SEVERIN: The biography film of Barack Obama being shown in Indonesia has scenes of the young Barack Hussein Obama in a madrassa reading a Quran. Yes, of course it does. It is, after all, a biography. And a biography, a correct biography, an accurate biography, of the president of the United States, who has never produced a birth certificate, and about whose birth there are perfectly legitimate questions -- not conclusions, but perfectly legitimate questions -- his biography, the film of him as a young man, has scenes of him reading the Quran in a madrassa. Surprised? We oughtn't be.

There's a lot to unpack there. First, as a boy in Indonesia, Obama did not attend a madrassa. That myth started with an article in the now-defunct Insight magazine, which reported on speculation that the “the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended” might have taught “a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.” The story was quickly debunked by CNN and later by the Associated Press and ABC. But the madrassa smear nonetheless created a buzz in the conservative media, which used it to all but label Obama a Manchurian candidate.

Next, the birther falsehood. Severin's claim that Obama “has never produced a birth certificate” is preposterously false. In fact, the Hawaii Department of Health confirmed that the birth certificate posted online by the Obama campaign is “a valid Hawaii state birth certificate” and has called speculation about Obama's citizenship “pretty ridiculous.” Further, announcements of Obama's birth appeared in two different Honolulu newspapers when he was born in 1961.