I am about to curse the Internet, even though these words will be read exclusively on it.
Still, here goes.
An e-mail dropped into my in-box the other day from an Amarillo resident. It contained a video of one-time Illinois senatorial candidate, Alan Keyes, who trotted out the right wing’s canard questioning whether President Obama is a real American. Keyes — who lost to Obama in the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois by 43 percentage points — questions whether the president is legally qualified to serve and wonders whether he was born in Kenya, the home country of the president’s late father.
I responded to this acquaintance, calling Keyes a “brilliant lunatic.” I then told this gentleman that Obama’s citizenship isn’t an issue. The Secret Service had done its homework on the man and determined that he was born in Hawaii, in 1961, just as he has said. Obama’s citizenship isn’t an issue, no matter how much his enemies seek to make it one.
My acquaintance wrote back and said his wife had sent the e-mail to me by mistake. But …
Then he told me about an Internet video purporting to show the president’s paternal grandmother — “not the white one,” as he called her — saying how she was present at baby Barack’s birth in Kenya. My acquaintance said he is unsure about the video’s veracity and wouldn’t claim it to be totally true, yet it’s out there for all the world to see, he said. I should judge for myself, he added.
No thank you.
I do not need to troll the ‘Net looking to validate these rumors. Their sources’ sole intent is to destroy the presidency of a man they detest. We’ve been down this road already many times throughout history.
I will rely on what what I believe is a solid position: The Secret Service no doubt has heard these claptrap rumors about Barack Obama and has checked them out. I am convinced beyond any doubt that the crack security arm of the Treasury Department would have blown the whistle on Obama had it discovered any truth to the rumor that the president is unqualified to serve based on his citizenship at birth.
But that won’t stop the goofball bloggers and the ‘Net surfers who believe only those things that suit their philosophy.
They, just like our Amarillo resident, will send them through cyberspace hoping against hope that someone will prove that the Obama rumors are all true. Me? I’ll stick with the findings of the spooks who comprise the nation’s vast intelligence network who confirm the actual truth, which is that President Obama is being pilloried by liars — who are enabled by the Internet.
