By now, almost everyone has had a chance to see Donald Trump's first press conference as president-elect and his confrontation with CNN reporter Jim Acosta.
Acosta, as it turns out, is aptly named. He verbally accosted Trump.
Watch video of the exchange:
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In case you think Acosta's rudeness and open hostility could be excused or brushed off by the possibility he was having a bad day, let me tell you how he tried desperately, because of his own strong, partisan, ideological biases, to set me up for humiliation in 2009.
Barack Obama was in his first year in the White House.
Because I questioned Obama's very constitutional eligibility for the presidency, I was under more scrutiny – and outright attacks – from the establishment press than was the "messiah" figure who they apparently believed was going to lead the nation into the promised land.
So one day, I got a call from a CNN producer who was working for Acosta, then covering the White House. It seemed Acosta wanted to interview me about the eligibility issues.
Well, I never pass up an opportunity to talk about underreported stories like the way Barack Obama is hiding his true identity, his true persona, from the American people.
So happily, like a lamb being led to slaughter, I went off to be interviewed by CNN.
It didn't take long for my worst fears about a setup to be confirmed. Remember, this interview was billed as one dealing with the questions surrounding Obama's constitutional eligibility for office and the missing documents – starting with the long-form birth certificate – that would be needed to settle such a matter.
According to my contemporaneous notes from that ambush interview, the first question posed by Acosta was the following: "Now back in the 1990s, you said that Bill Clinton's deputy counsel, Vincent Foster, was murdered. Do you still believe that?"
It took all of 30 seconds, once the cameras were rolling, to see that Acosta was not interested in exploring why millions of Americans were legitimately concerned about Obama's stubborn refusal to release documents that could clear up questions about his constitutional eligibility for the highest office in the land. This interview was designed with one purpose in mind – smearing a journalist who was seeking proof that the president of the United States was in compliance with the Constitution.
I wasn't surprised by Acosta's question, which was completely irrelevant to the subject matter he claimed to want to cover with me. I expected as much. So I replied honestly and forthrightly, calmly and accurately.
"No," I said. "I never said any such thing. I have written tens of thousands of words about Vincent Foster's death, but I never said he was murdered."
At that, I noticed it was Acosta who had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look on his face. He had not done his homework. He wasn't armed with any evidence to support his first accusation against me for the simple reason such evidence didn't exist.
After a short delay, as he took time to look at his voluminous notes, which I suspect were prepared for him by the White House, he regathered himself.
"Well, what did you say about his death?"
"I wrote that there were many unanswered questions about his death and that the official investigations were all badly botched and inconclusive," I said.
We danced around the Vincent Foster questions for about the next 30 minutes, at which point I raised the point that this interview appointment was misrepresented as one dealing with an entirely different subject.
As I recall, Acosta called for a break at that point.
His production staff asked if I needed anything – a glass of water, a restroom break. They seemed very accommodating. In fact, several of them approached me outside of Acosta's earshot with encouragement. They congratulated me for "eating Acosta's lunch" on camera. It was clear they did not have high regard for their boss. They clearly enjoyed seeing him squirm.
When the cameras started rolling again, we actually got to the matter at hand. Again, though, Acosta demonstrated immediately he had not done his homework.
"Now you think Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States," he said. "Why do you believe that?"
I replied: "I've never made that claim or assertion. I'm a journalist. I ask questions. I don't accept at face value the words of politicians and government officials. I think they should be accountable to the people and provide documents to prove what they say."
I wish I had the entire recording. It went on for more than an hour, but not even one second of it ever aired. Why?
There are only three possibilities:
- I am much more boring than CNN ever imagined: I don't think this is the case, because I am so outspoken. As a former radio talk-show host and a guy who writes perhaps the only daily column in the world, I can hardly keep my mouth shut. My wife can attest to this. I always say something that shocks people. Can't help myself.
- The CNN producers lost their audio or video recordings and were too embarrassed to ask me to come back and do it again. That one can ruled out, because I was in touch with the production team and was told they reviewed the recordings and were awaiting instructions from Acosta.
- Acosta didn't get the material he was hoping to get to justify the preconceived notion of the "story" he had in mind – a hit piece on "the No. 1 birther" in the nation.
Acosta was looking for a caricature – and he couldn't find one, not in the video material he had gathered. Instead, if you will indulge my prideful imagination here for a moment, he found a thoughtful, semi-articulate, rational person of conviction, someone who didn't fit the stereotype of "wingnut" who could be easily dismissed and ridiculed.
And so, the pieces were left on the cutting-room floor, as they say.
The simple release of Obama's birth certificate would have to wait a few more years thanks to the total lack of inquisitiveness of the establishment press that served virtually as Obama's own palace guard. It would take two intersecting forces to get Obama to release what he claimed was his long-form birth certificate:
- A book called "Where's the Birth Certificate?" written by Jerome Corsi and published by WND Books became the No. 1 bestseller in 2011.
- A billionaire named Donald Trump entered the arena of political controversy for the first time in his life by calling on Obama to release his birth certificate.
Just like that, Obama "found" a document that couldn't previously be found. In fact, the nation had been told it didn't even exist before. Without even examining it, the nation's establishment media blessed it, accepted it, celebrated it and continued the witch hunt on those, like me, who demanded it. Of course, since then, literally ever forensics expert who has investigated the document has concluded it is fraudulent, forgery, a fake.
And it's not the only fake. It's not the only cover-up. It's not the only fraud.
Thanks to the boldness of Donald Trump and the courage and persistence of the independent media, the scales are falling from the eyes of Americans as they begin to realize how many lies they've been told, how much they have been manipulated and deceived, how much fake news they've been fed.
That's what explains the palpable hysteria, desperation and anxiety on the faces of Acosta, others at CNN and the rest of the establishment media.
Their con game has been exposed.
Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].
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