Last night Lou Dobbs revisited the Obama birth certificate misperception on his CNN show. With pressure growing against him and his network, he did not encourage birther conspiracy theories in his normal fashion. However, even while backtracking on the issue, Dobbs twice mischaracterized Obama's citizenship as a matter of opinion rather than fact (my emphasis):
New developments tonight in the controversy over the president's birth certificate. Yesterday the director of the Hawaii Department of Health issued another statement that she had, in fact, seen Barack Obama's original so-called long form birth certificate on file with the Department's Office of Vital Records. That official repeated her opinion that the president was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4th, 1961.
...A left wing group's liberal mainstream media have stepped up some attacks on me for reporting on the controversy over the president's birth certificate when in fact I've stated many times that President Obama is a citizen of this country in my opinion. The Southern Poverty Law Center, for example, called on CNN to fire me for my even discussing the story.
At this point, Obama's citizenship is proven beyond any reasonable doubt. It's absurd for anyone on "The Most Trusted Name in News" to be treating it as a matter of opinion.
Meanwhile, CNN president Jon Klein, who backed down from a memo declaring the birther issue "dead" and continues to allow Dobbs to cover the issue, got zinged during a Q&A with TV reporters yesterday (via Media Matters):
Q: If Dobbs wanted to explore whether the British had won the Revolutionary War, would that be a legitimate topic?
A: It would not be legitimate for Lou or anyone else at CNN to explore whether Barack Obama is an American citizen. That's why he hasn't done that. And I think the people who are making noise about that have to look at closely what the discussions have been. It's all about the phenomenon of doubters.
Nonsense. Let the shaming continue...
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