'Love and a birth certificate'

You think I'm obsessed with Barack Obama's birth certificate?

How about Barack Obama?

Lately he's been trying to make a joke about it.

And the White House Correspondents Association Dinner Saturday night was his latest venue.

He was saying there are few things in life harder to find and more important to keep than love.

"Well, love and a birth certificate," he said. "I happen to know that my approval ratings are still very high in the country of my birth."

The semi-official Associated Press account of the dinner led with this angle, quickly adding: "Obama was born in Hawaii, but birthers question whether he was born overseas."

Do you understand now why WND was the only established news organization to be denied a presence in the dinner Saturday night?

The Associated Press asserts with no attribution, no evidence, no explanation that Obama was born Hawaii. Presumably they also take for granted that his parents are who he claims them to be – again with no hard documentary evidence. Yet, assuming Barack Obama Sr. was his daddy, Obama is no more than a "native-born citizen," not a "natural-born citizen," his father having been a Kenyan citizen and a subject of the United Kingdom.

I would suggest it is my renegade curiosity about Obama's nativity and my general opinion of him as the least experienced, least competent and most radical and most anti-American president in U.S. history that made me and my news organization unwelcome at the affair. The fact that we have filed a $10 million lawsuit against the correspondents association is no more likely to endear me to my colleagues than my maverick style of journalism.

But I don't care.

Not since I was a cub reporter have I considered it my journalistic duty to impress my colleagues.

My job is to serve as a watchdog on government and other powerful institutions – a role my colleagues feel increasingly uncomfortable fulfilling.

It is my job to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse wherever I find it.

It is my job to point out when the emperor is wearing no clothes – or when he is essentially an undocumented worker.

That's what makes me and the WND team mavericks in our industry – the fact that we perform the traditional central role of a free press in a free society. The rest of the pack can't stand that one news organization – and one news organization alone – serves as a reminder of what American journalism has been uniquely about for 230 years.

Can you imagine how we embarrass them?

So much so that they attempt to insult and humiliate us by keeping WND from their dinner party with the president.

But these kinds of sleights, while a nuisance to a company trying to cover the news with free and fair access, are actually an honor.

That we would be singled out as "dangerous" by our colleagues says something about WND – don't you think? It says something honorable.

In fact, I would prefer, all things considered, to be a pariah among my colleagues and a blessing to the American people than the other way around.

I would not have had a good time Saturday night if we had been granted our request for three tables or even one table at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I would have had a miserable time listening to the inane speeches and the stale jokes and the back-patting by my colleagues who have lost their way.

Instead, I enjoyed a quiet evening with my family.

However, it remains my duty to fight for free and fair access to all news events by my company. So I will continue to fight for the right to attend these dreary affairs so that we can report on them without fear or favor – just like we report on everything else of concern to the American people.