Breakthrough on eligibility story

Congratulations to Breitbart.com for reporting a story the site clearly didn't care to publish.

It seems that in 1991, Barack Obama was indeed representing himself to his literary agency as "born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."

This documented revelation is one more of many smoking guns that expose Obama's tendency to revise his personal narrative as a matter of convenience and for personal advantage.

The question is: Was he lying then or now?

But this development illustrates something else – why such a huge story of constitutional import could be neglected so badly by practically everyone in the media for four years.

I knew the late Andrew Breitbart well. He hated the eligibility story. He personally condemned me for chasing it relentlessly. We fought about it – even famously in a recorded debate in which I made it the cornerstone of my speech at the Tea Party Convention a couple years ago.

"It's not a winning issue," insisted Breitbart.

I explained that, as a journalist, pursuing the truth is all that matters. And if you fail to pursue the truth, everyone loses.

Ironically, Breitbart.com editors were still reticent about publishing this blockbuster for fear of being labeled "birthers."

Here is the unprecedented and self-conscious preface to their story: "Note from Senior Management: Andrew Breitbart was never a 'Birther,' and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of 'Birtherism.' In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961. Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama's ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him. It is for that reason that we launched 'The Vetting,' an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates) – not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences. It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below – one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review. It is evidence – not of the president's foreign origin, but that Barack Obama's public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times."

Amazing! Even in discovering the truth that two decades ago Obama was proclaiming himself as foreign born, Breitbart.com insists this is not evidence that he might actually be foreign born.

Rather, the editors suggest, it's just evidence of the fact that he tells different stories about his life.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as a "birther" narrative, as Breitbart.com suggests. But I am certain there is an "anti-birther" narrative that infects most of the media – Bretibart.com included.

What's wrong with just reporting the facts – even if they contradict your preconceptions? Why the excuses and rationalizations for publishing this breathtaking finding?

Most of the media, Breitbart.com included, decided long ago, this was a story that was not worth covering – even while WND pursued it aggressively. The rest of the media put its feet in concrete and denied there were any more legitimate questions about Obama's constitutional eligibility – Breitbart.com included.

So how does one break such devastating news when you find Obama previously described himself as "Kenyan-born"?

You do it by distancing yourself from some imaginary "birther" narrative and determining for your audience what it really means – Obama didn't tell the truth to his literary agent.

Talk about burying the lead!

Now do you understand why the Big Media are so afraid of this story? Even the so-called alternative news media, having discovered indisputable evidence Obama portrayed himself as foreign born, chooses to explain it away as just a youthful, non-truthful indiscretion.

There's no question Obama has been untruthful. But there is plenty of doubt in my mind about when. He was either lying then or he has been lying since 2008.

I would suggest he had much more to gain or lose in 2008 than he did in 1991.