Topic: Accuracy in Media
An April 16 Accuracy in Media column by Margaret Calhoun Hemenway -- spokesperson for Terry Lakin, the Army officer in the thrall of birther extremists who has decided to throw away his military career by refusing to obey orders because he claims Barack Obama is not eligible to be president -- not only fails to disclose that she's the spokesperson for Lakin, she embraces discredited claims about Obama's birth certificate.
First, Hemenway misleads about the nature of the criticism in 2008 of the birth certificate Obama released, asserting that FactCheck.org "lied" when it claimed that the birth certificate it examined was "original." In fact, birthers like Jerome Corsi were claiming at the time that the certificate released by Obama's campaign was itself a fraud -- a claim that has never been credibly proven. FactCheck's use of "original" did not refer to the vaulted copy in Hawaii's archives but, rather, to the authenticity of the certificate released by the campaign.
Hemenway then baselessly suggests that Obama's parents and/or grandparents faked his original certificate by lying to authorities about where he was born. Again, there's no evidence whatsoever to support this claim.
Hemenway adds: "When juxtaposed with statements by Obama's maternal grandmother, Kenya's Ambassador to the U.S, and now a Kenyan cabinet minister and Parliamentarian, that Obama was born in Kenya, calls for Obama to release his original birth certificate are wholly justified." Hemenway is lying when she sayas that Obama's grandmother said Obama was born in Kenya. As we've detailed, this claim comes from an anti-Obama minister who has chosen to dishonestly treat the grandmother's erroneous answer to a mistranslated question by him to the grandmother as a statement of fact.
Further, statements by Kenyan officials about Obama's birth cannot be taken seriously because it's apparent they are speaking more from national pride in Obama's heritage rather than from factual knowledge about the circumstances of his birth.
Hemenway obviously wants to win the lawsuit for Lakin, but she won't do it by peddling discredited lies.
