Asking the right questions about eligibility

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Asking the right questions about eligibility
Exclusive: Joseph Farah says recent poll shows 'Americans aren't as dumb as they look'

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By Joseph Farah

When the New York Times finally conducted its first poll on eligibility questions haunting Barack Obama, it asked them in ways specifically designed to make it appear the general public thought the whole matter was settled – as its own newsroom culture does.

"Do you think President Obama was born in the U.S. or another country?" the CBS/New York Times poll asked sophomorically in April.

Still, even with such a skewed question, the Big Media must have been shocked at the results: Only 58 percent of Americans think he was born in the United States.

It was clear to me then that Barack Obama is losing ground with the American people each and every time he obfuscates on this issue, stonewalls on the releases of personal documentation, ridicules those who question him and counts on the media to ostracize all skeptics, otherwise caricatured as "birthers."

So I set out to do another poll phrasing questions the way adult journalists would – journalists who are not predisposed to believe anything and everything the president says.

The results of that scientific survey were released Tuesday.

The only one of its kind in the world -- check out what's new at the WND Superstore's "Birth Certificate Store"

Here's a key question: Recent polls suggest a significant percentage of Americans are concerned about Barack Obama's refusal to release his long-form birth certificate, school records, college records, Harvard Law School papers, medical records, travel records, passport records and other personal documents. What do you think he should do?

In answer to that question, 55 percent said "release all," including 28 percent of Democrats.

An even larger percentage say Obama has not lived up to his campaign pledge to be open and transparent.

A majority of Americans, 52 percent, say he is hiding something.

More than 51 percent say no one can be sure about his eligibility without scrutiny of his long-form birth certificate.

Only 41.6 percent disagree with the statement: "I suspect he was not born in the U.S."

Some 48 percent agree with this statement: "We don't know enough about Obama's birthplace, parentage and his residency in Indonesia to say for sure" he is constitutionally eligible.

After the two solid years of the unrelenting media barrage and attack against anyone and everyone who raises these questions and who calls for more openness and transparency, how can this be?

Isn't this a shocker?

How is it possible that with the media in virtual lockstep agreement that the eligibility question has been settled the American people continue to express doubts?

How is it that those doubts are growing with each succeeding poll?

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I think I know the answer.

Americans aren't as dumb as they look.

While a shockingly sizable percentage of Americans are easily led and manipulated, there is still a healthy number who recognize when they are being sold a bill of goods.

What do these polls suggest?

They suggest the media are totally out of touch with the American heartland – yes, even Fox News.

I need to remind you there is only one news agency in America that has actively pursued this story from the beginning. That news agency is mine – WND. And we've paid a price for sticking with it. We've been demeaned, disparaged, scorned, jeered and derided.

Yet, it is the rest of the media that have missed the mark. It is the rest of the media that have accepted at face value the assertions of a politician. It is the rest of the media that have failed to question America's leaders. It is the rest of the media that have abdicated their watchdog role on the most important public policy and constitutional issue there could be – the eligibility of the president.

They have pretended they know the president is eligible when they don't.

They have mocked those who merely ask for proof.

This poll shows the chickens have come home to roost – and that is not a good sign for either Barack Obama or his many media cronies.