The birthers have found their latest smoking gun in the form of — I kid you not — the age stated on Obama’s MySpace page. Heh.
The birthers have found their latest smoking gun in the form of — I kid you not — the age stated on Obama’s MySpace page. Heh.
Brendan:
The “birthers” are an insignificant side-show which Obama supporters use to deflect attention from the fact that we actually know little about him. Here’s my position: I take my responsibilities as an American citizen seriously, including trying to be as well informed as possible. Although I was, and am, a Bush supporter, when Rather’s TANG story broke I did not reflexively determine it was fake. If Bush had in fact ducked out, I wanted to know it. As it turned out, it was a farce. As for Bush, as a pilot I knew the slurs about him being dumb were, well, dumb. Most people who are not pilots don’t know how challenging it is to become just a private pilot, much less be turned loose with a dangerous (highest accident rate in the modern USAF) supersonic fighter like the F-102. It was underpowered, and being a delta wing it had some quirky behavior. It took a superior pilot to handle it’s flying behavior and the avionics. We also knew W’s grades from both Yale and Harvard, his business experience good and bad, his tenure as governor of Texas, etc. Now all of the above might not have been enough for someone to vote for him; some might have seen it as reason to vote against; and some might not have cared. But it was available.
Contrast that with Obama, whose college grades are sealed, the source of his college funds is unavailable, his birth certificate is sealed, the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge at the Richard J. Daley Library of the University of Illinois at Chicago were sealed for a time, etc. This lack of openness is itself a problem to me and many others. We are not subjects, nor are we serfs. Obama is not our king. I would criticize the lack of documented CV for anyone wanting to be President, Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal.
Partisanship is understandable and necessary in our political system, but when it substitutes for our upholding our civic responsibilities regardless of party or ideology, it becomes toxic. So laugh at the silly “birthers” if you want. After all, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?
Jack Woodward makes the much more apt comparison of “birthers” to those who propagated the Bush-Air-Nat’l-Guard sideshow.
“Birthers” were pejoratively named after the “truthers” who think Bush et al. were behind 9/11, and Obama supporters desperately want us to believe that the two conspiracy theories are equally nuts. Well, they’re not. The “truther” conspiracy theory that the gov’t could carry out a plot like 9/11 and keep the vast conspiracy secret is insane on its face – no investigation into “trutherism” is warranted. The “birther” conspiracy theory, on the other hand, while obviously extremely unlikely, is nowhere near as crazy. It isn’t at all silly to imagine that a politician with a non-American parent could learn, perhaps as an adult, that he was actually born abroad and therefore not a citizen after all, and try to cover up the fact. Thus, questions, at least initially (i.e., during the campaign), about Obama’s birth were completely valid. Of course, once it became clear that all the available evidence pointed to the fact that Obama was in fact born in Hawaii, such questions became invalid.
The better comparison of “birthers” is to the leftists who buy into the Bush-Air-Nat’l-Guard myth without any evidence (or evidence that is “fake but accurate”). Was it silly to imagine that Bush went AWOL from the Air Nat’l Guard? Not at all. Is there any more credible evidence for that conspiracy theory than there is for “birtherism”? Nope.
I think you should call the “birthers” what they are– The “republicans”. I mean ONLY 42% of republicans actually believe Obama was born in the United States. That’s enormous!
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/07/a_minority_of_republicans_beli.html
The greatest sub-plot to this story is that John McCain WASN’T born in the US. Republicans are really hillarious these days now that they have no power.
If Jack Woodward can’t find out any information about Obama it’s only from lack of trying. I’d suggest you start your search for truth here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama
I mean who DID pay for Obama’s college tuition? Since that information is sealed I think it’s fair to assume Al Queda or Ahminidinijad ought to be the top two suspects. And his grades at Harvard? Probably all F’s. The Harvard Law Review elected him their president just because he was black. All of this new information suggests to me that Obama just got to where he is because of the connections of his broke single mom and/or broke grandma (since his dad left when he was 3 and never played a role in his life).
Really people? I mean really.
Joe Mama, considering that the birther’s are getting airtime and coverage on that left wing media outlet called Fox News, and that Rush Limbaugh, the defacto head of the GOP, brings it up on his show as well, your assertion that this is something Democrat’s are keeping alive is ridiculous.
The difference between the wingnuts on the left and the whackjobs on the right is that the ones on the left are in the fringe, the ones on the right are mainstream.
Joe Mama, considering that the birther’s are getting airtime and coverage on that left wing media outlet called Fox News, and that Rush Limbaugh, the defacto head of the GOP, brings it up on his show as well, your assertion that this is something Democrat’s are keeping alive is ridiculous.
I never made that assertion. I said that Obama supporters want us to believe that “birtherism” and “trutherism” are equally crazy when they’re not — that doesn’t necessarily mean I think that “this is something Democrat’s are keeping alive.” But even if I did make that claim, the fact that FNC or Rush Limbaugh have given airtime to “birtherism” (assuming that’s true — I don’t know for sure) hardly means that partisan Democrats aren’t fixated on using “birthers” to discredit conservatives (unless I claimed that only Democrats were keeping it alive). Obviously Democrats can work to keep a story alive even if it’s mentioned occasionally on right-leaning media outlets — the two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
The difference between the wingnuts on the left and the whackjobs on the right is that the ones on the left are in the fringe, the ones on the right are mainstream.
LOL . . . . riiiight, because the 35% of Democrats who believed that Bush knew about 9/11 in advance are “in the fringe.”
I should add that believing Bush knew about 9/11 in advance is different than the “truther” conspiracy theory that Bush actually carried out 9/11. I’m not trying to conflate the two, and would suspect that the number of “truthers” is (I hope) considerably less than 35%.
All of you sheeple aren’t seeing the TRUTH that’s before your very eyes!!! Barry “Barack Obama” Hussein Soetoro is the Kenyan-born, medrassa-trained, biologically impossible gay love child of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. He moved to this country when he was 2 days old with the explicit purpose of destroying America and everything this nation stands for. Eventually, in keeping with the grand plan he hatched as an infant, he rose to the high authoritative position of Illinois State Senator, at which point he entered into a secret conspiratorial agreement with President Chimpy W. McHitler to attack America and start a global war on terror, which State Senator Soetoro would later claim to oppose, so that he could become the constitutionally illegitimate president of the United States on the basis of this antiwar platform. Meanwhile, for his part, President McHitler would be able to start a war in Iraq, avenge his daddy, then prematurely declare the war over, and use that occasion to finally wear a flight suit, which he had never done before because he deserted the Texas Air National Guard to go snort cocaine. Anyway, Soetoro and McHitler proceeded to selectively choose several thousand extremely tight-lipped individuals in the federal government, and the Mossad of course, to carry out their conspiracy. They planted explosives in the World Trade Center, flew empty planes into the buildings, launched a rocket at the Pentagon, and sent anthrax in the mail a few weeks later, just for fun. Also, Trig Palin is Andrew Sullivan’s son. The end.
It’s all starting to come together now.
Brendan:
I had you figured wrong. After your post a while back on your other blog about your friend who committed suicide, I thought you were unusually sensitive and insightful. I’m not ashamed to tell you I teared up reading it.
But you failed to address my point – that it is unusual and unhelpful to have an embargo on major portions of Obama’s CV that would help give us the measure of the man. I didn’t vote for him, but now he is my President too. From my perspective it appears his lack of executive experience is showing: Cash-for-clunkers reimbursement to the car dealers for example.
I have no idea what Obama’s info would show if he released it. I have made zero assertions about any of it. I’m not saying he has anything to hide, although that is something that reasonable people mide ask under the circumstances. My issue is that it is beneath the office of the Presidency to play these kinds of games.
I don’t know why I’m feeling so disappointed. It’s not like I know you. On your earlier blog, and with your hurricane posting, you just seemed different from … what I see here.
Jack, I wasn’t attempting to address your point. I was being deliberately silly in an obviously over-the-top way, for fun. I’m sorry if that disappoints you. My goofy little commentary wasn’t directed at you at all. If it was a response to anyone, it was to Joe Mama. But anyway, I just don’t particularly find this to be an issue that I care about that deeply, so I don’t really have a lot to offer the conversation. I appreciate your thoughts… I just don’t have a lot (serious) to say about them, one way or the other.
If Jack Woodward can’t find out any information about Obama it’s only from lack of trying. I’d suggest you start your search for truth here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama
Sandy, Be careful of Wikipedia. Censorship on that website has become pervasive, and editors’ biases jeopardize the overall credibility of the resource. Obama’s bio has been under fire since March, when it was altered with liberal omissions and embellishments. Censoring and deleting unfavorable entries on the President’s bio page has been making news for months now.
Joe Mama, Obama has provided documents that show he was born in Hawaii. The official document, the only one Hawaii issues for such things. The Birther’s have exactly ZERO evidence to show otherwise.
As for the 35% link you cite, its interesting that its from Rassmussen, which has shown to be biased towards the right for some time now in political polls, and provides nothing but a few claims with no data to actually back it up. It also leaves the question quite vague. Do people think that Bush knew specifically about what would happen on 9/11 or do people think he knew that SOMETHING was in the works but the details weren’t specific to him? There is a big range of what could have been asked and what people could actually be believing in those statements and no data provided to let us know. Meanwhile the birther’s beliefs are pretty straightforward. They are nuts. Not because they believe something I don’t, but because they believe something that has been disproven as thoroughly as possible without going back in time and watching Obama being born. And as I pointed out, the belief extends all the way to the main voice of the GOP, the bigotted, hate filled, drug abusing, hypocritical blow-hard Rush Limbaugh himself.
Joe Mama, Obama has provided documents that show he was born in Hawaii. The official document, the only one Hawaii issues for such things. The Birther’s have exactly ZERO evidence to show otherwise.
Um, no shit. Not only did I not say or imply otherwise, but I specifically said “once it became clear that all the available evidence pointed to the fact that Obama was in fact born in Hawaii, such questions became invalid.”
As for the 35% link you cite, its interesting that its from Rassmussen, which has shown to be biased towards the right for some time now in political polls, and provides nothing but a few claims with no data to actually back it up. It also leaves the question quite vague. Do people think that Bush knew specifically about what would happen on 9/11 or do people think he knew that SOMETHING was in the works but the details weren’t specific to him? There is a big range of what could have been asked and what people could actually be believing in those statements and no data provided to let us know.
Love the claims of source bias. Of course, ironically enough, the assertion that Rasmussen is biased towards the right is itself nothing but a claim with no data to actually back it up. As for the exact question that was asked, I’m not going to do your research for you, but if you want to get a sense of what leftist moonbats actually believe, then look no further than the equally bigoted, hate-filled, hypocritical blow-hard one-time Democrat presidential front-runner and former DNC head Howard Dean (no “main voice” or “de facto head” bullshit there), who peddled the conspiracy theory that Bush was warned about 9/11 ahead of time by the Saudis. It’s “interesting” that Dean was “quite vague” and didn’t bother to clarify that he really meant to refer to the non-specific hints or “chatter” that the administration purportedly received prior to 9/11.
Bush was warned about 9/11 in his presidential daily briefing on August 6, 2001.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/
“FBI information indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”
Bush did nothing, and continued his vacation an additional 3 weeks.
Joe Mama,
Um, no, if you are going to claim that a large percentage of Democrats believed something on the same level as the birther’s do, you need to answer the questions I posed based on your one linked source. As for Rassmussen’s Republican leaning bias, its easy to show, just look at his results for recent elections compared to other polls. FiveThirtyEight.com has some excellent comparisons that demonstrated this during the last election. But regardless of where the data comes from, the more important question is the actual MEANING of the vague question asked. It is not insanely unreasonable for example to think that Bush had SOME prior knowledge of 9/11 that was ignored, Sandy provides a great link in fact that would seem to show that Bush had recieved such a warning. If that was the nature of the question your supposed comparions is completely flawed. Unless the question is specifically did Bush know the exact details of the 9/11 attacks and did nothing, or worse helped facilitiate it, then the comparison is pretty much invalid.
The Birther position is completely ludicrous from the get go, the question of whether Bush failed to adequately act on warnings is not. Comparing the two just shows how desperate you are to deflect attention from a postion believed and supported by the mainstream on YOUR side of the issue.
Um, no, if you are going to claim that a large percentage of Democrats believed something on the same level as the birther’s do, you need to answer the questions I posed based on your one linked source.
Not really. My claim was actually that a large percentage of Democrats believed that Bush knew about 9/11 in advance, based on a poll that asked, “Did Bush know about the 9/11 attacks in advance?” The meaning of that question is fairly clear: Did Bush know about – and thus tacitly permit or condone – the 9/11 attacks. It’s not impossible that some respondents may have thought the question was referring to whether Bush was merely negligent in his attention to unspecified threats, but it’s doubtful very many read it that way since that would defy the ordinary meaning of what it means to “know about” an enumerated thing in advance. The one-time presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party certainly wasn’t implying mere negligence with his nutjob remarks (or if he was, he did so in the most piss poor way). In any event, knocking of 10-15% to allow for the supposed ambiguity, you still have 1 in 5 Democrats suffering from paranoid delusions. Not an insignificant number, that.
I was searching for another poll besides Rasmussen when I came across another Brendan who addressed this very point. He agrees with you that there is ambiguity in the question asked by Rasmussen, so he looked at an earlier poll that used less ambiguous wording. However, he also agrees with me that “the primary conclusion stands – both party’s bases are disturbingly receptive to wild conspiracy theories.”
As for Rassmussen’s Republican leaning bias, its easy to show, just look at his results for recent elections compared to other polls. FiveThirtyEight.com has some excellent comparisons that demonstrated this during the last election.
A general reference to a website isn’t very helpful, but even if what you say is correct, I still don’t see how that impugns this particular Rasmussen poll. In addition, the academic I linked to above refers to a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll found similar results. Moreover, if you’re going to accept as gospel a Daily Kos-sponsored poll on “birthers,” then you have no business whatsoever raising questions of bias about Rasmussen.
The Birther position is completely ludicrous from the get go, the question of whether Bush failed to adequately act on warnings is not.
Whether Bush failed to adequately act on warnings is not the issue. Whether he tacitly permitted or condoned the 9/11 attacks is, at least with respect to whether Democrats buy into conspiracy theories. And I guess I need to point out, again, that my comparison was actually between “birthers” and “truthers,” and my claim was that “birtherism” is nowhere near as crazy as “trutherism” (i.e., it’s not “completely ludicrous from the get go”) for the reasons I stated in my first post above. I also specifically said that “believing Bush knew about 9/11 in advance is different than the ‘truther’ conspiracy theory that Bush actually carried out 9/11” and that “I’m not trying to conflate the two,” although it would appear you have done precisely that.
Comparing the two just shows how desperate you are to deflect attention from a postion believed and supported by the mainstream on YOUR side of the issue.
^ Cut and pasted without comment.
I don’t know what Truthers believe specifically, but I know that when a building is hit by a plane it doesn’t collapse into it’s own footprint at the rate of 10 floors per second. And it sure as heck doesn’t happen exactly like that TWICE.
I do know that the blox boxes in the wreckage were recovered, and have never become public.
I do know that Dick Cheney was given direct control of NORAD in May 2001 and had EVERY available pilot running Wargame drills on the morning of 9/11 and NORAD had no jets available to scramble in the event of a hijacking. Seems unusual, truthfully, maybe it’s common or just wreckless.
I do know that Donald Rumsfeld said that the US Airforce shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania without correcting himself during a speech.
There’s definitely questions that have never been addressed or answered. I don’t know the answers, but I know we haven’t heard the whole truth yet, and I don’t expect that we ever will, but maybe we will.
^ Unintentional self-parody 102