Birther conspiracies and the media

OBAMA BIRTHER MOVEMENT OUT OF FRINGE AND INTO MAINSTREAM MEDIA


One of the most fascinating and disturbing conspiracy theories circulated by opponents of President Barack Obama is the “birther” movement. One would think that the Internet rumors alleging that our president was born outside the United States would have died off after the White House produced proof in June that Obama was born in Hawaii to an American citizen, but instead they are kept very alive by popular media pundits.
If you think that only far right-wing nut cases believe these wild conspiracy theories, think again. Recent polls reveal some surprising results:
· A September Public Policy poll indicated that 64 percent of Republicans were either not sure or disbelieved the president was born in this country. An earlier poll in August on www.politico.com showed similar findings. In fact, when you took out minorities from that poll, 83 percent of southern whites said they doubted or were unsure about whether Obama was born in the U.S.
· In mid-September, a Daily Kos poll in Arkansas asked the state’s residents if they believed Barack Obama was born in the U.S. Thirty-seven percent said “no” or were “unsure.”
· On August 6, a Public Policy poll revealed that only 53 percent of Virginians were sure that President Obama was born in the U.S. Twenty-four percent polled in that state did not believe that Obama was born in this country, and 24 percent “were not sure.”
Also in August, at least 10 Republicans Congressmen, led by Rep. John Campbell of California and Rep. Bob Goodlaite of Virginia, sponsored a bill that would require possible candidates for president to release their birth certificates before running, but most didn’t want to talk about the current president’s birthplace when approached (see a funny video posted on http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Danger_of_the_birthers.html)
Of course talk radio fueled the crazy paranoia that just won’t go away (do a Google search for Obama and ‘birth certificate’ will be one of the top three searches). G. Gordon Liddy asserted on his nationally syndicated radio show that “our president was born in a slum in Kenya” (June 8) and claimed that Obama’s released birth certificate was “a forged fake” (August 26). Rush Limbaugh, the most popular talk show host in America with 13.5 million minimum weekly listeners, said the president “has yet to prove he is a citizen” and implied Obama visited his ailing grandmother late last year not to see her, but to tamper with his birth records. Limbaugh’s comments, like most of his most incendiary political remarks, received widespread coverage in the mainstream press.
These alarmist theories are spread not only by the far right wing, but by fundamentalist Christian organizations. LivePrayer.com has produced a half-hour infomercial questioning where the president was born. It has run on several networks, including one CBS affiliate in Lubbock, Texas. Hal Lindsey, an evangelical commentator on cable television (TBN, Daystar, CPM Network, Inspiration; various local stations) also pushed the birther conspiracy theory (in addition to implying that President Obama is the “anti-Christ” in the prelude to Armageddon). Another birther movement evolved from the recently formed “Anabaptist Church of Africa” in Pennsylvania, which lists as one of its articles of faith to set right the “unbearable injustice, and trampling of the Constitution of the United States, in thinking to force the people to accept a foreigner as the President of this Republic, ignoring the single most important qualification for the highest office in our land, that such a one, not just gain such ‘power by the consent of the governed’, but that he be naturally born amongst us as one of us.” (I guess no one told this group that John McCain was not born in any of the United States or its terrorities, but in Panama.)
The mainstream media coverage’s of these paranoid political conspiracy theorists has carelessly given credence to an issue that has been debunked time and again (see http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html and http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/ for the evidence). For example, when a caller to Lou Dobbs’ radio show asserted Obama would soon be “exposed as having been born in Kenya,” Dobbs replied that “Certainly your view cannot be discounted.” On CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs questioned the authenticity of the birth certificate provided by the State of Hawaii and at one point jokingly suggested that President Obama may be “undocumented.” CNN continually hounded the Hawaii Department of Health about the issue even after the birth certificate was released again.
By interviewing the birthers on cable and broadcast television, journalists give them some semblance of credibility. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews disparaged G Gordon Liddy on his “Hardball” in July, showing Liddy the birth certificate and the birth announcement from the Honolulu Advertiser in August 1961. Yet Liddy caught Matthews by surprise when he brought up claims of a “sworn deposition from [Obama’s] grandmother who says she was ‘present and saw him born in Mombassa, Kenya.”
What Liddy was referring to is actually an affidavit filed by a far right-wing evangelical preacher named Ron McRae, who interviewed Sarah Obama, wife of Barack Obama’s grandfather, through a translator. Sarah Obama’s words were misinterpreted in the translation, and she corrected him over and over again, but the itinerant preacher never accepted that (see http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/23/liddy/).

The danger in legitimizing the ‘birthers’ claims is that it subtlety encourages racism and violence, according to Southern Poverty Law Center’s Heidi Beirich. She points out that the political atmosphere before the Oklahoma City bombing eerily resembled today’s environment, with an up tick in paranoid political rumors and fear-mongering. We’ve already seen one murder from neo-Nazi assailant who killed the security guard at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. (it was discovered that James von Brunn, the accused murderer, helped spread the birthers’ claims on the Internet).
There are several theories about the birthers’ motives: wishing for a “magic bullet” that would invalidate Obama’s presidency; fear of foreign influence; fear of change. Yet the chief reason is rarely talked about in the mainstream media: racism. If one doubts that, then ask yourself the question: If our president’s father were born in Ireland, Scotland, or another European country, would anyone raise these questions? Or, if their true motive is to enforce the constitutionality of the “born in the USA” presidential requirement, then why didn’t they bring up that John McCain was born on a military installation in the Panama Canal?
The Internet has certainly made it easier for conspiracy theorists to espouse and share their views anonymously and without accountability. Some bloggers who have thoroughly researched the issue, like Alex Koppelman on Salon.com, correctly point out that “almost all of the people who’ve been most prominent in pushing the story have a history of conspiracist thought.” Yet the mainstream media, rather than conduct investigative reporting, generally report on the crazy lawsuits challenging the president’s birth and the reactionary groups who buy infomercials and downtown billboards without bothering to expose or discredit these fringe groups.
Of course, debunking the birthers with facts won’t change their minds, because facts can’t counter paranoia, but they can help the other conservative-minded folks who only listen to Fox News and talk radio for their news of the day. Instead of giving credence to wacky lawsuits and right-wing commentators who try to stoke the flames of fear and hostility against a black president, the mainstream media could steer a different path of responsible journalism and open dialogue about issues and policies instead of spreading propaganda and distortion.