Obama's presidency is legit

We are no longer surprised when rumor, embellishment and outright lies seem to have a longer and stronger life than the truth.

In today’s anyone-is-a-pundit society, where opinions are as plentiful as ash cans, the steady attacks on Barack Obama have become almost their own industry. No wonder Fox News Network can boast that it had some of the highest ratings of any television network.

But the persistence of the zealots who claim that Barack Obama is not qualified to be President of the United States because he was not born in the United States defies even that kind of explanation.

The issue has been seized upon and now even heads of the news organizations who have been giving air to the theory have cried “enough!”

We would state unequivocably that according to Hawaii officials, Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 and that his mother was a U.S. citizen even if his father was not.

But that is not enough for those conspiracy theorists who say that the state of Hawaii, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the liberal media, the conservative media, the Democrats and the Republicans are all in on the scam. According to the “birthers,” Obama cannot be president, and they regard him as illegitimate.

This is not the first time such rumors have swirled about a president. Chester Alan Arthur was subjected to the same kind of scrutiny. It was believed that Arthur was born in Canada, not Fairfield, Vermont, so there was an active movement to prove that he was not eligible to be president.

______

To read the rest of this article, subscribe to our digital or paper edition. For previous editions, contact us for details.