More Right Wing Nutcases

From "The Progress Report"


'The Wacko Wing'
Last Thursday, CNN President Jon Klein sent an e-mail to a handful of the network's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" staffers informing them that he considered one of the stories pursued by the infamously anti-immigrant host to be "dead." On his radio show the week before, Dobbs declared that President Obama needed to "produce a birth certificate," picking up on a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that claims Obama was not born in the United States, and the birth certificate released by his campaign last year was fake. Dobbs repeatedly pushed the "birther" cause despite the fact that his colleagues at CNN have repeatedly called the story "total bull." In fact, while guest-hosting Dobbs' own show on July 17, Kitty Pilgrim refuted the fringe theory, saying, "CNN has fully investigated the issue, found no basis for the questions about the president's birthplace, but the controversy lives on, especially on the Internet." But Dobbs has persisted, attacking his critics as "limp-minded, lily-livered lefties" who hate him because he has "the temerity to inquire as to where the birth certificate was." As Dobbs continued to air the conspiracy theory, Klein backed off his admonition of the host, telling the Los Angeles Times that Dobbs had handled the issue in a "legitimate" manner and "if there are future news pegs, then we have to take that story as it comes." On Sunday, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz used his CNN show to chastise media outlets that "give the birthers any airtime" to repeat their "ludicrous claims." Kurtz specifically criticized Dobbs for not acting "responsible."BORN IN THE USA: Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. This date is on the Certification of Live Birth released by the Hawaii Department of Health last year at the request of Obama. Birthers like Dobbs point to the fact that the campaign released the "short form" certification rather than the "long form" -- which is drawn up by the hospital and contains more information -- as the crux of their argument that the President is hiding something. But as FactCheck.org noted when they investigated and debunked claims about Obama's birth certificate, "the Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate," and "their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department." Birthers, like conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, claim that the certificate posted by the Obama campaign was "a false, fake birth certificate," but its authenticity has been independently confirmed by FactCheck.org, which examined it in person and declared that "it is real and three-dimensional." Additionally, on Oct. 31, 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, issued a statement saying that he had "personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures." Definitive proof of Obama's Hawaii birth has also been found in the archives of two Hawaii newspapers, the Honululu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin, which both printed birth announcements days after Obama was born in 1961. Birth announcements in those papers are placed by the state Department of Health, not the family.


I can't understand idiots like Dobbs. How did he get a job like that being so stupid? But air head TV talking heads are nothing new. Oh where Oh where is Uncle Walter when we need him? Or even Huntley/Brinkley?