I have a challenge to my old buddy Bill O’Reilly – put up or shut up!

You told your viewers this week that challenges to Barack Obama’s constitutional eligibility are “bogus.”

You claimed you and your news organization examined Obama’s birth certificate last year and found it to be in order.

Can I ask a question, Bill? Why don’t you simply reveal to your viewers exactly what you saw and what you found?

Fox News Channel’s slogan is, “We report, you decide.” Why don’t you try actually reporting the story, rather than deciding for us?

Send Obama a birthday surprise! FedEx your personalized letter to the president demanding that he prove his eligibility by producing his birth certificate. Only 4 days left!

Here’s the story, Bill, whether you recognize it or not: Tens of millions of Americans have serious doubts about Obama’s right to be in office. They are concerned that the system broke down and did not require proof of his constitutional qualifications. They don’t want double talk like they’ve been getting from politicians and the media elite. They don’t want more platitudinous assertions. They don’t expect to have their well-informed suspicions be ridiculed by the likes of you, Shepherd Smith, Chris Matthews, the New York Times, the Associated Press and the rest of the media monopoly singing in harmony.

The American people have figured out what you apparently are unable or unwilling to discern: Obama’s hiding something. One of the somethings he is undoubtedly hiding is his birth certificate.

I will go also out on a limb, Bill, and proclaim that you were, shall we say, disingenuous when you claimed to have inspected Obama’s birth certificate. If you got your hands on it, why didn’t you show it to your viewers? If your goal is, as you state, to put an end to a bogus story, the obvious way would have been to share with your audience what you saw.

I don’t think you saw anything, Bill.

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I think maybe you saw the same thing all of us have seen, “ad nauseam,” to quote Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. I think you saw the certification of live birth – a totally meaningless document with regard to proving presidential eligibility.

Why is it meaningless with regard to proving constitutional eligibility as a “natural born citizen”? Simple. There were numerous easy ways to obtain one without being born in Hawaii!

What about the other heavyweight evidence cited as conclusive by people convinced that “birthers” are just a bunch of fruit loops? Those would be the two newspaper birth announcements appearing contemporaneously in two Hawaii dailies. Surely that settles the matter? No, it doesn’t. In fact, the newspaper ads were less meaningful than the certification of live birth because they were automatically generated by the issuance of that document.

So far, after listening very carefully to the case for Obama’s Hawaiian birth, that is the totality of evidence I have heard. Do you have anything else, Bill? What did your crack research team find? The people have a right to know.

Knowing what I have just told you, how is it possible you can be 100 percent convinced Obama was born in Hawaii? And, even if you are, what’s wrong with Obama springing for $10 and getting a copy of the original long-form birth certificate for the rest of us?

I’ll go further, Bill.

I think you liked taking a cheap shot at your worthy and honorable competitor at CNN, Lou Dobbs. Dobbs has showed great courage and independence in taking on a story against the public wishes of his network brass and bucking the tide of his entire industry.

You ought to admire that, Bill.

You ought to emulate it.

Furthermore, I think you chose the easy road on this story because you are sucking up to Obama in hopes of another one of those ratings-generating exclusive interviews in which the American people learn nothing. That’s not good journalism, Bill. Journalism is comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Journalism is serving as a watchdog on government and other powerful institutions.

Where’s the fairness, Bill? Where’s the balance your network promises?

Where are the articulate voices who have a question for which there is no answer forthcoming: “Where’s the birth certificate?”

You have chosen to join the state-run media pack and mock the genuinely civic-minded concerns of the people. For that there is no excuse. Bloviating, to use one of your favorite words, is no substitute for honest reporting.

You can’t see that Obama is hiding something – hiding lots of things? His birth certificate, his school records, his college records, his law school writings, his selective service records, his travel records, his adoption records, his finances.

Come on, Bill?

Is it worth it?

Where is the integrity? What do you know that I don’t know? My news organization has devoted far more time, effort, resources, manpower and sweat in investigating this story than your very wealthy media conglomerate. What do you think you know that I don’t know? Why are you aiding in one of the biggest propaganda cover-ups in American history?

The American people had high hopes for the Fox News Channel and shows like yours. But they have failed us in telling this most important story.

Our country is being transformed rapidly by an administration that is of highly questionable legality.

This is no joking matter.

5 Responses to “A challenge to Bill O’Reilly from Joseph Farah, editor of WND”

1. Andrew Kryns
   December 22nd, 2010 @ 1:54 pm

   It appears World Net Daily’s credibility has won again. Bill O’Reilly, you haven’t noticed your credibility has been going down hill. Now with this latest “Bloviating”, you have reduced yourself down in the sewer with the rest of the
   so called “news” media. “We The People” don’t believe you anymore!!

2. hippybiker
   December 22nd, 2010 @ 5:24 pm

   Put up or shut up, Mr. Shill O’Reilly.

3. Laura
   December 22nd, 2010 @ 9:32 pm

   COME ON BILL. MAN UP.

4. Yephora
   December 23rd, 2010 @ 12:28 am

   An excellent and still relevant article by Joe Farah.

   O’Reilly’s response a year and a half later? More ridicule, since it’s all he’s got.

   Only he’s the one who looks ridiculous.

5. Kathy M
   December 23rd, 2010 @ 6:16 am

   Excellent article Mr. Farah. Right on the money. Personally, I think that Mr. O’Reilly needs to put himself into the “Pinhead” category. Bill has spoken in the past about integrity and credibility. He needs to look deep into his own soul to try to find his again.

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