Our pathetic national media just drive me crazy sometimes.
CNN.com runs the headline: "CNN Poll: Quarter doubt Obama was born in U.S."
NYTimes.com's The Caucus blog uses: "On President's Birthday, Doubts Persist About His Birthplace"
And The Hill's Blog Briefing Room goes with: "Poll: 27 percent of Americans doubt Obama's birthplace"
What's with the "doubt?"
This isn't like saying "I doubt that the Red Sox are going to win the World Series this year." This isn't a "I doubt my home is worth what it was two years ago" issue.
The word doubt is an expression that describes something that may be true but probably isn't. It describes something debatable.
It's really not appropriate to use the word doubt to describe something that is demonstrably false.
Would we ever use the word doubt to question whether the sun will rise in the east and set in the west? Would a 5 foot 11 inch guy (like me) ever use it to say, "I doubt that I am 6 foot 5 inches tall?" Or would an overweight couch potato (like me) ever say, "I doubt that I am the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers?"
Here are some more appropriate headlines our media should have used:
A Quarter of Americans Inexplicably Refuse to Accept Reality of Obama's Birth
Or:
For 27% of Americans, Birth Certificate Still Not Enough
Or:
On President's Birthday, Birthers Still Cling to Conspiracy Theory
We sit around and laugh at the Birthers and we wonder how so many people could be so crazy. And yet our mainstream media refuse to draw a sharp line in the sand on this. They use the soft language of "doubt" and grant these whackos theoretical plausibility.
There is no doubt about it. Obama was born in Hawaii. There's a birth certificate and there's a newspaper announcement. Case closed.
You can doubt that water is made up of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. You can doubt that the earth rotates on an axis and revolves around the sun. You can doubt these things, but the national media should not give you the benefit of the doubt.