obama goes to Hawaii, and again, not one of the empty skirts in the media asks him about his birth -- his birth certificate, the Kenyan relatives.

The Washington Times

  • From a December 5, 2008, article on the Supreme Court's decision to hear a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's “right to be President based on his citizenship at birth”:

Mr. Obama tried to resolve questions over his citizenship during his campaign by circulating a copy of a “Certification of Live Birth” from the state of Hawaii showing he was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu.

“It's clearly been altered,” said Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg in published ads that he sponsored nationwide, including in The Washington Times. He filed one of the lawsuits to block Mr. Obama's presidency.

Mr. Berg claims there is a tape recording from Mr. Obama's paternal grandmother in Kenya saying she attended the birth of her grandson in Mombasa.

Mr. Berg also says Mr. Obama later enrolled as a student at an Indonesian school at a time only Indonesians could attend it. Mr. Obama's stepfather was Indonesian.

In October, a federal judge dismissed Mr. Berg's lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, saying Mr. Berg lacked standing.

Joseph Farah

  • From the May 29, 2009, WorldNetDaily article, “Born in the USA? Birth certificate issue No. 1 at Fox News”:

Barack Obama's elusive long-form birth certificate that would establish his eligibility to serve as president as a “natural born citizen” is the hottest discussion topic at the Fox News Channel's website.

[...]

The visibility of the Obama birth certificate issue has also been raised by a new national billboard campaign initiated by Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND. Launched just over a week ago, the campaign has raised about $55,000 and begun erecting billboards that ask the question, “Where's the birth certificate?”

  • From a June 3, 2009, WorldNetDaily column:

It's pretty incredible that we have a president who gets away with talking about “transparency and openness” when he himself refuses to disclose the most basic personal data -- including the only documentation that would establish whether he is constitutionally eligible to serve in the highest office in the land.

We need to see his birth certificate.

[...]

We need to see his passport records during the time he was living in Indonesia and traveling to Pakistan as a youth. Did he give up his U.S. citizenship? If not, how did he retain it? Or did he not have U.S. citizenship to begin with because he was never actually born in Hawaii?

Jerome Corsi

Well, what would be really helpful is if Senator Obama would release primary documents like his birth certificate. The campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website. How is anybody supposed to really piece together his life?...The original birth certificate of Obama has never been released, and the campaign refuses to release it. ... It's a fake document that's on the website right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce.

It's a registry of birth. It's -- you know, you come into the office afterwards, and you register the birth. The birth certificate is issued by the hospital. It's not something you go in and request. And the -- this lawsuit that [Philip] Berg has filed in, I believe, Pennsylvania is arguing that the original, the birth certificate, is in Kenya, and Obama -- Obama's father and mother went back to Kenya before Obama was born, and evidently the pregnancy was so advanced that Ann Dunham was not allowed to return to the United States, and Obama was born in Kenya. That's the argument. And it would seem to be -- to have some credibility to it, because the Obama campaign refuses to release the original birth certificate. And why would that -- a birth certificate, you know, Mr. Liddy, should be a mundane document.

Well, the main issue on the birth certificate: If there's nothing to hide, why won't the Obama campaign release it? ... There's something on that birth certificate. You know, maybe Obama was born in Kenya; I don't know what it shows. But why hide a document that should be as transparent as your birth certificate? ... My gut reaction is that Obama was either born in Kenya, 'cause his mother came over prior to his birth and couldn't get back home before he was born. Because what's filed on his website appears to be a registration of birth not the document generated by the hospital when you're born.

I'm headed out to Honolulu. ... And I'm going out to do what digging I can on the birth certificate. ... I think I'll accomplish something in Hawaii, too. Obama's headed out there, and I believe there's a court challenge that if Obama does not dodge, he's gonna be forced to produce a birth certificate, and there's gonna be something damaging on that birth certificate, because even at the eleventh hour, Obama refuses to show us the hospital-generated birth certificate when he was born.

G. Gordon Liddy

And the second thing is that it is not a birth certificate. ... So, we still don't have a birth certificate for Obama...There are claims that he was actually born in Kenya. I have no way of proving that or disproving that, but it would seem to me that it being so important -- I mean, because if he was born in Kenya and not in Hawaii, then he's not eligible to become president. If it's so important an issue that the campaign, if they had a real birth certificate from Hawaii, the campaign would put it out, not rely on a phony thing Photoshopped by Daily Kos, you know. Why?

I think there is a lawsuit that has been filed, but I don't know what -- you know, what progress it has or has not made, but the only thing that they've offered is -- and Obama hasn't offered it -- the Daily Kos, that left-wing blog, offered a Photoshopped -- a much-Photoshopped -- copy of a certificate of live birth, which is not something -- it's not a birth certificate. It simply states that so-and-so was born alive here in Hawaii. But the serial number on it is redacted, blanked out. And that's because some people have suggested that it was actually the Photoshopped version. ... And then there's others who say he was born, you know, in Kenya. And I don't have a birth certificate from Kenya to show that he was, but neither does he have a birth certificate to show that he was born in Hawaii, either.

I'd like to talk about the, you know, the business of his birth. Now, the Daily Kos, which is a blog, a leftist blog, published a certificate of live birth purportedly from Hawaii. Giving a date but having the serial number redacted, blocked out. And, from what we're told, heavily Photoshopped. Can you go into that? It's not a birth certificate. It's something that is issued after there has been a birth and supposedly attests to the fact that, well, yes, there was a birth in the past, and it was on such and such a day, but it's not a birth certificate such as you and I have.

  • From the June 8, 2009, edition of The G. Gordon Liddy Show: “Now, this is being done for a slum in Kenya, where of course our president was born.”

Andrew Malcolm

  • From a May 5, 2009, entry on the Los Angeles Times' Top of the Ticket blog:

According to the N.Y. Post today, those photos [taken of Air Force One in New York] have been classified and will not be released by the transparent Obama White House. Not really classified as in 'top secret' classified. But classified as in those are going in the file cabinet. Maybe mis-filed with the Obama birth certificate.

Mike Pintek

I still keep wondering about his birthplace and his birth certificate. I'm still not convinced that he actually was born a natural-born citizen. ... But we may never be able to prove that either without a real, honest-to-God birth certificate. Maybe one does not exist. You know, the one that they post -- they posted doesn't -- that looks like a Photoshop deal. According to some people who know what they're talking about, who are experts on this, they say that the birth certificate that he's got on his website and has been posted to the Daily Kos and some other places, is -- it looks very much like a Photoshop deal and doesn't look legit. So what's he hiding?

Wesley Pruden

Far worse, a summerlong controversy continues about when and where the senator was actually born, and whether the circumstances of his birth could cloud his eligibility to serve. The Obama campaign has been reluctant to produce a birth certificate.

Frank Gaffney Jr.

Another question yet to be resolved is whether Mr. Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States, a prerequisite pursuant to the U.S. Constitution. There is evidence Mr. Obama was born in Kenya rather than, as he claims, Hawaii. There is also a registration document for a school in Indonesia where the would-be president studied for four years, on which he was identified not only as a Muslim but as an Indonesian. ... Curiously, Mr. Obama has, to date, failed to provide an authentic birth certificate which could clear up the matter.

Andy Martin

From a September 22, 2008, Contrarian Commentary column: “We have not seen a valid Obama birth certificate either.”

Chris Baker

[W]hen you really start looking into this, there apparently has never been a real birth certificate presented. There's been a certificate, but it's not a birth certificate. And according to Philip Berg, Barack Obama was born in Kenya. ... Just get the damn birth certificate presented and let's move on with our lives.

Bob Newman

CALLER: I can't fathom this, how he hasn't had to produce a birth certificate.

NEWMAN: Well, you can see the fake one if you want; it's on my website -

CALLER: Right, yeah.

NEWMAN: -- you can also see the blank one. I have a blank one there. What you can do is, you can Photoshop it yourself; you just copy it, right-click on it, and then you copy it, and then you use your Photoshop, and you can doctor it up any way you want.

Rick Roberts

There is some question, some question as to whether he's even a U.S. citizen and, sorry, that's something you kinda have to have to run for president. ... We'd get a week away from the presidency and all of a sudden we find out he's actually born in Kenya and then taken to Hawaii where a duplicate birth certificate was produced.

First of all, the birth certificate issue. The birth certificate issue. You know the story goes his father moved to Kenya, his mother followed, she was pregnant with him, she didn't like the way Muslim men treated the women, she wanted to go back to Hawaii, she was too far along in her pregnancy, they said, “No, you can't fly.” She had the baby in Kenya, then got on a plane with the child back to Hawaii and got a registry of birth. ... Show them the birth certificate and say, “OK, here's my birth certificate, get out of my face.” Why hasn't it been produced? Why?

Jim Quinn

  • From the June 15 edition of The War Room With Quinn & Rose:

Well, where's his birth certificate? We could have two illegitimate leaders.

But any -- it would appear from this judgment by the -- from this court that the DNC and Barack Hussein Obama had lost -- not an appeal but a motion -- to dismiss the complaint from a Philip J. Berg, Esq., who wants a copy of Obama's citizenship papers and also his birth certificate -- which is a question that's been floating out there. ... And it looks like he may not be an American citizen, and it looks like nobody cares -- which is even more exciting.

Rose Tennent

Now, you said there was also -- I think once you had talked about inconsistencies in terms of the accounts of his birth. There were reports that he was born at two separate hospitals -- one in Honolulu, one in Kenya. ...So, seriously, you have concerns about there being inconsistent reports of where he was born. ...Mr. Berg, though, can you really expect -- I mean, can't we, as citizens of this country -- people who are voting for the next president of the United States of America -- can we not expect to have an original or a copy of the original birth certificate of someone who is running for that position?

Brian Sussman

Yeah, like if someone involved with the Electoral College says, “There's just one little issue. We're looking at the Constitution of the United States of America and the requirement is 35 years of age residing in the United States so many years, and, oh yeah, citizen.” Can we prove the citizenship thing right now please, once and for all? ... Show us the birth certificate, man. Show us the money. It's sealed up in Hawaii? Show it to us. ... Show us the birth certificate.

Mark Hyman

Obama's lawyers are attempting to financially ruin individuals party to the most absurd soap opera involving the 44th president. There is unabated controversy regarding his birth, citizenship and foreign travel. Obama could immediately silence his critics by authorizing the release of his original birth certificate and passport. One has to wonder what could possibly be in either document that has caused Obama to wage a fierce and expensive legal battle to keep the files secreted. Aside from Joan Rivers, nearly every American would willingly make their birth certificate available and Obama's stubborn refusal to do so only adds to the controversy.

Barry Farber

  • From an April 6, 2009, Newsmax.com column:

We've not been allowed to see the president's birth certificate. Instead we've been offered something nobody ever heard of called a “certificate of live birth” from the state of Hawaii. If all this culminates in the revelation that Barack Obama is not, in fact, eligible to serve as president of the USA, this will go down as his team's biggest mistake. The American people may not be all we used to be, but we're not yet ready to roll over and smile at the sight of a confection designed to masquerade as a birth certificate while we're being angrily denied a look at the real thing.

Molotov Mitchell

  • From a June 17 WorldNetDaily video:

We cannot survive four years of this. But there is a solution. We have something that man has sought throughout the ages -- we have a time machine. Yes, a time machine. And with it, we can undo most of Obama's damage. All we have to do is demand Obama's proof of citizenship. These are the facts: Obama's grandmother says that he was born in Kenya. His elementary school records say that he was an Indonesian citizen. He traveled in and out of Pakistan when American passports were prohibited. And by the way, where are the records that show his name change from Barry Soetoro to Barack Obama? And why has he sealed all records that could indicate his national origin?

Republicans, you're looking for leadership? Well, here it is: Publicly demand the answers to these questions. Obama will resign. If he doesn't, we know that we are in a dictatorship. Walk out of Congress, and don't look back.