THE DECEIVER – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  Readers are familiar by now with the revelation, which we noted on "Short Takes" last night, that Barack Obama's literary agency put out a pamphlet about him in 1991, saying he was born in Kenya.

The agency now says the pamphlet resulted from an innocent research mistake.  Right.  I guess that's why it was in circulation for years.  I know enough about literary agencies and authors to know that an author reads everything written about him or her, especially biographical information.  If a mistake of that magnitude is made, an author would demand that it be corrected...unless he wants it there.   Common sense tells us that Obama had no problem with a hyped pamphlet claiming he was foreign born.  He probably felt it made him more interesting to the readers he was targeting, and he was right.

The mainstream media isn't touching the story, of course.  The Washington Post, after all, was too busy digging up a high-school prank in which Mitt Romney participated about a half century ago.  The character and integrity of the man who became president is of no interest to the liberal stalwarts in the press.  He is their Barack, their 1960s dream, and they have an investment in him.

But the pamphlet story is legitimate.  It goes to Obama's identity, his honesty, the way he sees himself, and his willingness to manipulate others.  When Romney's involvement in that high-school incident was revealed, he immediately apologized.  No such apology has come from the White House.  Mr. Obama never apologizes for anything.  This is the man who spent 20 years sitting in the pews, listening to the America-hating Reverend Wright, then told us during the 2008 campaign that he didn't know what his pastor stood for.

Dishonesty is not unknown in the presidency.  Neither the presidencies of FDR nor Richard Nixon were adorned by constant truth telling.  But citizens have a right to ask, "If Obama lied about this, what else has he lied about, and what else will he lie about?"  I do hope a few of the more decent members of the White House Press Corps, like Jake Tapper of ABC News, will question the press secretary about this, even they get a put-down answer.

We have a deceptive man in the White House.  And we have a supreme egotist who wrote two books – both about himself, as Charles Krauthammer likes to point out, and who runs for re-election on one of the thinnest records compiled by a modern president.

Questions, anyone?  Concerns?  Is anything going on in journalism?  Or is the media resigned to sinking beneath the waves with  their political creation?

Thank goodness we have the internet.

May 18,  2012