FIRST ONE STORY, THEN ANOTHER — Has Google scrubbed its own News Archive?
by John Charlton
(Oct. 15, 2009) — It’s the world’s largest online repository of Newspaper information, spanning the globe and more than a century of history: the Google News Archive. The Post & Email can attest to its utility and depth of coverage, which enabled it to research the biography of Judge Jerome B. Simandle and publically identify him as an ex-Naider’s Raider. This archive containes scanned images and or digitized text of printed newspapers and electronically available news reports for more than 100 years from papers and news agencies around the globe.
However, its results are skewed when you attempt to search for “Kenyan-born Obama”; results are missing; years prior to 2004 seem scrubbed; and when you click a link to an article in 2000, you get an article in 2004.
Deliberate sabotage of their own news archive?
This article will document what Google has done, for posterity’s sake.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=kenyan-born+obamaThis seems a simply enough query: an attempt to verify the AP story which appeared in the East African Standard, Sunday Edition of June 27, 2004: “Kenyan-born U.S. Senator Obama hopeful….”
The results are not so simple:
The first result is for April 28, 1981: The New York Times — The results say the word Obama should appear: it does not; “Kenyan-born” is found with Leaky.
There is no mention of Obama from 1981 to 2000; despite all his “work with the poor” in Chicago.
Next, the Google Newspaper Archive, the most extensive in the world omits the article in the East African Standard for June 27, 2004, in which Obama is identified as “Kenyan-born”.
The fourth result is supposed to be to a PBS story from July 27, 2000, entitled, “Illinois Candidate for the Senate Barack Obama addresses the DNCC”, but the link leads to a report by Elizabeth Brackett, discussing Obama’s Senatorial race victory on July 27, 2004: in which she says many things about Obama, except where he was born.
The fifth link is to a July 28, 2004 story by Bill Nichols, USA Today; which it states that Obama’s father is Kenyan-born; but says nothing about the son’s birth place.
The sixth likewise, on July 27, 2004, fails to mention birth place; and just says “Kenyan-born father”.
The seventh is to the Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough, England), for Nov. 8, 2004, but which seemingly has nothing to do with Obama.
Then, you would not believe it; but all the newspapers in the world, during the period from Jan. 1, 2005 to April 12, 2006, don’t make one mention of Obama! Not even one.
In April of 2006, all three articles have the same verbiage: “a Kenyan-born father and an American mother”.
In a report from the Kansas City Infozine, on Dec. 17, 2007, a Kenyan student in Washington D.C., says that Obama is not a Kenyan, and has no legal bonds to Kenya.
Analysis: An Administration of Mendacity
It seems that following the AP story on June 27, 2004, Obama’s Campaign went mum about the birth place; and only began speaking about a “Kenyan-born” father. The Google Newspaper Archive has been scrubbed for all of 2005 and the first quarter of 2006. However, The Honolulu Advertiser was aware enough still on Jan. 8, 2006 that he had claimed a foreign birth; but by the summer of 2006 stories begin to appear claiming a Hawaiian birth. The reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser admitted in an email to Phil, the publisher of The Right Side of Life news site, that he had obtained his information from the web. Yet this same paper remained so convinced of Obama’s non-Hawaiian birth, that on Nov. 8, 2008, in a long piece ostensibly covering for Obama, it avoided all mention of the place of the birth. How is it that a newspaper in Hawaii after the election can’t bring itself to name the place of birth? — What did they know, that we don’t?*
What appears to have happened is what the American public has already noticed with Obama: he lies as he goes, and he makes up lies to suit his purpose; so many lies, you don’t know what the truth is; and frankly he does not seem to care.
However, if Obama cannot show documents which prove he is born in the USA; the mere fact that he has claimed to be born overseas and in the U.S.A.; first at one hospital in Hawaii and then at another; means that nothing he says in Court, and no document presented by his campaign could be taken as prima facie evidence of anything.
As one can see from the links piling up in the comment section below; the Obama Campaign had a serious problem with consistency of information, to put it mildly.
The moral of this story is that scrub history as much as you might try; you will always be found out; because the very act of scrubbing leaves holes; holes which will remain as silent witnesses to your crime and indicate indirectly what kind of information you wanted to suppress.
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FOOTNOTES — * As of 2 AM Oct. 16, 2009, Eastern Time, someone edited the Honolulu Advertiser page, and removed all reference to the foreign births of Duckworth and Obama; the date stamp on the modified file shows that this edit was done by someone in either the Eastern or Central time zones; because it was not yet Oct. 16th in Hawaii. The exact manner of the edit, is described here.
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This report is part of a series of reports at The Post & Email:
1 Thing is certain about Obama
Obama concedes he’s not a NBC, in Obama vs. Keyes 2004 Debate
2 More African News Agencies declare Obama “Kenyan-born”!
Honolulu Advertiser page scrubbed!
