Hillz Campaign and MSM forced to defend Hillary Clinton after Trump and Cruz say in 2008 Candidate Clinton was among the first “Birthers”

This is a lose-Lose-LOSE for Hillary Clinton and her 2008-2016 Presidential Campaign  —  It’s a reminder that Hillary’s 2008 campaign contained anti-Obama Birthers  —  Berg and Starr  —  and even Sidney Blumenthal was pitching Obama's "otherness"

Yuh, gotta luv it  >>> This proves that Donald Trump might be the only person a lot of Americans want to be their next President  >>>  Case in Point  >>>  “The Donald” has tied “Birtherism” to Hillary Clinton  >>>  Trump again has America looking at Obama’s purported Hawaiian birth certificate AND he’s tying that to Hillary

On the other hand, Ted Cruz comes out second best on this one  —   Even though he also ties “Birtherism” to HRC  —  He also has to defend against his own personal “birther” problem

For Trump it looks like a win-Win-WIN ! ! !

“For those unfamiliar with the controversy over Obama's birthplace, it refers to those who contend that Obama was born in Kenya and ineligible to be president....”                                                                                                                                         —  USA Today/ Fact Check

According to a major “Fact check” report in USA Today  —   “Two Republican presidential candidates claim the so-called "birther" movement originated with the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008....”  And “... [I]t's true that some of [Hillary Clinton’s] ardent supporters pushed the theory, (See “Fact check: Was Hillary Clinton the original 'birther'?” by Robert Farley, 7/2/15, USA Today/ FactCheck.org [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/07/02/fact-check-clinton-cruz-trump-birther/29631903/]; also [http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/was-hillary-clinton-the-original-birther/]).

Robert Farley’s article goes on to state, “In an interview on June 29, Sen. Ted Cruz said ‘the whole birther thing was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008,’ and earlier this year, Donald Trump claimed ‘Hillary Clinton wanted [Obama's] birth certificate. Hillary is a birther.’...”  However, Farley also pointed out that “... [n]either Cruz nor Trump presented any evidence that Clinton or anyone on her campaign ever questioned Obama's birthplace, demanded to see his birth certificate, or otherwise suggested that Obama was not a ‘natural born citizen’ eligible to serve as president....”

USA/ FACT CHECK REPORT BASICALLY AGREED WITH SOURCES CITED BY TED CRUZ CONCERNING HILLARY CLINTON’S 2008 SUPPORTERS’ BIRTHER CONNECTIONS

In spite of a pro forma declaration that “... there is no evidence that Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with it....” the Fact Check report that appears in USA Today lays out myriad incidents of “diehard Hillary Clinton supporters...” advancing the “birther” theory against Barack Hussein Obama “... as her campaign for the party's nomination faded....”  Here are some particulars: “... the theory that Obama was born in Kenya ‘first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama's citizenship.’...  [and ]

‘[a]n anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton... thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — , Mr Obama [Hillary Clinton’s] main rival for the party's nomination... had not been born in Hawaii.’...”  Mr. Farley of Fact Check attributed reports of those specific incidents to two articles  recently cited by the Ted Cruz Campaign  (See “Birtherism: Where it all began” by Ben Smith & Byron Tau, 4/22/11-updated 4/24/11, Politico [http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53563.html]; and also “Birther row began with Hillary Clinton” by Jon Swaine, 4/27/11, The Telegraph UK
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8478044/Birther-row-began-with-Hillary-Clinton.html]).

Commenting on those reports, Robewert Farley’s single most important observation was this: “Both of those stories comport with what we here at FactCheck.org wrote two and a half years earlier, on Nov. 8, 2008: ‘This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party's nomination faded....’ ”

WHAT USA TODAY & FACT CHECK CALLED “AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION”

Here’s how the USA Today/ Fact Check concluded: “....  It is certainly interesting, and perhaps historically and politically relevant, that "birther" advocacy may have originated with supporters of Hillary Clinton — especially since many view it as an exclusively right-wing movement. But whether those theories were advocated by Clinton and/or her campaign or simply by Clinton "supporters" is an important distinction. Candidates are expected to be held accountable for the actions of their campaigns. Neither Cruz nor Trump, whose campaign did not respond to our request for backup material, provides any compelling evidence that either Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with starting the so-called birther movement.

WHAT THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN IS TRYING TO DOWNPLAY  —   THE ACTIONS OF PHILIP BERG & LINDA STARR  —  ANY MENTION OF SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL IN CONNECTION WITH ANY OF THIS

Prominently, mentioned in the USA Today/ Fact Check article is Philip Berg, who was described as “...  Claims about Obama's birthplace appeared in chain emails bouncing around the Web, and one of the first lawsuits over Obama's birth certificate was filed by Philip Berg, a former deputy Pennsylvania attorney general and a self-described "moderate to liberal" who supported Clinton....”  What is left out is that Berg was a “prominent supporter” of Hillary Clinton in 2008 during the hotly contested Pennsylvania Primary – he held the position of Deputy A.G. and had run for state-wide office in Pennsylvania —  he also was close to another key Clinton supporter and operator Linda Starr, who urged Berg to sue Barack Obama in Federal Court. She did that on behalf of a large group of Hillary Clinton supporters called PUMA in 2008.

Linda Starr is called “the first birther” by some. She was a Clinton operative for the Clinton Campaign in Texas in 2008; and more generally in fighting against the impeachment of Bill Clinton almost a decade before. Even after Hillary Clinton had conceded the 2008 nomination to Barack Obama, Starr and PUMA kept trying to dump dirt on Obama, in a vain attempt to have Hillary named at the 2008 Democratic Convention.  ( See “The 'Birthers' Began on the Left” by Jon Avalon, 2/7/10, Daily Beast
[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/02/08/the-secret-history-of-the-birthers.html]).

Another name that pops up in the internet searches is Sidney Blumenthal, recently of undisclosed Hillary Clinton Benghazi E-mail fame. Although no direct link to any birther items have been found or even suggested, some have noted that the exploration of the birther issue was part of a 2008 attempt by Blumenthal and others in an organized Clinton slime machine to cast Barack Hussein Obama as a foreigner -- specifically a crypto-Muslim who was educated in a madrassa. All of that was heavily reported upon during the 2008 campaign (See e.g. "HillaryClinton.com spreading Obama=Muslim smears and other racism" by Geekesue, 3/14/08, Daily Kos
[https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3872239785607728837#editor/target=post;postID=172149185232503904;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=0;src=link]).

AFTER THE USA TODAY/ FACT CHECK REPORT

Lately, there has been some very interesting internet chatter indicating that a little while back, MSNBC had reported on the Hillary Campaign as starting the birther movement (See “Hillary Clinton starts Birther Movement” report by Andrea Mitchell in segment “The Birth of the Birthers,” 5/10/13, MSNBC/ YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8Np_HS7JN8] ).  In that MSNBC clip, Politico’s Ben Smith said, “What it goes back to is the Clinton Campaign, not Clinton herself or her staff, but her supporters....”