A Curious Report

In the airport this weekend, I caught a bit of Wolf Blitzer on CNN. They were covering a Court-Martial case against a Lt. Colonel who refused his deployment orders on the grounds that the President has not proven his eligibility to hold the post of Commander-in-Chief.

His one-man protest is either very brave or very stupid, depending on your point of view of his particular line of reasoning.

But my post isn't so much about the defendant as it is about the reporting.

Based on the apparent fact that Lou Dobbs lost his job at CNN for covering the "Birther" story, it would seem to be dangerous for the Wolf's career to do any story at all that touched on the topic.

But the report actually delved into the story enough to get into why this guy, who doesn't seem the least bit crazy, would be making such an outrageous stand against the President. They interviewed his lawyer, asking why his client was taking this stand, given that the Birth Certificate has been posted online since the Obama campaign?

His answer was that the birth certificate posted online is not the "long form" version, and actually does not qualify as the official certificate required for things like joining the US Military, getting a drivers' license, or applying for a US Passport.

I was pretty amazed that Wolf dared to go that far with the story. But then he failed to ask the obvious question of the reporter:

"So why won't the President simply put this controversy to rest once and for all by permitting the release of the official, long-form birth certificate?"

Even though I am not all that engaged in this particular crusade against the President, I do think that is a legitimate question. I wonder why Wolf couldn't come up with that question himself? Isn't that what a "real" journalist would do?

Will we ever see anybody actually work to get an answer to that question? It would appear there are either no journalists left with the courage to ask the question, or perhaps they're all too invested in this President to allow anything that might harm him to come to light.