Birthered in the U.S.A

September 20, 2016 / Dr. Steven J. Allen [Continuing our series on deception in politics and public policy.] The so-called "birther" story--the claim that President Obama was born outside the U.S. and is not a "natural born Citizen," thus ineligible to be president--was back in the news last week. Was it spread, as Donald Trump alleged, by the Clinton organization? Among those allegedly spreading the birther story during the 2008 campaign: Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton's top political advisor. According to James Asher, former Washington bureau chief of the McClatchy Company, one of the nation's top news organizations, Blumenthal suggested to him that Obama was born in Kenya, and sought to persuade Asher to pursue the story--which Asher did, leading to a determination that the birther story was false. The Washington Post, in a news story Friday, characterized as false Donald Trump's charge that "Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy," with the Post calling Trump's claim "an assertion that has been repeatedly disproved by fact-checkers who have found no evidence that Clinton or her campaign questioned Obama's birth certificate or his citizenship." The rest of the media followed suit. The idea that the Clinton campaign was involved in the birther effort was a "false conspiracy," reported the Associated Press. It was "a claim that does not stand up to scrutiny," said Reuters.

---

Support Canada Free Press

---