Yahoo News throws birthers a bone (and then retracts it)

Yahoo News, and in particular reporter Rachel Rose Hartman, has joined the ranks of media screw-ups who have said President Obama was born in Africa, in this case:

President Barack Obama makes the first extended trip to Africa of his presidency next week—but he won’t be stopping in the country of his birth.

What was she thinking (if anything)?

Yahoo News issued a correction later.

Read the story at The Washington Post.

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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22 Responses to Yahoo News throws birthers a bone (and then retracts it)

  1. MattR says:

    jdkinpa: Oh crap, and the beat goes on. Yahoo News Makes Birther Slip-Up: Obama’s Africa Trip To Skip Kenya, ‘Country Of His Birth’.

    Definitely a screw, but I don’t think the author did it intentionally based on her previous writings about birthers.

  2. jdkinpa says:

    Definitely a screw, but I don’t think the author did it intentionally based on her previous writings about birthers.

    I know it was a screw up. But boy are the birfers out in force over at mediaite. It’s like mana from heaven for them.

  3. Dave B. says:

    I vote for not thinking. Ms. Hartman, that is.

  4. aarrgghh says:

    these are the crumbs birfers are left to gnash on.

  5. Rickey says:

    Of course, literally she was correct – Obama is not going to be visiting the country of his birth (the United States) during his trip to Africa.

  6. MattR says:

    jdkinpa: I know it was a screw up. But boy are the birfers out in force over at mediaite. It’s like mana from heaven for them.

    Sorry, did not mean to imply you did. I wanted to get that link out there because I had already seen others elsewhere jump to the conclusion that the author was a birther and/or that Yahoo did this on purpose. I don’t think the former is true. I suppose the latter is possible, but I tend to doubt it because I don’t think Yahoo had anything to gain by putting that out there and then immediately correcting it. I suppose it could be some rogue birther employee who thought it was worth getting fired to help get rid of the usurper, but Yahoo is not going to be viewed more favorably by birthers after this incident. I have a feeling it was an innocent screwup where the initial draft said something like ‘homeland’ and it got changed to ‘place of his birth’ by someone focused on the flow of the sentence and not paying attention to context. Or it was a joke that was supposed to get caught but somehow made it into the final version of the article.

  7. MattR says:

    MattR: Sorry, did not mean to imply you did

    Geez. I shouldn’t be talking about screw ups with the way I am commenting today.

    I did not mean to imply that you did NOT think it was a screw up.

  8. jdkinpa says:

    MattR: Sorry, did not mean to imply you did

    Geez. I shouldn’t be talking about screw ups with the way I am commenting today.

    I did not mean to imply that you did NOT think it was a screw up.

    That’s exactly how I read it. 🙂

  9. Hi Dr. C!!!

    Permit to inquire, if you have read this at PooPoo Simmon’s blog. There, you get all 4 or 5 paragraphs which brings in the Kenya stuff. I screen saved it, but you might want to also. I imagine this story will be around for a while.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  10. Benji Franklin says:

    jdkinpa: I know it (Yahoo News referring to Kenya as the land of Obama’s birth) was a screw up. But boy are the birfers out in force over at mediaite. It’s like mana from heaven for them.

    You mispelled “mania”, jdkinpa!

    Imagine how pathetic it is to be a Birther, and find your insanity’s only encouragement in things like botched reporting, typographical errors, incompetent and contrived historical analysis, crazy lawyers like Taitz whose ignorant and hateful admirers think it makes patriotic sense to let a Presidential election be overturned by someone with the constitution of a dentist, gasp-eliciting political gadflies like the self aggrandizing “Lord Monckton of Brenchley” (whose self-bestowed title of “Lord” is disputed by the legitimate House of Lords) and , the fatally flawed non-expertise of know-nothing experts like Hawaiian election clerk, Tim Adams, America’s ferret-haired publicity seeking financial blowhard, Donald TuhRump, anti-abortionists dressed in Natural Born Citizen clothing (like Farah and Notre Dame’s Prof Charles Rice), and on and on and on!

    Because like any other, the Birther Circus never runs out of clowns. Just when you think that the big tent has collapsed under the wait (sic) of 200 plus failed courtroom sorties, in prances another troop of clowns like the sanctimonious over-enunciating Alan Keys, the disbarred dental-chair corrupted lawyer, Charles Lincoln III, Mario Appuzo, the only Framer-approved DUI attorney empowered to officially interpret any clause in the Constitution that Rudy hasn’t loaded into his shotgun, Leo (the no-lion), a goal-post moving professional poker-player and last but not leased, almost secret agent, Satan stalking Lyle Rapacki, an incessant calamity predictor and self-doubter wearing enough official looking FBI infraguard pins to make a real man need a blood transfusion.

    Oh, sure, I’ve left out the names of several more of their ilk, but really, they’re all cut from the same cloth, and deserve no more individual scrutiny for function than we would give the separate toots in a conventional prolonged attack of flatulence. The Birthers are in fact the political version of just such an attack. At least we are no longer surprised by their grotesquely farted untruths; we’ve heard it all before – and we know where they’re coming from.

  11. jdkinpa says:

    Benji Franklin “You mispelled “mania”, jdkinpa!”

    Well, I did misspell the word that is central to my though that the Yahoo News article is ‘manna from heaven’ for birthers. But I hope everyone got my intention.

    Everything you referenced about how a ‘birther’ will grasp at any straw (“botched reporting, typographical errors, incompetent and contrived historical analysis”…etc) does feed their mania to prove that President Obama is the usurer they ‘believe’ he is. One day maybe some psychiatrist will do a study of ‘birther mania’. But I doubt they will ever find a cure. Once a birther, always a birther seems to be the diagnosis.

  12. G says:

    They sure seem to do nothing but spiral downwards into further paranoia and mania. I bet if a study was ever done, it would be classified as an increasingly debilitating disease of the mind… birther brain rot, as I see it.

    jdkinpa: One day maybe some psychiatrist will do a study of ‘birther mania’. But I doubt they will ever find a cure. Once a birther, always a birther seems to be the diagnosis.

  13. Kiwiwriter says:

    Argh….this is what happens nowadays, in the “golden age of Interns.” The uneducated, poorly educated, and immature are being given positions of immense power because they will work 90-hour weeks for free in return for a fantastic bullet for their resume.

    The result is total bloody chaos..I get media request for my boss, who is a national political figure, which misspell his name and give his title wrong…I’m not surprised Yahoo screwed up.

    People today know about Kim Kardashian’s every move. But ask them who the US fought in Korea and they’ll look blank at you.

  14. For the record, I really don’t know who Kim Kardashian is, but I know who the US fought in Korea.

    Kiwiwriter: People today know about Kim Kardashian’s every move. But ask them who the US fought in Korea and they’ll look blank at you.

  15. Thrifty says:

    She’s one of those people who is famous for being famous, kinda like Paris Hilton. She and her sisters Kourtney and Khloe (yes that’s how the names are spelled), had like 4 different reality shows on E!, and I remember that it used to be inevitable that ONE of them would be playing on the TV at my gym when I went to work out. I couldn’t hear anything unless I plugged some headphones into the receiver thingie on the treadmill, but just seeing their obnoxious faces usually pissed me off. Thankfully, they have long since switched that TV away from E! to TBS.

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    For the record, I really don’t know who Kim Kardashian is, but I know who the US fought in Korea.

  16. Ah, that explains it. I have the E! channel removed from my usual channels list. For a long time, I thought the Paris Hilton was a French hotel.

    Thrifty: She’s one of those people who is famous for being famous, kinda like Paris Hilton. She and her sisters Kourtney and Khloe (yes that’s how the names are spelled), had like 4 different reality shows on E

  17. Crustacean says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I thought the Paris Hilton was a French hotel.

    Ha! Good one, Doc! The Kardashians have a long history with “reality” television. You may recall that ground-breaking reality program called the OJ Simpson double-murder trial. Kim and Kourtney and Khloe’s father was Robert Kardashian, a member of OJ’s legal team. He declared himself OJ’s lawyer, some say, so he could take control of a garment bag that may or may not have contained incriminating evidence against OJ (it was never seen again). The infamous “slow-speed” chase began when OJ left Kardashian’s house, where he had been staying after the murders. When the not-guilty verdict was read, Kardashian’s visible reaction was one of surprise.

    Now, if whatever reality show the Kardashian’s are pushing these days ever loses ratings, look for mother Kris Jenner to divorce Bruce and move in with Judge Ito…

  18. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    *Takes a bow*
    Thank you, I’m here all week!

  19. I have posted this before: The Kenya birth scenario is physically impossible:

    http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/03/obama-born-in-kenya-no.html

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