Boyles asked, "[I]s there something wrong with me?"

by: swoods

12/02/08 @ 04:11:55 PM MST

After pointing out during his December 1 630 KHOW-AM broadcast that nationally syndicated conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity have ignored the debunked claim that President-elect Barack Obama has not produced a valid U.S. birth certificate, Peter Boyles asked, "Now, is there something wrong with me? And is there something right with them that they don't see this as a question? This is a serious self-criticism that I've asked myself over the weekend."

Boyles spent much of his remaining program promoting the widely discredited claim. As Colorado Media Matters has documented, Boyles during several previous programs has hosted Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg and others who promoted the falsehood that Obama has not released a valid birth certificate establishing he was born in the United States and therefore could be ineligible for the presidency.

From the December 1 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:

BOYLES: Let me ask you a question. And this one has been haunting me, OK. Rush Limbaugh is in total silence on this issue -- the so-called "Doctor of Democracy." Laura Ingraham -- total silence on this. Now, here, she's a radio powerhouse and was, of course, a clerk to [Supreme Court] Justice Clarence Thomas. She is not talking about the birth certificate issue at all. Bill O'Reilly. Sean Hannity. Now, these guys -- I mean, Hannity tackles every controversial subject under the sun.

Now, is there something wrong with me? And is there something right with them that they don't see this as a question? This is a serious self-criticism that I've asked myself over the weekend.

As Colorado Media Matters noted after Boyles hosted Berg on his October 9, October 23, and October 29 broadcasts, the Obama campaign posted a copy of Obama's birth certificate on its "Fight the Smears" website and reportedly provided the original document to FactCheck.org, whose staff concluded in an August 21 post that it "meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship." Furthermore, the Hawaii Department of Health has confirmed that the birth certificate the Obama campaign posted on its website is "a valid Hawaii state birth certificate," and a department spokeswoman has called the speculation about Obama's citizenship "pretty ridiculous."

Indeed, even the right-wing website WorldNetDaily reported on August 23 that a "WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic."

Since October 9, when he first hosted Berg -- whose lawsuit challenging the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate was dismissed on October 24 -- Boyles has discussed the topic of Obama's citizenship during his broadcasts on October 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, and 30; November 3, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 25; and December 1 and 2.

-C.H.