Recently, Donald Trump has repeated the false claim that Hillary or her campaign were the original birthers. See his tweet:
This isn't something only Republicans have said. I have had to fight this lie here, and have seen some on the left repeat it before. However, good thing we have Fact Checkers.
Two Republican presidential candidates claim the so-called “birther” movement originated with the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008. While it’s true that some of her ardent supporters pushed the theory, there is no evidence that Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with it.
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.”
Neither 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.
Not only has the birther thing been repeated, but so has the idea that Hillary was the original one to spread the accusation of Obama being a Muslim. In
reality...
So it's worth considering the persistence of the Internet rumors that Obama, well known to Chicagoans as a Christian, is actually a stealth Muslim, a "Manchurian candidate" who would take the presidential oath with his hand on the Koran. The rumors first surfaced during Obama's run for Senate
Obama ran for the Senate in 2004.
This kind of idea that its OK for some on the left to take up GOP memes (like the idea that Hillary was a birther, the Perot-myth, the email non-scandal as something that bears any relation to her character or professionalism) is antithetical to the progressive cause or America.
Hillary Clinton did not originate the myth of Obama being a Muslim who was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia. That was the GOP smear machine.
As Salon said:
It was the right wing that animated the monster and set [birtherism] free to shamble across the countryside scaring small children and old people alike. No amount of revisionism and whining can change that fact.
The end.