Where is truth?

When I was young man, my dream was to work at the New York Times.

It seemed to me to be the most important and serious newspaper in the world.

I pored over it on Sunday mornings, even as a child.

Thus, it is extremely sad for me to see what has become of this once iconic institution, flawed as it always was.

Today, it seems, you are more likely to find truth in the supermarket tabloids than you are in the New York Times.

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A case in point – "White House Memo: In Defining Obama, Misperceptions Stick," a report in the Times politics section Aug. 18:

"Americans need only stand in line at the grocery checkout counter to glimpse the conspiracy theories percolating about President Obama," the report said. "'Birthplace Cover-Up,' screams the current issue of the racy tabloid Globe. 'Obama's Secret Life Exposed!'

"The article claims, without proof, that Mr. Obama uses a phony Social Security number as 'part of an elaborate scheme to conceal that he is not a natural-born U.S. citizen.' Despite evidence to the contrary from Obama aides – they posted his birth certificate, from Hawaii, on the Internet during his presidential campaign – polls show that as many as one quarter of Americans still believe Mr. Obama was born outside the United States.

"Now comes fresh evidence of misperceptions about the president taking root in the public mind: a new poll by the Pew Research Center finds a substantial rise in the percentage of Americans who believe, incorrectly, that Mr. Obama is Muslim. The president is Christian, but 18 percent now believe he is Muslim, up from 12 percent when he ran for the presidency and 11 percent after he was inaugurated.

"The findings suggest that, nearly two years into Mr. Obama's presidency, the White House is struggling with the perception of 'otherness' that Candidate Obama sought so hard to overcome – in part because of an aggressive misinformation campaign by critics and in part, some Democratic allies say, because Mr. Obama is doing a poor job of communicating who he is and what he believes."

And that's the way it is, according to the newspaper of record.

But that's not the way it is at all. In fact, while the screaming tabloid may be short on facts and attribution, getting most of its quotes and the outline of its stories from WND without any credit or sourcing, its reports are still closer to the truth than what is published in the once revered New York Times.

It was WND that broke the Social Security card story and took it to the White House press briefing for explanation by press secretary Robert Gibbs. It would have been a simple matter for Gibbs to address it head on – long before the Globe put the story on headlines all over supermarket newsstands. He refused. He changed the subject. He ridiculed the question – all to the amusement of the press corps in attendance.

Once again, I will reiterate, it is flatly untrue that Barack Obama's campaign published a copy of his birth certificate on the Internet in 2008. Instead the campaign released a digital document known as a "certification of live birth," a document some claim is a forgery while others understand it proves nothing about where Obama was born and who his parents were. It is as meaningless in terms of proof as is his autobiography, replete with provable errors about his background. I seriously doubt that if his long-form birth certificate exists that it would corroborate the information found on the digital document. If it did, Obama would have released a copy of it a long time ago – if he cared about putting these mysteries to rest.

But you would learn none of that from the Times account – not this one or any of the previous stories about this subject. Meanwhile, the polls are not going Obama's way, as the story suggests.

Why the obstinacy? The Times is amazingly incurious.

The Times did get one thing right.

It reported that even some of his Democratic allies admit he "is doing a poor job of communicating who he is and what he believes."

No kidding.