The Birther Charade Is Over

Joseph Farah demonstrates once and for all that WorldNetDaily's "eligibility" attacks on President Obama were a hollow, partisan sham by refusing to apply the same standard to Ted Cruz.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 1/29/2014

In fact, the opposite has occurred: WND has refused to be as aggressive on Cruz's eligibility -- when it has deigned to address the issue at all -- and editor Joseph Farah has washed his hands of the whole thing.

An unbylined Aug. 14 WND article highlighted how CNN "suddenly is concerned about whether Republican Sen. Ted Cruz would qualify for the Oval Office." After noting that Cruz "was born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father," WND added "Cruz himself says he qualifies as a natural-born citizen because he’s a citizen by birth. But those opinions assume that the authors of the Constitution used the terms citizen and natural-born citizen interchangeably."

But rather than further examining the question of Cruz's eligibility, WND spends the rest of the lengthy article rehashing discredited claims about Obama's "eligibility" -- even though the article is ostensibly about Cruz, not Obama.

WND followed that up with an Aug. 19 article by Garth Kant featuring birther Rep. Steve Stockman trying to split hairs:

To hear Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, describe it, the difference between President Obama and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas – on the question of their eligibility for the highest office in the land – may be a case of comparing apples and oranges.

The congressman said with Cruz, it is a legal question of whether he is eligible to serve as president – whereas the issue with Obama is not really about where was born, but whether his documentation is authentic.

Cruz released a copy of his birth certificate Sunday to the Dallas Morning News, as some have begun questioning the possible presidential contender’s eligibility, just as many have questioned Obama’s eligibility since 2008 when the argument was first raised by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Cruz birth certificate shows he was born in Canada in 1970 to an American mother, which gave him American citizenship.

Obama, on the other hand, is the subject of Stockman’s proposed legislation calling for a congressional investigation of both the president’s constitutional eligibility and the authenticity of the birth certificate he released to show he was born in Hawaii.

In an exclusive interview with WND, Stockman said, in the case of Obama, it is more of a question about the validity of the documentation as well as his forthrightness, whereas with Cruz, it is more of a matter for legal and constitutional scholars to decide.

WND editor Farah began his Aug. 22 column by whining, as he's wont to do:

Compare the media scrutiny Sen. Ted Cruz has received as a possible presidential candidate in 2016 to what happened in 2008 with Barack Obama.

It’s a day and night contrast.

Simply asking questions about Obama was labeled “racist.” It only got worse after he was elected. You might remember seeing me on TV news shows frequently in the years leading up to that election. Did you ever wonder why you don’t see me anymore? It’s because I raised this issue and became, as one wag characterized me, “the Birther King.”

Have you seen Jerome Corsi, a two-time New York Times No. 1 bestseller, on television much? Same thing. Corsi wrote “Where’s the Birth Certificate?,” which became the bestselling book in the nation before it ever was released. It’s what prompted Obama to release a badly manufactured simulation of an actual Hawaii birth certificate two years ago. He followed up with the e-book “Where’s the Real Birth Certificate?” But this brilliant Harvard Ph.D. and senior staff writer for WND has become TV’s new Invisible Man ever since.

It couldn't possibly be that Corsi is a documented liar as well as a crackpot whose latest book claims that Adolf Hitler escaped Nazi Germany, could it, Joe?

Farah then huffs:

Never mind that the only law enforcement investigation into Obama’s birth certificate found that it was a fraud and forgery. It didn’t matter. The media, besides WND, have steadfastly refused to report the facts for fear of being labeled part of the “birther” conspiracy.

In fact, that "law enforcement investigation" -- manipulated into existence by WND, with Corsi himself as a de facto member of the "posse" that's investigating -- is a sham. If anybody's refusing to report the facts, it's Farah and WND, who won't tell their readers what a sham it is.

It's not until the 10th paragraph of his column that Farah gets around to addressing the question he poses in his headline -- whether Ted Cruz is eligible to be president:

Now let me say this at the outset: I really like Ted Cruz. I think he would very likely make a fine president. But I think it’s important that we elect only those who are constitutionally eligible – those who fit the definition of “natural born citizens.”

Is he eligible?

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect not – at least not by my understanding of what the founders had in mind when they ratified the Constitution.

The fact that Farah can't muster a more definitive answer than "I don’t know for sure, but I suspect not" tells us that he really doesn't want to know the answer. If Cruz were a Democrat, Farah would certainly not be as reticent to investigate -- After all, Farah is not on record saying that he "really likes" Obama.

Farah went on to praise Cruz for having "quickly released his birth certificate," ignoring that Obama had released one quickly as well. Farah, however, did not announce any investigation to determine whether Cruz's birth certificate is genuine.

Farah then whined further about alleged lack of coverage about constitutional eligibility, claiming, "Maybe the media know how dishonest they’ve been all along and are afraid they will get called on it." Farah may very well be talking about himself.

The Cruz eligibility avoidance at WND is so bad that even the most rabid Obama birthers won't touch it. Erik Rush -- who believes Obama's real father is Malcolm X -- said as much in his Oct. 2 WND column:

Ted Cruz looks like a white guy, but he’s not – which is a non-issue to people who judge character over color. After all, our president looks like a black guy, but he’s not, and few of us make any bones about that. There are also questions with regard to Cruz’s eligibility for the office (having been born in Canada), but given the history of this issue on the same subject with regard to President Obama, I won’t even go there.

By all accounts, Cruz is even less eligible to be president than Obama since he was documented to be born outside the U.S. to a non-citizen father. It seems that, as with Farah, Cruz's right-wing politics mitigate those eligibility questions Rush thought were so important regarding Obama.

Farah returned to the subject in his Jan. 15 WND column -- and inadvertently exposed what a sham his birther crusade has been. He whined:

I have been labeled by the Big Media as “the birther king.”

I have been systematically blacklisted by all cable news networks for raising the issue of Obama’s eligibility and trying to discuss it rationally and openly.

False. Farah has never been interested in discussing Obama's eligibility "rationally and openly."

If he was, his website would have reported that all the major birther conspiracies have been discredited.

If he was, his website wouldn't have spent so much time trying to fluff Joe Arpaio and get a seat on his Cold Case Posse to ensure that the so-called investigation would be shoddy and biased.

If he was, his website would never have published a fake birth certificate without bothering to verify its authenticity first.

In fact, Farah's actions over the past five years have been all about ensuring that birther conspiracies wouldn't be discussed rationally and openly.

Farah continued:

Having never scrutinized the basic facts still surrounding Obama’s questionable case for eligibility, the news media are already in a feeding frenzy over the potential eligibility of conservative Republican Ted Cruz, who has not even announced his intentions about running for president in 2016 or thereafter.

If it wasn’t clear before, it is transparent now: It was never a matter of what the Constitution said for the news media. It was never a matter of the established facts of Obama’s parentage and birth. It was all about protecting Obama.

By making this statement, Farah is admitting the opposite -- that his birther crusade was all about destroying Obama, not about the truth. Farah makes that even more clear by writing:

So if anyone has the right and the duty to weigh in on Ted Cruz’s eligibility, it’s me – even though no one is asking.

My answer is, “I don’t care.”

I don’t care because the Constitution was not written and ratified to be applied to some and not others. If no one cared about Obama’s questionable eligibility, despite his shocking lack of transparency and thin paper trail, then they have no business questioning Ted Cruz – who has released his birth certificate, renounced his Canadian citizenship and upheld every provision of the Constitution to the best of his ability throughout his life.

For the record, I would have preferred if the issue of natural born citizenship were openly debated and discussed before Obama assumed office and began his all-out jihad on the Constitution. I would have preferred if my colleagues in the news media had taken seriously their responsibility to be watchdogs on government and hold all politicians accountable to the rule of law. I would have preferred if the motivations of those of us seeking the truth about Obama’s eligibility status and life story had never been impugned.

But now that’s all water under the bridge.

Our country is in shambles.

“The new birthers” got their way.

For better or worse, they set the standard of eligibility by precedent.

They can’t have it both ways – revising the standard up when they don’t like the candidate and down when they do.

Actually, it's Farah who's trying to have it both ways. He raised a stink for five years about Obama's purported non-eligibility, all the while censoring any research that proved otherwise. He has never proven his main conceit, that Obama was not born in the U.S. -- the one thing that might make Obama ineligible for the presidency -- then whines that he's been blackballed for putting conspiracy theory ahead of facts.

Now that Farah has a potential candidate who aligns much closer to his right-wing ideology than Obama does, but is by his own definition arguably ineligible to be president because he, unlike Obama, was not born in the United States, Farah is taking his ball and going home. He won't be sending Jerome Corsi to Kenya to wave around fake documents, nor will Aaron Klein be devoting a WND-published book to Cruz's radical associations.

WND refusal to get involved in the issue of Cruz's eligibility like it did Obama's only proves the hollow, dishonest partisan intent of the whole enterprise.

Farah doesn't give a damn about the Constitution. All he was ever interested in was smearing Obama by turning the birther issue into Obama's Vince Foster. Farah should stop lying to the public by pretending otherwise.

Then again, honesty might be a little too much to ask from someone like Farah who lies so brazenly and without conscience.