Yes to Obama Birthers, No to Ted Cruz Birthers

WorldNetDaily simply does not want to discuss Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president, even though by its own standards he's less eligible than Barack Obama.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 4/8/2015

WND editor Joseph Farah threw a fit over applying WND's birther standards to Cruz in a January 2014 column, insisting that any eligibility concerns about Cruz to be a manifestation of the fact that the "elite media" is afraid of him because he is "he is a bold, eloquent, charismatic, principled, committed defender of American liberty." Farah then huffed that "I don't care" whether Cruz is eligible because "no one cared about Obama’s questionable eligibility."

In the midst of that hand-washing, of course, Farah is tacitly admitting that his "eligibility" crusade against Obama was never about constitutional fealty and all about partisan political attack -- part of WND's years-long effort to personally destroy Obama.

Now that Cruz has announced his candidacy for the president in 2016, WND absolutely doesn't want to talk about his eligibility.

That's not to say WND isn't excited by his candidacy. In fact, it promoted the heck out of Cruz's announcement:

• A March 23 article by Cheryl Chumley touts how "the fiery tea party Texan" told an mandatory convocation at right-wing Liberty University about "what he described as the greatness of America: that our rights come from God.
• Joe Kovacs dutifully transcribed Rush Limbaugh's reaction to Cruz's announcement.
• Garth Kant gushed over how Cruz "will follow the playbook of the right’s greatest hero, Ronald Reagan."

The king of all announcement-day gushers, though, was Farah himself, who slobbered:

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard any political figure do what Sen. Ted Cruz did yesterday in his announcement he is seeking the Republican nomination for the presidency.

He delivered an electrifying, motivational, rousing case for liberty – explaining why it’s not too late, why Americans don’t need to lower their expectations, how this country has overcome greater odds in its history.

[...]

I am not making an endorsement for the presidency here. But I am giving Ted Cruz a big hallelujah, a heartfelt amen.

This is the way I wish other Republicans and conservatives would talk. There’s a reason Ronald Reagan, with similar views, was able to win landslide victories in the 1980s. It’s because he was the Great Communicator. Ted Cruz may be one, too.

Unmentioned in all of these articles: Discussion of Cruz's eligibility to be president. Farah did huff that Cruz's critics noted that "There are questions about his constitutional eligibility for office" but addressed it no further other than to whine that Obama was a "eligibility-challenged community organizer."

WND has long promoted the idea that the Constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural born citizen" -- which the Constitution does not define -- should be defined only as someone born in the U.S. to parents who are both American citizens. As recently as July 2014, WND was insisting that "Scholarly works cited by the Founders defined it as a citizen at birth by virtue of being born in the country to two citizens of the country, or merely the offspring of two citizens of the country."

That definition conveniently excluded Obama since his father was never an American citizen; whether or not Obama was actually born in Hawaii was simply icing on the cake.

But WND's strict definition of "natural born citizen" hits the wall when it comes to Cruz -- not only was he born in Canada, his father was not an American citizen and did not become one until 2005. Thus, under the definition WND has embraced, Joseph Farah's favored candidate for president cannot run legally run for office.

Further, Cruz held dual citizenship in Canada before renouncing it only last year. WND -- which made a big deal out of Obama having dual citizenship in Kenya upon his birth, which he automatically lost on his 23rd birthday -- has promoted the birther argument that "the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural-born."

But when Donald Trump -- who sought the aid of Farah and WND when he wanted to attack Obama's eligibility in 2011 -- played the birther card on Cruz, it was only then that WND was moved to address the issue.

Even though WND has a ridiculously large archive of articles about Obama's "eligibility," WND Cheryl Chumley didn't reference any of it in her March 24 article on Trump, instead pushing definitions of "natural born citizen" that included Cruz (which are in the mainstream of constitutional thought). Thus, Chumley flushed WND's earlier, narrower definitions of "natural born citizen" down the memory hole.

WND ignores its own reporter's Cruz probe

WND reporter Aaron Klein tweeted out a preview of his March 29 radio show: "On my radio show TONIGHT 7-9 p.m: Is Sen. Ted Cruz “natural born” and Constitutionally eligible? I'll investigate."

You'd think WND would be quick to pounce on this investigation by one of its reporters by detailing that evidence. But, strangely, it hasn't. No mention of Klein's investigation of Cruz's eligibility ever made it to WND. It did, however, publish another article based on Klein's radio show, his interview with Frances Fox Piven, who right-wingers like Klein blame for "the infamous so-called Cloward-Piven Strategy."

WND still hasn't mentioned Klein's investigation. But it did publish another article by Garth Kant fawning over how much Cruz's politics resembles that of Ronald Reagan.

Meanwhile, Klein himself apparently doesn't want his radio show that well listened to (not that it is anyway since its move last year from top New York station WABC to a much less powerful and more ratings-challenged outlet). The podcasts of his show are entombed behind a paywall, and one must pay $4.99 a month for the privilege of listening to him.

So unless you were actually listening to Klein that Sunday evening, the results of his Cruz investigation are going to be difficult to obtain. Which, presumably, just the way WND wants it.

Chief birther Corsi won't touch Cruz eligibility

WND is so averse to applying its Obama birther standards to Cruz that even WND's chief birther won't touch the issue.

Corsi wrote about Cruz in a March 31 WND article -- but it had nothing to do with eligibility. The apparently more pressing issue was the links Cruz's wife has to the Council on Foreign Relations, a "globalist" group hated by right-wingers like Corsi.

Much of Corsi's article was dedicated to letting a Cruz spokesman spin away the link, stating that Heidi Cruz was merely a "term member" who worked on a single CFR report and that her contribution to it was "narrowly focused on economic issues." Corsi also quoted the spokesman saying that Cruz has called CFR “a pernicious nest of snakes” that is “working to undermine our sovereignty.”

(Corsi also self-servingly refers to the "2007 bestselling book 'The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada,'” while not mentioning he wrote that book or explaining in which universe that book was "bestselling.")

It seems WND has declared a total blackout on treating Cruz the way it did Obama where eligibility is concerned -- and even WND's chief birther is compelled to play along.

Plus, if Corsi were an honest reporter (which he's not), he would have to admit that, according to his own standards, Cruz is not eligible to run for president. In his 2011 book "Where's the Birth Certificate?" Corsi argued that the only Supreme Court case "directly on point" as addressing the issue is 1874's Minor v. Happersett, which he claimed found that only children of two U.S. parents could be considered "natural born citizens" (never mind that that's not actually true). To clear Cruz's eligibility now, Corsi would have to admit he was lying then about Obama. But it seems he, like Farah, is a Cruz fanboy and has no interest in undermining a candidate he likes.

All of which, again, hammers home the message that WND cares about the Constitution only when it can be used as a cudgel against its political enemies, not as a document to be applied evenly to all.

In other words, as ConWebWatch said it was last year, WND's birther charade really is over.