Obama Citizenship Rumor

Obama Citizenship Rumor Peddlers Buy Ad Space In The Tribune
From Huffington Post:Jason Linkins
December 3, 2008 03:35 PM


So, if you've been following the many tin foil hat wearing crack-a-lacks that the election season brought out of the woodwork, with their Whitey tapes and their stern warnings of Vietnam gulag deprogramming, you'd know that one of the more persistent claims made against President-Elect Barack Obama is that he's not an American citizen. Nowadays, you'll hear the yammerings over Obama's birth certificate put in terms of a looming "Constitutional crisis," though, as Unattributable.com aptly states, "there would have to be actual proof that Obama wasn't a natural born US citizen to spark any kind of crisis." It's complete madness -- sour grapes serving as the fuel to rampant paranoid lunacy. But it's also sadly persistent. One fool has appealed a case based solely on "Rumors On The Interwebs" all the way to the Supreme Court, and some other nimrod bought ads in the Chicago Tribune this week.

The Tribune, naturally, forged a response of their own to the matter, and for the most part, it accords Obama the credibility he's entitled to, noting: "Cases challenging Obama's citizenship have been tossed out of courts in several states, and Hawaiian officials have vouched for the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate, which is locked in a state vault. The Obama campaign likewise has always dismissed the accusations." But one sentence later, I caught the Tribune going all mealy-mouthed. Well, at least at first blush:

Nevertheless, some critics remain dubious.

Naturally, my senses snapped at what looked to be a traditional deployment of the tired "some say" device, where straw men become foundational sources to claims that reside squarely within the borders of the Breakaway Republic of Unsubstan(tiated). But when I read the sentence again, I realized that it had actually captured these crackpots perfectly. Indeed! These critics do, in fact, "remain dubious." They are in a constant and ongoing state of pure, unadulterated dubiousness. Well, played, Chicago Tribune! Just remember: sometimes the best satire goes unnoticed.