Topic: WorldNetDaily
Is Joseph Farah conceding that Barack Obama is an American citizen?
That's one interpretation of his recent attempts to decouple questions about Obama's citizenship from questions about eligibility -- even though Obama's citizenship status is at the heart of the birther issue.
Last week, Farah insisted that it's a "lie " to claim that birthers are questioning Obama's citizenship. Now, Farah's Feb. 15 column is a letter to Newsweek demanding a retraction for its "blatantly defamatory" listing of Farah as among those who say Obama "wasn't born in the good old US of A, hence isn't a natural-born citizen and therefore cannot legally be president":
While I have written tens of thousands of words about the subject of Barack Obama's eligibility and talked for dozens of hours on the public airwaves and given hundreds of interviews on this subject, never have I stated that Obama was not born in the United States.
Therefore, I demand an immediate apology and retraction.
Farah is trying to bamboozle Newsweek (and you). Farah may or may not be on record as saying those exact words, Farah, by himself and via his WND subordinates, have certainly promoted the idea that Obama is not a citizen.
As we've previously noted, Farah has on at least two occasions repeated the claim that Obama's grandmother has said that Obama was born in Kenya. (A claim, by the way, which is completely false, and which WND has yet to correct.) That is making the claim by implication that Obama is not a citizen.
As recently as Feb. 4, WND reporters were referencing "the growing ranks of officials and prominent commentators who say they are unsure of whether President Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen."
And if Farah wasn't questioning whether Obama is a citizen, it wouldn't have published a supposed "Kenyan birth certificate" without first trying to verify if it was authentic (it wasn't).
Farah's effort to decouple citizenship from eligibility is bizarre and futile. The only issue being raised regarding Obama's eligibility to be president is the citizenship issue. If Farah is not questioning Obama's citizenship, he has no case to challenge his eligibility.
So, Mr. Farah, will you concede that Obama is a citizen? Because that's exactly what you're doing in claiming that citizenship is not an issue. Or is birtherism too big a business for you to forthrightly state the truth?
