Don’t Blame Rick Perry Or Even Trump For Keeping The Birther Controversy Alive. Blame The Media.

(By Dan Abrams, Mediaite) - The entire first block of Anderson Cooper‘s program last night was devoted to keeping Rick Perry “honest” on his comments, or more accurately non-comments, about President Obama’s birth certificate. The previous night, his 10pm competitor Greta Van Susteren interviewed Donald Trump on his current view of Obama’s birth certificate. Trump (somewhat disingenuously) suggested that they “shouldn’t be talking about it” and even mocked her for posing it as the first question (he then proceeded into la la land with comments like “I am not a fan” and “not a believer” in the validity of it). In fact, in the two weeks before Rick Perry’s interview in Parade Magazine came out, the fake controversy surrounding Obama’s birth certificate earned barely a mention on cable news. According to the television transcript database TV Eyes, the terms “birther” and “birth certificate” was only mentioned 8 times across all of cable news. But since Friday, the terms “birther” and birth certificate were referenced 180 times; Fox News mentioned both 29 times, CNN 48, and MSNBC led with 103 mentions.