WND Remains Obsessed With Obama

Barack Obama left the White House years ago but WorldNetDaily's Obama Derangement Syndrome never ended, as writers continue to push birtherism and express their fears that Michelle Obama might have presidential ambitions.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 1/2/2024

Barack Obama's mysterious heritage continues to perplex even the smartest of contestants on "Jeopardy."

On Wednesday night's episode, in the category titled, "Our nation of immigration," a photo of Barack Obama was displayed, with host Ken Jennings reading the clue:

"Famous Americans of this heritage include Barack Obama, seen here on a visit to the old country."

The returning champion, Kat Jepson, an artist originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, responded: "What is Kenya?"

Jennings ruled her incorrect, even though many Americans may sympathize with that answer, since Obama's birthplace and precise family heritage have long been matters of controversy.

Neither of the two other contestants, Ben Chan nor Laura Caton, proffered a guess.

Jennings explained the "correct" response, saying: "You can see the flag, he's actually in Ireland."

A June 27 article was a reprint of the introduction of a new book compiling essays by right-wing anti-Obama authors about how horrible the Obama years supposedly were:

Barack Obama’s presidency was historic. Pundits said it, celebrities tweeted it, and the community organizer from Chicago was not shy about constantly bringing it up.

And it was true.

Over a decade after his inauguration, we are still living in his shadow. His history of economic decline, racial division, and terrorist appeasement is our present. The third term of his presidency under Biden makes him inescapable even long after leaving office. The Biden administration is extending his fundamental transformation of America. Its open borders, woke military, critical race theory, terrorist appeasement, and wealth redistribution are a continuation of Obama’s war on our national sovereignty, on the middle class, on the family, and on free enterprise. From a new administration staffed with all his old people to the familiar economic misery that Americans thought they had left behind, it is as if the Obama administration never ended. And, as the nation endures a third term of Obama, many wonder if it will ever end.

His legacy of defeat abroad and division at home is all around us. From race riots to defeat in Afghanistan, from the war on the middle class to massive power grabs, we are not only still living out his history, but it’s clear that we will go on living there until we break free. Obama made history, but not the way that the mainstream media would have it. The truly historic elements of his presidency were not his accident of birth and choice of racial identification, which a political establishment obsessed with identity politics told Americans would serve as a national atonement for racism. Now that his third term is taking place under an old, white male figurehead, it is clearer than ever that identity is not history. The true legacy of Obama and Biden lies in the impact of their destructive radicalism on the country, not what box they checked on their census form. The community organizer from Chicago did not heal our racial wounds. Instead, he presided over a historically divisive era that reversed generations of improvements in race relations.

But Obama did not just divide Americans by race (“Punish your enemies”), but by gender (“You know, there’s a reason we haven’t had a woman president before”), by faith (“They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion”), by all the flavors of sexual identity, and by every sort of identity politics. He broke America, and the fractures of our time are the aftershocks of his destruction.

Pointing out that there has never been a woman president is dividing Americans by gender? Weird.

Farah's ODS flareups

It doesn't take much to send editor Joseph Farah into paroxysms of Obama Derangement Syndrome -- that was WND's bread and butter for years, after all -- and he went there again in his June 28 column:

Remember Barack Obama? I'll never forget him. He always thought more of himself that others did. But I digress.

I was just musing about a recent Politico story that carried the following headline: "Is Barack Obama Ready To Reassert Himself?" It was written by Jonathan Martin, Politico's politics bureau chief and senior political columnist. (How is that title for overdoing the use of the root word "politics"?)

Imagine my fear and loathing about the aforementioned headline. As far as I am concerned, the best thing about America politics since Obama left the presidency is that … he left, and would not be returning. Now it appears he's about to reassert himself. Should I be alarmed?

Naturally, this turned into rage against President Biden:

When it comes to Obama's old sidekick, 29 months into his illegitimate term in the White House, Biden has allowed approximately 5.5 million illegal aliens to enter our nation, a record, admitted without any oversight. It could be more. We just don't know.

Is that an issue for Obama? No, it was planned all along.

Does he regret anything Biden has done as president?

Nope.

So what regrets does he have? Well, he regrets that Donald J. Trump might become president again – and nothing can stop him this time – no amount of cheating between now and the 2024 election, barring the unmentionable, Trump's assassination, God forbid.

After all, that can become a dreaded reality, especially to those who have witnessed them. John Kennedy ... Bobby Kennedy ... Martin Luther King Jr. ... Gerald Ford's attempted assassination ... Ronald Reagan's attempted assassination – all took place in many of our lifetimes.

What's to say it couldn't happen again?

Why does it seem that Farah is rooting for someone to assassinate Obama or Biden?

Then, of course, this evolved into rehashing yet again discredited claims of election fraud:

Think about it. In 2020, the Democrats cheated. Since then, they have indicted Trump twice. Before that they conspired to impeach him twice. They also attacked him mercilessly during his presidency. During the 2020 election, Democrats conspired to get Joe Biden over 81 million "votes" – by far more than anyone, including Obama, ever got. Other than that highly inflated tally of Biden's, no president candidate ever achieved more than Trump's 74 million.

[...]

We can't even imagine how many Democrats expect an ending. We can't even imagine what they have at stake. They've even accused Trump of formulating an "insurrection," arresting some 2,000 of his supporters. Jan. 6 was nothing of the kind. Most see it as a "Fed-surrection" – among the dirtiest tricks ever done in the history of American politics.

We collectively shudder to see how this ends in 2024.

God protect Donald J. Trump.

No call of protection, of course, for Obama and Biden, further suggesting that he has a death wish for them.

A July 3 column by Farah served up out-of-context statements he called "a few choice quotes from Barack Hussein Obama. This is painful, indeed. Our first president who was a 'community organizer.'" This included the "civilian national security force" statement Farah has obsessed about for years, which ConWebWatch documented way back in 2008 was not about the establishment of a paramilitary force under Obama's control, as Farah has continually suggested, but about using civilian "soft power" as part of foreign diplomacy.

Farah continued to rage: "Obama was telling us who he was. He is still telling us who he is and hinting toward a destination that is not America. Then came Joe Biden. All it took was one rigged election." He then likened Obama and Biden to "the evil geniuses that came before," like Lenin, Stalin and Hitler. (What was that about WND not liking it when people likened Trump to Hitler?)

Farah then spent his Aug. 2 column rehashing WND's bogus birther crusade:

Aug. 4, 1961, is, for many, a day that will live in infamy – even in these dark days of Joe Biden. It's Barack Obama's birthday – or so we believe.

At the height of its notoriety, it attracted controversy with as many as 50% of the nation and caused the book, "Where's the Birth Certificate?" by Jerome Corsi, a writer at WND and WND Books, to become a No. 1 bestseller.

Obama, himself, had raised questions about his birthplace when it was fashionable – as in his literary bio (below, right) from 1991 to 2007 in which his place of birth was Kenya. Coincidentally, 2007 was the year he began his presidential aspirations. I raise the moot question once again to play angel's advocate.

It ended, for all intents and purposes, in 2011 – the third year of his presidency – when he publicly released his "long-form birth certificate." Why did he take so long? Did he do it to set up a controversy or end one? Or to make us forget about it?

Today, it's as though we never had a debate. We don't even recall what the debate was about. Let me remind you: It was about who is constitutionally eligible to become president of the United States and vice president of the United States.

I don't remember much of a debate taking place around whether Kamala Harris was eligible in 2020 when she was on the presidential ballot. Her mother was born in India and her father in Jamaica. That issue was part of the debate involving Obama – there was a serious constitutional question of who confers birthright citizenship. In Obama's case, some contended that his mother conferred it since his father was born in Kenya. The founders were strict enough to think seriously about these matters – until Obama seriously confused the question and made it toxic to even discuss.

Reality was, in fact, quite different than the way Farah remembers it. The birther crusade did not end for WND in 2011 when Obama released his official certificate -- WND tried to keep it alive by promoting the discredited conspiracy theory that the scanned digital image of the certificate that Obama released was actually created via computer. We also remember that WND suddenly stopped caring about birther issues in 2016 in order to avoid having that conversation about Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada (and who, not coincidentally, was endorsed by Farah for president that year prior to his embrace of Trump). That tells us that Farah was never concerned with having a legitimate debate about constitutional eligibility -- only with trying to stop Obama by any means possible.

Farah then decided that Obama's birth certificate never really mattered anyway:

It was never really about the birth certificate, anyway. As we have found out over the years, they are unreliable in most states, notably in Hawaii. There are two problems with them – even when we are talking about an original. I contend that no one has seen Obama's original. All we have seen is a copy – probably even Obama. An original is something wholly other. It was once one of the most personal documents we owned. Not so much in the age of digital everything and the iPhone.

We did an enormous amount of work on Obama. Others did too. I'm afraid it all ended without any serious resolution or conclusion.

Think of all the plans that were made earnestly. They continued right through the opening of 2011 state legislative sessions. A headline on a Politico story read: "Birther debate alive across U.S."

Yet Farah still whined, "In 2008, John McCain was asked to show his original birth certificate. Obama was not." As ConWebWatch documented, Obama showed a copy of his birth certificate that was certified by the state of Hawaii, which should have sufficed (and which even WND initially admitted was "authentic"). Then, somehow, Farah concluded by steering things toward Trump and Biden:

But the states couldn't agree on much in 2011. They agree on even less today.

Today, the Justice Department disagrees whether they think Biden should be investigated for taking bribes or whether Donald Trump should face at least four major felony indictments while seeking reelection. And today the Republicans are sure that Joe Biden didn't really get 81 million votes in the 2020 election. Meanwhile, the Democrats think Trump shouldn't be allowed to run ever again – even if it takes locking him up for 400 years to prevent it.

Farah will never admit he was wrong about his birther crusade because it help successfully tar Obama -- no matter how untruthful the crusade was. And still he doesn't understand why his WND is struggling to survive when it continues to embrace such untruthfulness.

Freaking out over Michelle

If there's one thing WND fears more than the existence of Barack Obama, it's the possibility that Michelle Obama might become president (never mind that she has pretty definitively said she will never run). Still, WND writers push the idea anyway. Columnist Larry Tomczak is also a bit obsessed with Michelle; in his May 2 column, misleadingly headlined "White House race: Michelle O. and Biden declare their plans," Tomczak had to admit that she explicitly and emphatically denied wanting to run for president, but then argued that she shouldn't be believed:

Do we believe her? She checks all the boxes: attractive female, super famous; black; could be the first woman president; is a media and Hollywood darling; has mega donors and Dems salivating at the once-in-a-generation opportunity.

Okey-dokey, done deal, question settled (for now). Time to complete her promotional book tour and return to one of the epic properties in her $30 million portfolio of properties in Martha's Vineyard, Hawaii and Washington, D.C.

Tomczak followed up in his Aug. 29 column, though starting with a Rush Limbaugh insult of her shows the hatred in his heart for her:

Before Rush Limbaugh left this planet for his heavenly home, he warned us that the Democratic Party wants "Michelle My Belle" in the White House.

Years ago, I wrote a commentary saying the same thing.

The day of reckoning is fast approaching for Mr. Biden and his son, Hunter. If you're OK with letting him tell you how you're to raise your children, shouldn't you first consider how Hunter turned out? And how about the way America has turned out after two and a half years of his terrible track record?

[...]

The Democrats' bench is as thin as a stale taco shell. That's why all eyes will soon turn to someone whose name rhymes with that shell.

The Democrats are desperate not to relinquish control of the country they've resolved to refurbish as a progressive, big-government state. Barack Obama spoke of it when he started his reign, and now he can coach his wife to complete what he called the "fundamental transformation of America."

Ironically, Tomczak went on to list several perfectly logical reasons she could be president -- she's popular, well-liked, "charismatic and articulate," and "If Trump gets the nomination, she'd be an attractive and formidable opponent contrasted with his tough guy, sometimes bullying personality." But he closed with fearmongering anyway because that's what he does:

Here's the deal: The United States is at a crossroads and time of frightening, accelerating moral decline. If Michelle Obama gets the nomination for the presidency, discernment will be critical because behind the person, personality and popularity is a Democratic platform with unreserved support for multitudes of issues contrary to Scripture and undermining the Judeo-Christian values upon which America was founded.

Apparently, Tomczak thinks it's a "Judeo-Christian value" for Republicans to support an indicted criminal like Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, an anonymously written Aug. 11 "news" article cited anonymous sources in a foreign newspaper to claim that Michelle Obama will be the next president:

A columnist in the Telegraph is predicting that "establishment stooge" Michelle Obama could be the next president.

"A source says that in conversation with a foreign politician, it emerged that their government assumes Joe Biden will not be the Democratic nominee in 2024. Joe will pull out before the first primaries; it will be too late for a grassroots candidate to enter the fray; an establishment stooge will be crowned at the convention. And the name of that lucky winner? Michelle Obama," explained columnist Tim Stanley.

He explained he's heard from U.K. sources that when governments engage with Joe Biden "they feel they are dealing with the face of an administration but not always the person in charge."

The columnist explained a "coup" to replace Biden with the next Obama available, "far from being revolutionary, would reinforce the line of political continuity that stretches from 2008-2024, with only Trump’s election as a temporary aberration (Michelle has revealed that his amusing inauguration caused her to 'sob uncontrollably')."

He said, "Mrs Obama has always polled well. She has published two best-selling books of biography and womanly wisdom. She has served in the White House. She is known by everyone but, unlike Trump, has retained some of the enigma of privacy. She has denied that she has any intention of running for the presidency, but that’s usually a sure-fire sign that someone is interested."

The anonymous writer went on to note that "The concept of a candidacy by Michelle Obama also has been explored in Joel Gilbert's 'Michelle Obama 2024: Her Real Life Story and Plan for Power.'" It wasn't mentioned that Gilbert is a discredited charlatan.

Massie's Michelle meltdowns

Mychal Massie has long had a deranged level of hatred for Michelle Obama, whom he loves to call "Buttzilla" -- which, of course, disqualifies him from being taken seriously by anyone. Nevertheless, he insists on being taken seriously anyway. Nevertheless, he wrote a Sept. 25 column in which he petulantly cannot bring himself to say the word "Michelle" (except in quotes from others) and refers to her only as "the Obama woman":

There's increasing talk that the Democrats are devising or perhaps have already devised a way to jettison the Obama woman into the numero uno seat. For the record, I don't believe that for a second; I'll explain why in moment.

Whether it's wishful thinking or a reality, the chatter of them finding a way to parachute the Obama woman into the picture is gaining momentum. I will add that a close colleague has been assuring me since early summer that this is the plan. I still disagree.

Granted, there are those who slobber and droll over the very mention of that woman. But, who in their right minds would want this woman as the Democratic presidential nominee, much less in the Oval Office?

She may be liked by a crowd with a big megaphone, but I submit they're the minority. I say that she not just disliked, but she is unlikable. Add to that her unbridled dislike for Americans and well-documented contempt, if not outright hatred for, so-called working-class people sans the melanin she displays.

Speaking of untrue, unsupported claims, Massie went on to huff:

The ploy is: whomever the Democrats select to replace Biden and Harris, it will be hailed as a brilliant move. Every talking head and poll quoted will show the person unbeatable by Donald Trump, as the Democrats work to execute a plan to steal another election. And nothing, absolutely nothing, makes me believe the 2020 election wasn't stolen. They just used a different method than was employed when Kennedy stole the 1960 election from Richard Nixon – but they stole it nonetheless.

Again, Massie can't be bothered to offer any sort of evidence to back up his claim. It's as if he thinks he can get away with spreading lies because of his black-conservative privilege.

Massie ultimately concluded that Democrats will not run "the Obama woman," conveniently omitting the fact that Michelle Obama herself has clearly stated she has no interest in running for president. He concluded by sneering: "If I'm wrong and they do go with the Obama woman, I predict Trump in a landslide, theft attempt notwithstanding." Trump is an even bigger liar than Massie is, so it makes sense that Massie would support a fellow prevaricator.

Massie was at it again in his Oct. 16 column, pushing more unsubstantiated rumors that she might run:

There's a mounting symphony of prediction that to my sensitive ears sounds as enjoyable, i.e., tolerable, as fingernails being scraped on a chalkboard. That sonic unpleasantness is the growing number of prognosticators predicting the Democratic Party is preparing to parachute the Obama woman into the presidential race to replace Biden.

I should note also that my longtime friend and colleague who is a Capitol Hill bloodhound with remarkable olfactory ability for political secrets, has been telling me the same thing for the past year.

I disagree with my friend, colleagues and those who are starting to publicly make the same prediction.

The Obama woman is enormously unlikeable. She's a humiliatingly uncouth harridan; she's lazy, contumelious, and if persons with firsthand knowledge are to be believed, a lush who imbibes more vodka than water; she's at best boorish.

Additionally, she is without accomplishment. Her cheering section will claim otherwise, but apart from the perks associated with her husband, she in fact has accomplished nothing of merit on her own. Seriously, let's be honest: What has she done in her life? Exactly what was her professional career before cashing in on Barry's political ambitions? She was little more than a beard for her sexual-deviant pervert of a husband. Do we forget the alleged reasons for her mother moving into the White House, what amounted to a bribe to keep her from divorcing her perverted husband immediately after his first election?

With all of the other questions she would be bombarded with during even a short campaign, you can bet she would be confronted with mention about how it truthfully made her feel when her husband unsolicitedly revealed he dreamed about having sex with men, but nothing about fantasizing about his wife.

Again, Massie's purported evidence for Michelle being "a lush who imbibes more vodka than water" is an article from foreign right-wing rag the Daily Mail that is nothing but a rewrite from supermarket tabloid rag the National Enquirer citing no named sources and offering no actual evidence to back anything up.

Massie then slipped in a backhanded complement, arguing that he's not completely unhinged about Michelle by conceding she's not transgender, as some far-right conspiracy theorists insist:

And you can bet the very last thing she is prepared to endure would be the questions and open discussions about her real gender.

For the record, I don't like the Obama woman, but I've done more to defend her being a true woman than her husband has. She's a grotesquely unattractive woman, but I find the accusations of her being a transsexual beyond absurd. However, I may be in the minority of opinion on said subject. I'm certain practically everyone reading this commentary has also heard/read ridiculous assertions she was born a man.

From there, Massie rehashed an old conspiracy theory that the contract to build the original Obamacare website "was awarded to the Canadian company CGI in a no-bid contract and that has as their senior vice president the classmate and friend of Michelle Obama, Toni Townes-Whitley." In fact, three other companies also sought the contract, the bidding process was walled off from politics, and there's no evidence of any close friendship between Michelle and Townes-Whitley. Massie also provided no evidence to support his claim that any contract money was "funneled back into the Obamas' pockets by way of charitable donations by CGI to various interests of the Obamas, in this case specifically Michelle Obama's."

Massie concluded by admitting what everybody else has known:

Her penchant for unprecedented usufruct would be rubbed in the faces of the people being crushed by what is sure to be under her leadership a rapid descent to what will make the Great Depression seem like a bright sunny day.

All of that leaves out her conspicuous hatred for those she mocks as bitter white people who are afraid of her kind.

All that I've mentioned is what she will be forced to confront daily in her effort just to defeat President Trump in a head-to-head battle. Not only do I not believe her capable of the task; I don't believe she is remotely interested in it.

But Michelle has repeatedly said she's not interested in running for president. Why did it take so long for Massie to admit the truth? Because he wouldn't have column fodder otherwise. How cynical and dishonest of him.