Earlier this week, Sean Hannity used the release of Senator Ted Cruz’ birth certificate as an excuse to go birther on President Obama again. Lo and behold, the next day, FoxNews.com followed suit, albeit more subtly.

The FoxNews.com article about Cruz gratuitously reported:

Unlike the 2008 flare-up over Obama’s nationality, few are challenging what the birth certificate shows—in this case, that Cruz was born to an American mother in Calgary, Canada, in 1970.

Calling the birther conspiracy a “flare-up” without mentioning how completely and utterly unfounded it was gives it undeserved credibility.  The next sentence, which “reveals” that, unlike Obama, “few are challenging” Cruz’ birth certificate suggests that Cruz’ birth certificate has a legitimacy that Obama’s didn’t. Furthermore, considering how much time Fox devoted to showcasing Obama birtherism, the author of the article must know that it was the authenticity of the birth certificate, not what it showed, that the birthers made such a big deal out of. Then-candidate Barack Obama produced his birth certificate in 2008. But in 2011, Fox Newsies repeatedly argued that he had not.