CNN has refused to air a television commercial attacking CNN host Lou Dobbs for promoting the conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in the United States and was therefore not eligible for the presidency. The media watchdog group Media Matters produced the ad.

Narrator: “CNN’s Lou Dobbs has been promoting the false right-wing conspiracy that President Obama hasn’t produced a valid US birth certificate…CNN President Jon Klein said Dobbs’s obsession was 'legitimate.'…It’s time for 'The Most Trusted Name in News' to live up to its slogan. Let CNN know there’s nothing 'legitimate' about racially charged paranoia.”

In June 2008, the Obama campaign made public his birth certificate that showed he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, forty-eight years ago today. Birth notices for Obama were also printed in the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.