Media, Not Boehner, are “Tongue-tied” on Obama’s Personal History

Following the lead of David Gregory of NBC News, who wants Republican House Speaker John Boehner to publicly defend the legitimacy of the Obama presidency, the Los Angeles Times has now editorialized that Boehner ought to make it his business to rebut charges that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim.

With the Los Angeles Times joining the chorus, it appears that the left-wing media are trying to get the House Republican leadership to pull Obama out of the quicksand he finds himself in, as doubts and questions keep mounting about his personal history. The media strategy seems to be to paint GOP House leaders as crazies if they don’t condemn the “birthers” questioning Obama’s legitimacy as President.

It is almost as if the media are trying to prevent the House Republican majority from conducting a serious investigation into the circumstances of Obama’s birth.

The Times said in an editorial, “In an interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ Boehner was willing to concede that he believes Obama is both a native-born citizen and a Christian. But, the speaker said, that was because ‘I’ll take him at his word,’ as if Obama's assurances were the only corroboration of his citizenship and his religion.”

The paper went on, “In fact, a ‘certificate of live birth’ establishes that he was born in Hawaii. As for his religion, Obama’s involvement with a Chicago church is well documented.” The editorial was titled, “The tongue-tied speaker.”

But the Times demonstrated that it is far beyond “tongue-tied” itself and is deliberately obscuring the facts.

Any journalist who bothers to compare Obama’s “certification of live birth” with traditional documents of this nature finds that the Obama version does not provide any of the details that are available on a long-form or original birth certificate. Obama’s vague document does not have the name of the hospital where he was born, the occupation of his father or mother, or the signature of the attending physician.

On the matter of religion, Obama’s “involvement with a Chicago church,” the one associated with the notorious anti-American preacher Jeremiah Wright, does not prove that he was baptized as a Christian.  As we have noted, Obama has made the claim that he joined that church, but he has not produced a certificate of baptism and there is no evidence he had a traditional Christian baptism there, in the sense of undergoing an experience of receiving water symbolizing the Holy Spirit. In addition, Muslims could join Wright’s Christian church.

“Even more objectionable,” the Times said, was Boehner’s refusal to tell the American people what to think about these matters. This means, the Times said, echoing David Gregory, that Boehner is failing to expose and challenge the American public’s “ignorance.”

Rather than demonstrating ignorance, the opinion polls finding that significant numbers of people are confused about Obama’s religious identity, and the fact that some believe he is a Muslim may reflect the failure of the major media to insist that Obama prove who or what he says he is.

This failure is troubling, especially because we know that Obama and his campaign deliberately lied about Obama’s childhood mentor in Hawaii, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis. Obama concealed his real identity in his book Dreams from My Father and when it was revealed that the mysterious “Frank” was in fact Frank Marshall Davis, the Obama campaign in 2008 said Davis was just a civil rights activist.

Boehner is entitled to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, although his constituents might wonder why he is doing so, considering the stakes involved in an issue as central as Obama’s constitutional eligibility to be president. But the American people have the right, in light of the available evidence, to remain doubtful.

It is not unreasonable to believe that Obama has something to hide in the matters of his birth and religious affiliation. It is significant that our major media seem now to be in a frenzy over the fact that the House Speaker is unwilling to erase the public’s doubts.