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    Obama's Wikipedia Page Lacks References to Ayers, Birth Certificate

    Posted:
    03/10/09
    Filed Under:Barack Obama, Media

    Fox News delivers a much more researched report of a story originally broken by by World Net Daily regarding some recent developments to Barack Obama's Wikipedia page:
    Critics noted over the weekend that President Obama's page on the free online encyclopedia had been edited to remove any mention of his links to former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, and to allow only a brief citation of his connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - though pages for Ayers and Wright are heavily peppered with references to the president, including subsections on both pages that detail their past affiliations with him.
    Here's the current page, and here's an old archived one with with the Ayers reference that was deleted.

    You can see the revisions, which took place around 6:30 on February 24, on this page.

    The passage that was deleted was originally posted by a user named Jeremiah21 Jerusalem21*. It reads as follows:
    Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993.[28][45] He served alongside former Weathermen leader William Ayers from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation.[28] Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1991. Ayers was the founder and director of the Challenge. [28]
    Jerusalem21, who's name apparently refers to an extremely violent bible passage, has been banned for being a "single purpose account." This means that the Wikipedia community has decided that Jerusalem21 clearly registered an account to only edit a single article, likely for propaganda purposes.
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    The Bill Ayers section was deleted with the following note: "More POV junk edits" by user Tarc, and then again by Wizardman.

    Reading the passage, the Ayers comments do not seem to be anything but a list of his affiliations and connections to Obama. It makes one wonder whether this passage would have been deleted had it been written verbatim by another contributor. My guess is that
    Jerusalem21's actions demonstrated insidious intent to the Wikipedia editors. The Wikipedia community is extremely wary of folks who sign up to only edit a single article, especially when that article is about a subject of great debate like a politician.

    Additionally,
    Jerusalem21wrote about the thoroughly discredited invented "scandal" regarding Barack Obama's status as a "natural born citizen," which likely indicated a lack of sincere research to the editors:

    There have been some doubts about whether Obama was born in the U.S. after the politician refused to release to the public a carbon copy of his birth certificate and amid claims from his relatives he may have been born in Kenya. [1] [2] [Numerous lawsuits have been filed petitioning Obama to release his birth certificate, but most suits have been thrown out by the courts. [3]

    Both the Fox News and the World Net Daily reports indicate there is no mention of Obama's connection to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. At of the time of this posting, there is a mention as follows:

    He was baptized at the Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988 and was an active member there for two decades.[198][199] Obama resigned from Trinity during the Presidential campaign after controversial statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright became public.[200]

    Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. It relies on a community of contributors and editors to keep the articles as opinion-free as possible. It answers to no governmental authority, and, given that it is run by human beings, is inherently subjective to some degree. This whole kerfuffle strikes me as a fairly lame attempt to discredit Wikipedia. The question is, why? And whom do they think they are discrediting?

    * My apologies for misreading Jerusalem21's name as Jeremiah21. and thanks to Dr. Jay for pointing this out Clearly, I was conflating the name I was reading with "Jeremiah Wright."




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    Michael Kraskin

    Michael Kraskin is the Executive Producer of PoliticsDaily.com. Formerly, he worked at Comedy Central... more

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