Forgerygate: Ignoring Arpaio's report is a scandal in itself

Is President Obama’s birth certificate a forgery? Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., believes it is. He recently held a press conference in Phoenix to discuss the findings of a new 10-page report. Mr. Arpaio’s investigators have come to a stunning conclusion: The long-form birth certificate Mr. Obama released last year is a “computer-generated forgery.”

With the exception of The Washington Times, however, no major U.S. media outlet reported this bombshell story. The liberal press corps is desperately trying to suppress any discussion of Forgerygate — potentially one of the biggest scandals in American history. The media class is betraying its fundamental mission to pursue the truth.

“Based on all of the evidence presented and investigated, I cannot in good faith report to you that these documents are authentic,” Sheriff Arpaio said. “My investigators believe that the long-form birth certificate was manufactured electronically and that it did not originate in paper format as claimed by the White House.”

The Washington Times story, written by Stephen Dinan, points out that Mr. Arpaio has called for Congress to investigate the matter. Think about this: A high-profile sheriff orders a team of former law enforcement officials to examine whether the president is truly a natural born citizen and that he has the constitutional and legal right to occupy the White House. Their official report is that Mr. Obama’s documents are shoddy and he likely engaged in deliberate fraud. And yet, most of the American press corps doesn’t believe this is an important news story? The liberal media has become rotten to the core.

Ironically, the foreign press reported widely on the story. For example, Pravda — that’s right, the former official organ of the Soviet Communist Party — did an extensive analysis of Mr. Arpaio’s findings. The article by Dianna Cotter asks the obvious question: What are U.S. journalists afraid of?

The answer is that the issue strikes at the heart of Mr. Obama’s administration: If his presidency is illegal, then all of his accomplishments — the stimulus, Obamacare, the contraceptive mandate, the government takeover of the auto sector and appointments to the Supreme Court — are illegitimate as well. The scandal would trigger a constitutional crisis.

Following Mr. Obama’s surprise news conference last year, when he unveiled the long-form certificate, the media insisted that the controversy was settled once and for all. The "birthers" supposedly had been silenced. Mr. Arpaio’s report, however, changes that. The issue has been resuscitated — except in the eyes of the mainstream media.

A prominent sheriff says he has damning evidence that Mr. Obama probably lied to the public. The international media believes it’s a big deal; many Americans agree. They want to get to the bottom of it. Yet, the liberal hacks at the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC can do nothing more than yawn.

Contrast this with their treatment of President George W. Bush. Throughout the Bush years it was open season: routine comparisons to Adolf Hitler, charges of being a war criminal, calls for impeachment, trumped-up scandals like the Valerie Plame affair, investigations into the partying habits of his teenage daughters, stories about Mr. Bush’s drinking as a younger man, his National Guard service and mediocre college grades — journalists left no stone unturned, no questions unanswered, no topic was beyond the pale.

Not with Mr. Obama. In fact, the opposite is true: Almost everything pertinent is not to be touched. He is the least-vetted president in modern memory. During the 2008 campaign, the liberal media deliberately propped up Mr. Obama. They suppressed vital information about his radical past and deep ties to virulent revolutionary leftists — the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Derrick Bell, Saul Alinsky and Edward Said. For all of their differences, they share one value in common: hatred for traditional America.

To this day, Mr. Obama’s college transcripts, undergraduate thesis and health records remain sealed. We know little about his years in Indonesia as a young boy; his overseas trips to countries like Pakistan in the 1980s; his relationship with his mother and Muslim stepfather; and his time spent as a “community organizer” in Chicago. In short, the president’s past is clouded in mystery. This is not conspiracy-mongering, but objective fact. Americans have a right to know who their commander-in-chief really is. Instead, the media wants to bury any debate or inquiry into Mr. Obama’s background.

Whether you believe Mr. Obama’s long-form birth certificate is a forgery or not, Mr. Arpaio should be applauded. He has done our nation a huge service. He is asking the press corps to look into an issue of the highest importance: Has the president committed a monstrous hoax and fraud upon the American people? In particular, the sheriff’s team has identified a supposed “person of interest” who they believe played a pivotal role in Forgerygate. The media must follow up on the story. If it is false, then Mr. Arpaio will be rightly humiliated and publicly discredited. But if — and I stress if — it is true, then the press will have unearthed a scandal that will shake this country to its very foundations. Either way, it’s time the media did their job and stop acting like Mr. Obama’s poodles.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.