As Donald Luskin said back in 2005, "it’s a sad commentary on the state of public discourse when you have to fact-check FactCheck.org". And the Economic Policy Institute wrote on a different matter, " How Factcheck.org got it wrong".
So, I wouldn't jump on the Annenberg Fact Checker's assessment of Obama's birth certificate certification. But if it keeps Hillary off the ticket, I'll pipe down. How curious, a zillion experts looking at the same scan for months on the Obama's Fight the Smears website (after the KOS scan was an admitted forgery)........... they waited so long and then presto!
I mean, really. The man just comes back from Hawaii and voila! A new and different COLB.
Annenberg Factcheck.org is playing their part :
We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.
My tech expert says, "look very carefully at the document. It is the same one "scanned" but the scan is not an exact match. Too much border on the short left side now and too much at the bottom. "Extra paper". Could it have been a bad scan where the side and bottom were cut off? Perhaps. But now look at the border...it now has a pretty hatch pattern inside another hatch pattern but still has a weakline flaw. Odd that all did not show on a 300dpi scan and still odd there are no matching borders found any place else. I guess we know what Obama was doing in Hawaii on vacation. It also looks like it was printed in an inkjet not a laser (bad pix hard to really tell without seeing it in person and using a 20x loop to see the printing)."
I mean really. The man just comes back from Hawaii and voila! A new and different COLB.
OT: Annenberg and Obama have a history ........... this from the Stanley Kurtz article Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown? A cover-up in the making?
When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago DefenderHyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. and the Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama's time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers's own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest. With a writ to aid Chicago's public schools, the Annenberg challenge played a deeply political role in Chicago's education wars, and as Annenberg board chairman, Obama clearly aligned himself with Ayers's radical views on education issues. With Obama heading up the board and Ayers heading up the other key operating body of the Annenberg Challenge, the two would necessarily have had a close working relationship for years (therefore "exchanging ideas on a regular basis").
UPDATE: Texas Darlin makes some very good points here:
Interesting, indeed. I have the following questions for Factcheck. Since they are so on-top of this story, I’m sure they have answers:
1. What took the campaign so long to show an actual document to the media?
2. What other media did the campaign offer to show the COLB to, and have any others seen it and touched it, handled and photographed it? Or only Annenberg-owned Factcheck?
3. Why did the campaign go to such trouble to digitally black out the certificate number when it could have stuck a piece of solid black tape over the number, especially since, as Factcheck reported, they were in such a hurry?
4. Why did Janice Okubo tell a reporter that the COLB was ordered “this month” (June 2008 ) if it was ordered in June 2007?
5. Since Factcheck is seemingly in the business of helping the Obama campaign fight smears, did Factcheck ask the campaign about the rumor that Republicans are holding Barry Soetoro’s birth certificate? If so, what was the campaign’s response? If not, why not?
And finally…
6. How did end up getting this access? Did they ask the campaign, or did the campaign offer to show it to Factcheck? The article is mysteriously vague on that point: “FactCheck representatives got a chance to spend some time with the birth certificate.”
UPDATE: And one last thing (uh, probably not), all of the points that the Annenberg Fact Checker's cite (below) were not the basis of the argument put forth by my digital forensic expert (his report here):
Corsi isn't the only skeptic claiming that the document is a forgery. Among the most frequent objections we saw on forums, blogs and e-mails are:
- The birth certificate doesn't have a raised seal.
- It isn't signed.
- No creases from folding are evident in the scanned version.
- In the zoomed-in view, there's a strange halo around the letters.
- The certificate number is blacked out.
- The date bleeding through from the back seems to say "2007," but the document wasn't released until 2008.
- The document is a "certification of birth," not a "certificate of birth."
The contention made at Atlas is far more technical and indepth.
