Oops! Network reports Obama 'from Kenya'

With the growing threat from the Ebola outbreak in Africa, it was expected the epidemic would be front-and-center at this week's U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit held in Washington, but now an NBC reporter is giving the meeting of heads of state a birther twist.

During MSNBC's Tuesday coverage of the event, host Joy Reid introduced NBC White House correspondent Chris Jansing, saying, "The White House clearly, I assume, is hoping that this will be part of president's legacy given his background."

"Yeah, the fact that he's from Kenya," Jansing agreed. "And that fact that when he was elected there were expectations from the African continent that he would do great things for them. This is a concerted effort by this administration to get American companies to invest."

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Reid noted the president's father was from Kenya but did not attempt to correct Jansing.

Only after about 10 minutes did Jansing correct her earlier statement, Raw Story reported.

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"I misspoke at the top before," she said. "It is obviously the president's father who is from Kenya."

"We, of course, know what you meant," Reid replied.

MSNBC is not the first media outlet, seen to be in Obama's corner, that has advanced the notion Obama was born in the African nation.

As WND reported in 2010, at that time archives for tax-supported National Public Radio revealed a 2008 report that described then-Sen. Barack Obama as "Kenyan-born" and a "son of Africa."

NPR's promotion for the story included a brief description of West African correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, who "describes the stories that have been exciting, including the U.S. presidential race of Kenyan-born Sen. Barack Obama."

NPR removed the reference to Obama's Kenyan birth from its archives following WND's report.

That same week in 2010, WND reported a Kenyan lawmaker telling his nation's parliament Obama was born in Africa and was therefore "not even a native American."

During debate over the draft of a new Kenyan constitution, James Orengo, the country's minister of lands and a member of parliament for the Ugenya constituency, cited America's election of a Kenyan-born president as an example of what can be accomplished when diverse peoples unite:

"If America was living in a situation where they feared ethnicity and did not see itself as a multiparty state or nation," Orengo posited, "how could a young man born here in Kenya, who is not even a native American, become the president of America?"

In May 2012, WND reported on the just-discovered billing of Obama as "born in Kenya" by his literary agent in 1991, revealing more much-later published references – some dated as recently as 2007 – used to promote his highly touted book "Dreams from My Father."

As WND reported, Breitbart News originally found a brochure from more than two decades ago in which literary agency Acton & Dystel promoted Obama as the author of the never-produced "Journeys in Black and White" by declaring Obama was "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." Twelve years later, however, the Dystel of Acton & Dystel was busy promoting Obama's new book, "Dreams from My Father," and still touting the author as "born in Kenya."

While allies of the president have been quick to blame his political enemies for continuing to plant doubt about Obama's constitutional eligibility to occupy the White House, not all the questions are being raised by claims made by "birthers."

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Last month, WND reported shockingly high numbers of Americans still unsure of Obama's U.S. citizenship.

Six years after the first lawsuits were filed alleging Barack Obama is not constitutionally eligible to be president, a new poll indicated nearly one-quarter of American adults don't even believe he's a U.S. citizen, let alone a "natural-born citizen," and another 17 percent are unsure.

Rasmussen Reports found 41 percent of Republicans believe Obama is not an American citizen, a belief shared by 21 percent of those who are unaffiliated and 11 percent of Democrats.

"Just over 20 percent of Republicans and unaffiliated adults also are not sure, but only 7 percent of those in the president's party share that doubt," the polling organization said in a report titled "Have We Got A Conspiracy for You – 9/11? JFK? Obama's Citizenship?"

Overall, 23 percent said the theory that Obama is not an American citizen is true, and another 17 percent said they weren't sure. Sixty percent reject the theory as false.

The Constitution requires the president to be a "natural-born citizen" but does not define the term. Scholarly works cited by the founders defined it as a citizen at birth by virtue of being born in the country to two citizens of the country, or merely the offspring of two citizens of the country. The birth certificate Obama displayed on the White House website, which declares he was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father, has been found to be fraudulent by an investigation authorized by Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted July 16-17 with a sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points and a 95 percent level of confidence.