certifigate: newsmakers

first, the setup.

it must have eaten a hole in his gut, waiting all the way until the very end of wednesday's white house presser, before les kinsolving of worldnetdaily could ask his burning question ...

kinsolving:	just one question concerning what the president said in his speech on thursday, and i quote, 'i ran for president promising transparency, and i meant what i said. this is why, whenever possible, we will make information available to the american people so they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable.' end of quote. do you remember that statement?
gibbs:	i can confirm that he said that.
kinsolving:	good. in consideration of this very good promise of transparency, why can't the president respond to the petition to requests of 400,000 american citizens by releasing a certified copy of his long-form birth certificate listing hospital ... [audience laughter] ... 400,000! ...
gibbs:	are you looking for the president's birth certificate?
kinsolving:	yes.
gibbs:	it's on the internet, lester. [audience laughter]
kinsolving:	[also laughing] no, no, no — the long form listing his hospital and physician.
gibbs:	[chuckling] lester, this question in many ways continues to astound me. the state of hawaii provided a copy with the seal of the president's birth. i know there are apparently at least 400,000 people [audience laughter] that continue to doubt the existence of and the certification by the state of hawaii of the president's birth there, but it's on the internet because we put it on the internet for each of those 400,000 to download. i certainly hope by the fourth year of our administration that we'll have dealt with this burgeoning birth controversy.

and now for the handoff:

with the dam of silence on the whole of the media finally broken, fox news wasted no time running with this exclusive bombshell:

and four months into president obama's term, the controversy surrounding his original birth certificate continues to dog his administration. the obama campaign, you will remember, posted a copy of what it said was the document on its website to try to dispel rumors that he is not an american citizen. but an online petition, calling for the release of what it described as "the president's complete birth certificate" with the hospital name, has almost 400,000 signatures. today, the president's press secretary was incredulous that the issue just won't go away ...

anyone else notice that fox political grapevine anchor bret baier forgets to mention who's "dogging" the administration or who's behind the petition drive?

not that it really matters, since online petitions are one of the few things worth less than a subprime mortgage, but as long as you were asking, this one comes from ...

... wait for it ...

... you guessed it ...

fox news wannabee worldnetdaily!

yes, that online right-wing tabloid exclusively devoted to pimping news about its favorite subject — itself and its owner and ceo joe farah — a joke of a journal that's second only to the parody news site the onion in its gift for just making shit up.

being one of the few places that the birthers can still call a home, wnd continues to bravely flog the eligibility nontroversy when no one else will.

last week farah called for donations for his new billboard campaign:

the electoral system has failed to satisfy lingering questions about barack obama's eligibility to serve as president. ... that's how joseph farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, explains the petition he initiated several months ago that has collected nearly 400,000 names of americans demanding answers as to obama's elidibility as well as the outpouring of financial support for his new campaign to erect billboards around the country asking the simple question: "where's the birth certificate?" ... the first such sign to be posted under the 5-day-old campaign, a digital, electronic one, is up and online on highway 165 in ball, la. – the result of a donation by the owner. ... "as obama transforms this country from self-governing constitutional republic to one governed by a central ruling elite, the simple fact remains that no controlling legal authority has established that he is indeed a 'natural born citizen' as the constitution requires," farah said. "obama's promises of transparency have become a bad joke as he continues to hide simple, innocuous documents like his birth certificate and his student records." the idea behind the billboard campaign is to make sure obama cannot avoid this question any longer. he must be asked to produce it at every turn, farah says.

funny how farah seems to have conveniently forgotten that back in august 2008 his little scandal sheet examined obama's certificate and declared it the real mccoy:

a separate WND investigation into obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic.

i guess amnesia must be one of the convenient side effects of fleecing the pockets of birthers.