Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has long pushed falsehoods about Barack Obama, his administration, and his birth certificate, but only rarely does it feel sufficiently chastened to correct the record.
On Aug. 4, WND published an article by Joe Kovacs, headlined "Elena Kagan tied to Obama's birth certificate cases," stating:
Just when you thought there couldn't be any more players in the ongoing soap opera over the hunt for President Obama's original birth certificate and his constitutional eligibility for office, there comes yet another name: Elena Kagan.
Yes, the same Elena Kagan nominated by the commander in chief to be the next justice on the U.S. Supreme Court has actually been playing a role for some time in the dispute over whether Obama is legally qualified to be in the White House.
Here's the connection. Kagan served as solicitor general of the United States from March 2009 until May of this year.
In that role, she legally represented the U.S. government in numerous cases coming before the Supreme Court.
A simple search of the high court's own website reveals Kagan's name coming up at least nine times on dockets involving Obama eligibility issues.
Searching the dockets at the U.S. Supreme Court's website reveals Elena Kagan's name coming up numerous times on cases challenging President Obama's constitutional eligibility for office. (Supreme Court screenshot with name highlighted by WND, Aug. 4, 2010)
Docket No, 09-724, for instance, comes up with this in the search result:
Title: The Real Truth About Obama, Inc., Petitioner v. Federal Election Commission, et al. Reply of petitioner The Real Truth About Obama, Inc. filed. The Real Truth About Obama, Inc. Elena Kagan
Clicking on any of the dockets reveals who the original petitioners were, as well as what proceedings and orders were issued in each case. Here's another docket, with Jamal Kiyemba v. Barack H. Obama.
Elena Kagan's name is noted as solicitor general for cases involving Obama's consdtitutional eligibility. (Supreme Court screenshot with name highlighted by WND, Aug. 4, 2010)
The fact Kagan handled these cases and is now Obama's first choice for the high court is raising some eyebrows.
"She was the solicitor general for all the suits against him filed with the Supreme Court to show proof of natural-born citizenship," notes WND reader Carl Jorgensen of Farmingdale, N.J. "He owes her big time."
"All of the requests were denied of course," Jorgensen continued. "They were never heard. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it? The American people mean nothing any longer. It's all about payback time for those that compromised themselves to elect someone that really has no true right to even be there. We should be getting so sick of all of this nonsense. The USA has finally become the laughing stock of the world. God help and deliver us."
But Kovacs is completely wrong. As Snopes details, none of those docket items has anything to do with "eligibility issues." The Kiyemba case involves a Ugandan who was incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay for four years beginning in 2002, and the suit originally named President Bush as the defendant. Even the one involving "The Real Truth About Obama, Inc." is centered on an allegation that the Obama administration "chilled its right to disseminate information about presidential candidate Senator Obama's position on abortion."
Snopes goes on to note that WND scrubbed the heck out of Kovacs' article after its debunking appeared. Indeed, the article has been completely rewritten and Kovacs' name removed from it. It now begins with a correction (though it's not called that):
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described a series of cases for which Elena Kagan represented the government as eligibility cases. Those cases, in fact, were a series of unrelated disputes pending before the Supreme Court and the references have been removed from this report.
The article now lamely focuses on the "Real Truth About Obama, Inc." case.
Will Kovacs face any sanctions at work for his egregious error? Probably not -- he did what he gets paid to do in floating his attack on Obama, no matter how false. Copies of Kovacs' lies remain all over the Internet. The damage has been done.
Rewriting the story is not enough. WND needs to act in a responsible manner and alert the websites that have copied the article to the fact that it's been utterly discredited.
Then again, other WND liars have not noticably suffered for their falsehoods -- heck, WND had to officially retract an Aaron Klein article because he had so falsely smeared an Islamic charity, and he's now WND's star reporter, spreading more lies and conspiracies with impunity.
There are far more uncorrected falsehoods at WND than corrected ones. What's the official ratio? 10-to-1? 20-to-1? What is WND's corrections policy? There is none stated on its website. Shouldn't this correction be more prominently placed?
The apparently random nature of its corrections -- which seem to come only when there is sufficient public notice of the error, or when a lawsuit is filed or threatened (Clark Jones, anyone?) -- and the apparent lack of any formalized procedure for handling them (WND simply deleted another false birther-related attack without explanation or apology) is yet more evidence that WND should not be taken seriously as anything except a propaganda mill.
