Bartholomew's Notes

Oh noes; from Chuck Rogers at Conservative Fact Check (H/T LGF):

As of today, “TechDude” is no longer on our masthead.

One of our readers has shown us strong evidence that “TechDude” is using credentials that aren’t accurate; in fact, they are copied from somebody else.

…I should point out that I have not met “TechDude” in person. He contacted me via email shortly after this site was launched, and pointed me to his work featured on the Atlas Shrugs blog. I was impressed, and offered him the (unpaid) position as our resident technical expert.

When I confronted him with the information about the plagiarized credentials, he first claimed not to be the same “TechDude” who had forged those credentials. But then I pointed him toward his emails in which he claimed to be the same “TechDude” who had helped Atlas Shruggs [sic] with their Obama forged birth certificate investigation, in which Pamela Gellar listed those same credentials…

“Techdude” was promoted by Geller in 2008, after the Obama campaign published a copy of Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth in June of that year; she described him as “an expert by occupation” (italics in original), and she commended his “superb and detailed analysis”. Geller did not just “list” his credentials; she guaranteed their veracity:

I know who Techdude is and I have checked him out thoroughly. He is he is an active member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, The International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, International Information Systems Forensics Association – the list goes on. He also a board certified as a forensic computer examiner, a certificated legal investigator, and a licensed private investigator. He has been performing computer based forensic investigations since 1993 (although back then it did not even have a formal name yet) and he has performed countless investigations since then.

TechDude’s “findings” consisted of interminable ramblings about “heat maps” on the image and such, and she was still promoting the supposed “mystery” in January 2011.

Was Geller hoodwinked, or was she in on the deception? [Or is there another explanation? – see update below] After all, she doesn’t usually care about the provenance of her information; examples include her promotion of Joel Gilbert (creator of the bogus “Obama wears a Muslim ring” claim, which she endorsed and then quietly deleted from her site); of Ulsterman (a hoaxer who claimed to have inside information that Obama had tried to prevent the operation against Bin Laden); and, most infamously, of a long crank screed by one of her own commentators (a certain Rudy Schultz) that included the claim that Obama’s father was Malcolm X (although Geller later distanced herself from the claim, complaining bitterly that “the Malcolm X claim is one minor part” of the story, and that she herself didn’t believe it).

Eventually, of course, Obama released his long-form birth certificate, in April 2011; inevitably, Geller and others immediately asserted that this must be a forgery, too.

So where does Conservative Fact Check‘s discovery of TechDude’s apparent dishonesty leave Birtherism? Rogers has reassurance for those whose faith may have been shaken:

I don’t doubt for a second that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery — many other people, including Mr. Donald Trump, have said the same thing, so the evidence is overwhelming.

UPDATE: It seems that it’s slightly more complicated: it’s possible that TechDude lied to Rogers about his identity, rather than lying to Geller about his credentials. Obama Conspiracy Theories explains:

While the association between Adam Fink and TechDude is well known, and has been so since imaging expert Neal Krawetz published it in August of 2008, the best information I have is that TechDude is not impersonating Adam Fink; he IS Adam Fink. Fink denied this, but the evidence is pretty solid to the contrary.

So we have TechDude who either lied about his credentials, or lied about not being Adam Fink.

The relevant point is that whoever he is, his image analysis of Obama’s original birth certificate image was a fraud. He deliberately altered the image to make it look suspicious and this was fully covered in  Dr. Krawetz’ article.

…someone posting as G at the Barackryphal web site did further research, reporting the conclusion that TechDude and Fink were one and the same.

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