DEAR MR. GOLDBERG ~ The Response You Have Requested Sans The Sarcastic Tone Of The Phrasing Of the Questions

Bernard Goldberg is an extremely well-established journalist with many years in the business, including at major networks. He skews heavily right-wing and is a commentator on Fox News. he's also an anti-birther to the point where he seemingly cannot contain the sarcasm apparently born of his ignorance on the subject of Obama's citizenship issue scandal and lack of graphics expertise required to understand the forgery for what it is: a hopeless fake.

O.F. reader Saska brought this column by Mr. Goldberg to my attention. The link is HERE. Additionally, there is a book being embraced by what Mr. Goldberg normally calls the lamestream media written by a Mr. Woodman that supposedly debunks the fake birth certificate "theory" ( quotes intentional as the forgery is so blatant there is no reasonable claim to support it)

Mr. Goldberg, IMO in an unfortunate, arrogantly sarcastic fashion, writes a series of seeming rhetorical questions to apparently attempt to silence the issue like the lamestream media he claims to reject, an organization for whom he created the term lamestream media, which now appears tragically and ironically self-descriptive. For the sake of fully addressing the issue of Mr. Goldberg's column, I will answer his questions, here.

Do You Believe in the Devil — and a Few Other Questions

Okay class, let’s try an experiment.  Please read these questions and send me your comments.  Trust me, I’m a professional, I know what I’m doing.  I anxiously await your responses.

1. Do you still think that Barack Obama was not born in the United States?

Not all birthers believe that, so don't make generalized assumptions - it's bad journalism.

2. If so, where do you think he was born?  

I have no idea, but it would be nice to know.

3. Do you think the long form birth certificate released a few months ago is legitimate or do you think it’s a fraud. If you think it’s fake, why do you think that? 

I know it's a fake because I have looked at it as a professional, determined that it is, and the best experts to whom I might otherwise turn to advice on the issue came to the same conclusion before I got the chance to ask them.

4. How would you characterize people who believe Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and that his birth certificate is 100 percent real.   

Simple. I could characteristic them as mistaken. If you want to bait me into insulting them personally I won't do it, and you should be ashamed for the seeming attempt.

5.How would you characterize people who don’t believe Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and think his birth certificate is a fake?  

Accurate and correct on the second, I have no opinion on the first. Lumping the two together is awful and seemingly designed to denigrate the birther movement. You should re-apply for a job at CBS News - IMO if this is your current journalistic standard they'd be happy to take you back.

6.Do you think Barack Obama is a kind of Manchurian candidate?  That is, do you think he’s a front man for some devious un-American force that is calling the shots and pulling the strings?

What does this have to do with a fake birth certificate? Horrible journalism at its worst, Mr. Goldberg. 

7.Bonus question:  Do you think there is a real devil who is the anti-Christ and who now lives among uso you still think that Barack Obama was not born in the United States?

I'm glad this is a bonus since it has nothing to do with the question of Obama's birth certificate. if you are saying birthers all think that you are mistaken. Not everyone who like pastrami like roast beef. Get with the program.

Here is what I posted to Mr. Goldberg directly, and, for what it may mean,  is my own official response:

DEAR MR. GOLDBERG,

Okay, “class”, let me correct a few things, including the otherwise astute anti-birther Mr. Goldberg, who, with respect, is hopelessly out of his depth on this issue. He may be a “professional” journalist (I assume he means journalist when he says he is a professional, since that’s his profession), but he is not a professional graphics and document expert. Period. 

This goes out also to “Dave”, who is making the rounds including his own blog doing a very nice thing for a certain Mr.Woodman’s book by selling it, intentionally or not.

Here’s how it shakes out in a nutshell, and it will all be very distressing to anti-birthers like Mr. Goldberg, so you have fair warning in advance:

1. Probable Cause: Obama has spent 3 years and very large sums of money keeping his citizenship records hidden. This not only includes his birth certificate, but virtually anything else that could identify his citizenship status. This is perhaps to be expected from a guy from Hawaii who has a proven social security number from Connecticut whose political career began virtually on the lap of domestic terrorist Bill Ayres who bragged about creating false identities for his past groups’ operatives by using stolen social security numbers, usually otherwise assigned to dead people.

 2. IMO pathetically, “Dave” and a very enthusiastic lamestream media are embracing this anti-birther book which supposedly debunks claims of experts whose credentials leave that book's author IMO in the dust: Joesph Newcomer says it is almost certainly a fake, and Newcomer is the man who exposed the fake Killian documents that got Dan Rather ousted after 24 years at CBS News. Mr. Goldberg should know this as I believe Mr. Goldberg worked with Dan Rather for years. Mara Zebest has co-authored several hardcover photoshop books that sit on the shelves of every respected professional graphics house in the English-speaking world. These are not “computer guys” like Mr. Woodman’s own folksy self-assessment. These are powerfully accomplished, high-level professionals. 

I have not read Mr. Woodman’s book, but I strongly suspect he does not have an explanation for, in my mind, as a graphic professional myself and one of tens of thousands of graphics professionals who have also examined the document, one of the most glaring aspects of the forgery: the fact that part of the program commands used to create it are embedded in the layers of the forgery itself. In other words, when Adobe graphics software is used in the creation of a document, it keeps a log of the actions in each layer, such as rotate and scale, and these are important for the artist should he or she wish to duplicate a past effect or know where he went wrong. This log is extremely important. More to the point, it cannot write itself; if the software was that sloppy that non-existent logs would be created by scans, it would essentially be worthless.

Just ask true and proven experts Newcomer and Zebest. And about one hundred thousand other graphics professionals.

With respect, IMO I must assume given the status of those with whom he disagrees that Mr. Woodman is of the same caliber as the forger who knew enough to do the job wrong, in the AKA-vernacular, “Jimmy Down The Hall”. I submit that those who don’t believe Zebest, Newcomer, 50-year-typography expert Paul Irey and others don’t know what they are talking about, and should perhaps stick to the expertise of their chosen professions and listen to the expert testimony of those properly-placed to give it.

The evidence is in and damningly conclusive despite the anxious hand-wringing of those who wish the issue would go away: Obama’s birth certificate is a fake. Deal with it. Of course, Obama could put this to rest by allowing a forensic examination of the original, since it has been his probable cause that has created such suspicion before the forgery was released, but naturally he has refused, and in the course of avoiding the issue, created a much more immediate question: who committed the apparent felony by creating a forgery – something else that will eventually force Obama to release the original, at some point.

Know it: That birth certificate forgery is perfectly aligned in incredulous-inducing reaction to be to Obama what Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress with Bill Clinton’s sperm on it was to that president: the evidence that cannot be explained away.