To remove any suspense let me announce that I will not address whether Mr. Sinclair's story is true. Many are highly doubtful. The point is that the story of Barack Obama being on the "down low" never reached such a critical mass that the campaign felt that a public refutation was warranted.

Rumors, doubtful truth claims, misleading information, and, yes, even lies are part of what a candidate, any candidate, must face. John McCain was accused of having an affair with a lobbyist and about lying about his captivity in North Vietnam. The stories about Bill and Hillary could fill a book - indeed they have filled several - from Hillary's lesbianism to Bill having fathered a black child. George W. Bush certainly knows about the stickiness of rumors of cocaine. Politicians of all stripes are the target of uncertain knowledge. Data are lacking as to whether President Obama because of a background that seems exotic to many Americans - Kenyan, Indonesian, Hawaiian, mixed-race and Ivy League - is the target of more rumors or nastier rumors than others in his line of work. I write as a professional agnostic as to the truth of these claims. This doesn't mean that there is no truth, but facts are not orphans; they have parents to guide and to dress them. They are debutantes, ready to be presented to Society. Claims about political reputations are known through their sponsors.

Many students of rumor quite reasonably wish to find truth. Perhaps best known is Cass Sunstein in his book On Rumor, and he is not alone. Winnowing wheat from chaff is an honorable endeavor. But rumor is defined as a truth claim that lacks secure standards of evidence, not false information. Whether true or false rumor's source is unofficial.

Yet, what about ignorance? Just as facts have provenance, so does their absence. Not knowing and forgetting what had been known do not simply happen; ignorance like knowledge may be sponsored. The field of unknowledge has come to be known as Agnotology. Why are some things known, and others unknown? Much of the work on the structure of ignorance has emerged from science studies. The work of historian Robert Proctor on what we know and do not know about the dangers of tobacco is exemplary. Ignorance is in the interest of some. Ultimately we choose what is knowable and there are institutions that support the knowing and others that make knowing difficult.
Creating knowledge and ignorance is the source of conflict and contention. Certainty need not always be desired. Let us remember the tobacco company executive who wrote in a memo that "Doubt is our product," implying that the scientific controversy over the malign health effects of cigarettes was and should remain an open debate. He is manufacturing controversy. Is the debate real or is it a sham? When is knowledge uncertain and when is it definitive? When is debate to be closed? When do debaters become deniers?

The most dramatic instance of a closed debate is that of Holocaust revisionism. Groups who doubt the standard, academic picture of the Holocaust claim that they simply wish an open discussion, a mutual search for truth. So says the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust. Their foes, such as historian Deborah Lipstadt, contend that is no second side, just one truth. And so Lipstadt and others suggest that their foes in the game of historical truth are not revisionists (their preferred label), but rather deniers. One sees a similar debate in the controversy over evolution and intelligent design. Proponents of intelligent design suggest that science educators "teach the controversy." Their opponents suggest that proponents of intelligent design are engaged in "evolution denial." A similar debate occurs when issues of climate change enter the public arena. And we find climate change deniers versus Earthers, climate change fanatics, labeled to echo the Birthers. Who has the right to control knowledge?

Perhaps political debate is different than scientific claims. Policy discussion is embedded in the public sphere, and there is a strong case to be made that savory talk and unproven claims are needed in an open society. Civil society should not be open only to experts. It is often said that everyone is entitled to her own opinion, but not to her own facts. This is a slogan that sounds proper, but it leaves open the question of who selects the facts to which people are entitled. And this involves power every bit as much as it involves knowledge.

OBAMA-MANIA

Let us consider four claims about President Obama. None of them are proven which is why I select them. As to whether any or all of them are disproven depends on what we mean by disproven. The claims are first that Barack Obama is not a native-born American citizen, born in Kenya; the second is that Barack Obama is a Muslim; third, the claim with which I began this essay, that Barack Obama engaged in gay sex; and fourth that Barack Obama is a socialist. I cannot help wondering that if the president were forced to select one of these rumors to be true, which one would he select? Each of these claims and the many others made about many other politicians depend on the existence of reputational entrepreneurs, men and women who have interests and resources in making claims stick or denying them. The judgment of each one depends on different types of truth claims. If they are false, they are false in different ways or at least depend on different forms of truth.

Some possible claims are so outlandish that we never hear them: Barack Obama shoots heroin in the White House, that he fathered a child with a white woman, or that he is a Chinese secret agent. Perhaps if my internet search were more intensive I would discover such assertions. Claims are easy to make and there is always something that can be put forth as evidence.

Obama and the Birthers: The Plasticity of Incomplete Knowledge

Unlike many nations in which genetics is destiny, in America, citizenship is based on the land itself: the place in which a child was born matters more than who his parents were. A child who was born in Honolulu to two vacationing Kenyans is a natural-born American citizen and could be elected president. A child born in Nairobi to two Mayflower descendents is not a natural-born citizen. Neither of these cases is at issue with President Obama.

The claim that Obama was born outside the United States territorial limits is so culturally salient that the proponents of the claim have been awarded their own name: Birthers, mirroring the Truthers who doubt the sanctioned 9/11 narrative. Why would this claim be made? If true, it suggests that Barack Obama cannot constitutionally be President. The election results must be overturned.