Topic: WorldNetDaily
For the past couple of years, WorldNetDaily -- the go-to outlet for Obama birthers needing a job -- has been aggressively avoiding talking about the eligibility of Ted Cruz for president. WND supports Cruz's campaign, after all; its refusal to apply to Cruz the constitutional principles it claimed it was applying to Obama demonstrates that the Obama birther campaign was all about personal destruction.
Now that the Cruz birther issue has blown up thanks to Donald Trump (WND's man of the year) pushing it, WND is far behind the curve.
A Jan. 7 WND article by Bob Unruh features John McCain throwing Cruz under the bus by perpetuating the issue, but he very carefully avoids mentioning the fact that the extremely narrow definition of "natural born citizen" WND has applied to Obama for years to prove Obama isn't eligible would render Cruz ineligible as well.
No mention of Vattel or Minor v. Happersett, the authorities WND previoiusly relied on for its "natural born citizen" definition. Instead, Unruh lamented thatthe Constitution "doesn't define 'natural born citizen,' and the Supreme Court has never clarified it," and asserted that "most modern-day legal analysts" say Cruz is eligible (but didn't mention that, by definition, Obama is also eligible).
Then two big birther stories broke over the weekend -- it was reported that Cruz's mother appeared on a list of Canadian citizens eligible to vote in the country four years after Cruz's birth, followed by the Cruz campaign releasing the birth certificate of the mother. These would be huge stories at WND had they involved Obama; instead, WND published only a brief summary about the birth certificate it stole from Breitbart, and it censored the voter-list story completely.
The only birther-related thing WND did all weekend was a column by Larry Klayman declaring that neither Cruz nor Marco Rubio are eligible (and, yes he does invoke Vattel and Minor v. Happersett). But he also declared that "Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim under Shariah law thanks to his Muslim father" and called Cruz and Rubio "Cuban-American pale faces." WND has not promoted Klayman's declaration anywhere else on its website.
A Jan. 11 WND article by Douglas Ernst took a weird tangent, featuring aconstitutional law professor questioning Cruz's eligibility followed by Rush Limbaugh deffending Cruz: "It’s settled. Cruz’s mother was a citizen. Therefore, he is. Deal with it!" Again, no mention of the precedents WND cited to declare Obama ineligible, or the fact that WND had previously proudly proclaimed that Limbaugh is a birther -- which would seem to run counter to his current insistence that Cruz is eligible.
WND is still clearly afraid to do much with the Cruz birther story, lest its blatant hypocrisy on the issue be further exposed. A sad state for a "news" organization that purports to be "dedicated to uncompromising journalism" and proclaims itself as "the new American gold standard for news."
UPDATE: One more thing we forgot to note. Unruh wrote that "Trump also had supported questions into Obama’s eligibility back in the day, even opennig the door to the idea Obama was born in Kenya and his birth registered in Hawaii to allow him the advantages of American citizenship." But he didn't mention that WND was advising Trump on birther issues at the time.
Unruh doesn't mention what contact WND has had with Trump regarding Cruz birther issues.
