The Fox News Channel has “addressed” a “mistake” made by one of its supposedly straight news anchors, who tweeted a birther blog site’s claim that the Obama campaign threatened mayhem in 2008 to keep its candidate’s secrets.

The anchor, Heather Childers, sent out a tweet, quickly discovered by the mediamatters.org watchdog site, which closely scrutinizes Fox’s distortions, conflicts of interest, half-truths and inaccuracies. The tweet asked:

“Thoughts? Did Obama campaign threaten Chelsea Clinton’s Life 2 Keep Parents Silent?”

The tweet was linked to godfatherpolitics.com, a right-wing web site peddling a conspiracy about the Obama campaign murdering and threatening murder to hide secrets about Obama’s eligibility to run for President.

It is still pushing the birther line, nearly 10 months after President Obama secured his long form birth certificate from Hawaiian authorities and released it. A typical godfatherpolitics.com headline: “World Media Picking Up Obama Birth Certificate Fraud While America’s Media Remains Silent.”

Medimatters.org asked Childers what in the world she was doing, and received a disconnected response: “I know MM strives 2b FACTUALLY correct so attach the article plz. I was asking 4 opinion.”

Later, mediamatters.org received the following response from Fox senior vice president Michael Clemente: “The tweets have been addressed with Heather and she understands there was a mistake.”

Childers can be seen weekends on “America’s News Headquarters” and on “Fox & Friends.”