There was a time, not long ago, when my faith was shaken. I became concerned that there would never be a factually accurate resolution to the “birth certificate” brouhaha. Obviously, I am a skeptic and I really worry that Obama will ride off into the sunset having fooled American citizens. The few real facts that we know, coupled with Obama’s absolute refusal to release personal documents that the American public has a right to see, requires me to be skeptical. True, there may not be a legal requirement to show his records, but there certainly is a moral one on Obama’s part. “The most transparent administration ever,” my arse.
But over the past several days, it is beginning to look like the issue isn’t going to die a quiet death. There is major “buzz” across the Internet and some TV news programs have recognized that the issue does exist. Even the obsolete media (formally known as “newspapers” and “magazines”) are at least mentioning it. The conservative talk shows are banging the drum relentlessly and the “Where’s the Birth Certificate” movement is building momentum.
My perception was that the references to Obama’s BC issue were more numerous in recent days.
To quantify the level of exposure being enjoyed by the BC issue, I decided to do an informal survey of websites to see if my perception was accurate, so here’s what I did:
I visited Fox, CBS, MSNBC, and ABC among the “mainstream” news sites. I also visited Internet political sites, including: Hot Air, Drudge, RealClearPolitics (RCP), Newsmax, Politico, Breitbart, and Michelle Malkin. I also checked on the lefty sites Huffington Post and DailyKos.
I purposely excluded WorldNetDaily since they are the prime mover of the issue and the numerous articles there would skew the results.
I found 26 articles that had a reference to the birth certificate issue in the title. That was my only criteria for counting a “hit.” I only counted items referenced on the main (home) page of the site and didn’t click down into any of the articles looking for additional references.
Only three sites contained no reference to the issue, they were: Michelle Malkins, RCP, and MSNBC. The sites with the most articles were Drudge, Breitbart, and Huffington Post.
While it is undeniable that my survey was informal and unscientific, it does show that there is interest in the issue. At least it establishes a baseline against which we can measure an increase or decrease in exposure in the coming weeks. Wish I’d done this months ago.
There is little reason to include television or radio references. It is too time-consuming to test the network TV news sites and I know what I hear from Rush, Hannity, Levin, Davis, Ingraham, etc. on talk radio.
Obama had best consider the old political adage: “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” that brings the most grief to a politician.
The plot thickens.
Here’s an update from the HonoluluAdvertiser.com as of Monday the 27th:
Hawai’i's Health Department confirmed yesterday that it has President Obama's original Aug. 4, 1961, birth certificate in storage, but the announcement is unlikely to satisfy conspiracy theorists who insist Obama was born in Kenya. "We don't destroy vital records," Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said. "That's our whole job, to maintain and retain vital records."
The Health Department's director reiterated yesterday that she has seen Obama's birth records.
"I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawai'i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai'i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai'i and is a natural-born American citizen," Fukino said in a statement. "I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008, over eight months ago."
This was a more definite statement than the one Dr. Fukino made in October. This time, she states that she has seen the birth certificate and it verifies that Obama was born in Hawai’i. Previously, she had only said that she had seen his “original” birth certificate – with no mention of its origin – or his.
While the doctor’s statement does take some wind from our (birthers) sail, color me unconvinced. I can’t get past the fact that Obama is still using teams of attorneys to prevent the public from seeing his background records – why? To paraphrase, there’s a “skeleton in the woodpile” somewhere.
There is still a nauseous smell in the air, and it’s still coming from Obama.