Opinion> Joseph Farah> What Conspiracy Theory

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What Conspiracy Theory?

I keep reading about how I am part of a "conspiracy theory" because I want to see Barack Obama release his birth certificate to prove he is constitutionally eligible to serve as president. What is that "conspiracy theory" I am promoting?

Many of those questioning my commitment to the Constitution are clearly cavorting with conspiracy themselves. They speculate that my motivations are racist.

After all, Barack Obama is the first black president. I'm slightly lighter skinned than he is. Voila! You have the makings of a grand conspiracy. Admittedly, it's a little thin.

There's no actual evidence suggesting that I have ever expressed any racist ideas or racist thoughts in my life, despite writing millions of words, giving hundreds of speeches and spending thousands of hours broadcasting my often-controversial views.

But, they say, it's obvious. Criticizing or calling into question anything the first black president says or does now equates with racism. I would put forth the proposition that those holding such views are not only mentally unbalanced, but they are also dabbling in the worst kind of conspiracy mongering, not to mention ad hominem insults of the most vicious kind.

So, again, I have to ask: What conspiracy am I promoting?

Some say there is overwhelming evidence of Barack Obama's status as a "natural born citizen," and, therefore, it takes a conspiracist to deny it. To this I say, "Where's the evidence?"

Without an undisputed birth certificate — signed by a doctor or midwife, naming the precise location of the birth, the exact time and place, the parents and the circumstances — there is not even a basis for a conclusion.

Review the facts with me:

— What the true conspiracists in this debate hold as the "smoking gun" evidence is a certification of live birth they've seen on the Internet. It was provided to a few select organizations by the Obama campaign last year. It has never been corroborated by the state of Hawaii as being official issuance, despite the lies, distortions or misunderstandings of the professional and amateur conspirators in the media.

It is a digital document and, as such, subject to fraud by anyone with Photoshop. It also provides none of the key information to make Obama's claim of eligibility credible.

And, even if it is ever confirmed by Hawaii as the authentic document, it is not a birth certificate and wholly unreliable and unacceptable as a replacement for one. One of the dirty little secrets of this controversy is that Hawaii, and perhaps other states, have made it easy for fraud to be perpetrated on the public through shoddy documentation and verification of those applying for certifications of live birth.

— The second piece of "evidence" the conspiracists point to are two newspaper birth announcements dating back to August 1961, indicating Obama was born in Honolulu that month. "Why would parents back in 1961 place newspaper birth announcements if there was no birth?" they mock. "Did they really anticipate their son would some day run for president?" The conspiracists laugh about the birth announcements and point to them as a case-closer.

First of all, I would like to remind everyone that it was World Net Daily that first reported the existence of the newspaper announcements. It is hardly the breathtaking evidence the conspiracists see it as — or want to suggest it is. Newspaper birth announcements weren't placed by parents in Honolulu in 1961; they were generated by the public health department. In this case, they reflect nothing more than the fact that the public health department issued a certification of live birth, which we already assumed. The problem is we've never seen it — or, at least, we can't be sure we have because the state of Hawaii refuses, for whatever reason, to confirm its issuance of the one in the public domain.

Is there any other evidence?

In all the time I have spent on this story, I have yet to hear or see any. That's why the real conspiracy case is thin.

That's why they are forced to mock, ridicule, scoff, humiliate and name-call to make their point. That's what true conspiracists always do.

To find out more about Joseph Farah and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.