What Will Birthers Do Now?
Now that Obama has released his real, official, long-form birth certificate, how will birthers handle the resulting cognitive dissonance? Based on previous experience, I’m betting that it actually strengthens their belief in their rightness. Things I expect high-profile birthers to be saying in the next few days:
- “It was our insistence that Obama come clean that led to this desirable outcome. We have been instrumental in defending a fundamental principal of democracy: that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. The people are the ultimate source of authority, and no government official is above them. By forcing Obama to release his birth certificate, we have saved the Republic.”
- “We have always known that there was something in the long-form birth certificate that Obama did not want the public to see. Now that he has revealed it, we can clearly see that X [not sure what X will turn out to be; I’m not crazy enough in that particular way, but there will be some actually-benign aspect of the certificate that will be seized upon] was the thing he has been trying to hide.”
- “How do we know this is the actual birth certificate? Why are the media so trusting? Wake up, sheeple!”
Things I do not expect any high-profile birthers to be saying in the next few days:
- “Huh. You know what? I was — we all were — completely wrong about this. Obama actually is a natural-born US citizen, and there’s nothing damning in his long-form birth certificate. He wasn’t trying to conceal it for some nefarious reason. Apparently he resisted releasing it so long only because realistically, he had already complied with the requirement that he demonstrate his eligibility for the office to which he was duly and legally elected, and the insistence by a minority that he must do more than that to satisfy their delusional (and probably racist, in many cases) paranoia was ridiculous on the face of it. I will have to think carefully about what this new evidence reveals about my own reasoning, and take a hard look at other views I hold that have been challenged by the same people who challenged my birtherism.”
April 27th, 2011 at 9:52 am
lolz – you beat me to it
So no mention of racism. I guess the new way is to simply ignore the uglier bits and nonfactual buffoonery and just hope it goes away? Good luck with that.
Dentist/lawyer Orly Taint has already come out saying she thinks this isn’t real: it says African instead of Negro. Seriously. His father was from… Africa. His father was an… African.
Now the Donald wants to see Obama’s school papers. And speaking of racists, Pat Buchanan says Obama is affirmative action all the way. Can we see Trump’s tax returns and bankruptcy papers? And can we see some papers that prove Pat Buchanan is actually human? I have my doubts. The long form if you please, with the hatchery seal intact, tentacle marks, proper kerning, etc.
The preceding was not intended to be a factual statement.
Behold the birth of the afterbirth conspiracy theorists!
Me, I’m convinced it is authentic, check out the name of the local registrar.
Hard to make it out, but I think it says “U K L Lee”
Don’t know how you could get more Hawaiian than that.
April 27th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
The White House only waited this long because whipping up a phony birth certificate takes a considerable amount of time.
;)
April 27th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
“What will the birthers do now?”
Go take a look at the comments section on Fox News under the story for the answer tothat question…
enk, we’re winning more than Charlie Sheen up here:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/980804–ndp-s-jack-layton-riding-seismic-shift-into-second-place-poll-shows?bn=1
Five days to go!
April 27th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
I misread jbc’s post, he does mention racism in the last bullet point
my error
http://www.theonion.com/articles/trump-unable-to-produce-certificate-proving-hes-no,20250/
April 27th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
Holy smokes, JBC. The first entry in your list was nearly verbatim pre-quoting the vinegar and water that was spewed from Donald Trump’s lips.
Props, my friend.
April 28th, 2011 at 6:58 am
The question that still isn’t answered is why did he wait?
Good politics for whom? Did Obama think it was good politics from his perspective to leave this question out there for years. Did he think it made his opponents look bad (it did) but what changed yesterday? If it was so bad for the country, why did he wait?
Did something big happen yesterday or the day before that caused the administration to decide more important things needed to be tended to? Is Obama taking Trump seriously, he is the only one that is if that is the case. John Gaski said with a chuckle that he was the catalyst since it coincided with his article in Investors Business Daily. Then with another chuckle he said “yeah right”. Never a dull day in politics.
April 28th, 2011 at 7:57 am
Spoken like a true afterbirther
April 28th, 2011 at 7:59 am
SHCB – does the “why did he wait” really matter? I was hoping that we could just put this ‘birther’ silliness behind us.
It’s kind of like what I said about Bush – if you’re gonna damn him, damn him for what’s right out in front of us. The conspiracy theories were silly. With Obama, it’s the same. If there are people who think that he’s a poor president (be it leadership, policy, politics, or whatever) – damn him for that instead of what appears to me to be a conspiracy theory at best. It’s side show stuff.
April 28th, 2011 at 10:24 am
I agree Ethan, I just think it is worthwhile to analyze why someone does something so you can see patterns, they are an insight as to why they do the things that are out in front of us as you put it. If he waited to release this until he could make the most political hay that’s fine, he’s just playing the game, but don’t tell me that there are more important things to worry about. If he would have released it two years ago and said there are more important things to do I would have been four square behind him. On the flip side if he thinks now is the most opportune time to gain the most political advantage that worries me more. Unless I’m missing something there is nothing to be gained by coming clean right now. I really don’t want someone that politically inept negotiating with our friends, sometimes friends, and enemies on my behalf.
April 28th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
On to the next (fauxnews) outrage!
Obama was a ‘affirmative action’ uppity ‘student’
http://dayriffer.com/category/28/l/2056/looks-like-trump-s-right-how-the-hell-em-did-em-this-president-get-into-those-ivy-league-schools
“why did he wait” He didn’t. He already submitted the legally acceptable doc years ago, it has been public and accessible to anyone with a web browser.
April 28th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
He didn’t wait, he released a legal document of birth years ago. The same document you use to get a U.S. passport, ffs.
April 28th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
“Unless I’m missing something there is nothing to be gained by coming clean right now.”
What is he “coming clean” about? As NL so helpfully pointed out, “he released a legal document of birth years ago”.
Damn some people are incredibly fucking stupid.
April 28th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Then why not release this one at the same time? Or a week later? Look the teleprompter in the eye and say “ you didn’t like that document? You want the long form? Here it is.” When my grandson was born a week or so ago they gave us the same document the president showed way back when and the nurse said it was good for nothing other than to show the baby was born, the birth certificate is the document that has legal value. Except to become president.
I don’t think he ever had a birth certificate, it got lost, was never applied for or never issued, something like that, remember Hawaii had only been a state a few years, I think he was born in the US but I don’t think he has a document to prove it. And I think Nancy P knew that he didn’t when she certified he was a natural born American to the states before the election. They just hoped it wouldn’t be asked for.
April 28th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Okay you snivelling afterbirthers, its my turn.
I agree with everything here, especially the “why now?” questions of shcb.
I especially agree that the birther issue is a sideshow (at best and racist crap at worst) and do not care where he was born (i.e Hawaii based on all available evidence) or whatever. If Schwarzenegger can be governor, you guys have already proven your low standards so I’m not even willing to begin to contemplate anyone trying to seriously suggest Obama has no right to be president.
However, from a strictly academic standpoint, I have some big problems with this so called disclosure.
First – as Enkidu and NL point out, I understand that he did release the legal document of birth years ago. wtf then is this all about? Recap: The “birthers” have been screeching for him to release the “long form birth certificate” (LFBC). That is not what was released then or now. What has been released is a short form “Certificate of Live Birth” (COLB)
Based on this site alone (LIES), it seems that Obama has managed to fool everyone (JBC included) into believing that he has met the birther’s screeching demands for releasing a LFCB when he has merely released the same old short form COLB. “Fool me once”
Second – it looks kind of pathetic when you examine it closer. (Not because it’s just a copy and not an original, I’d be okay with that if the original was available for viewing but access has been repeatedly refused. But the lower right hand corner says clearly that it is a COPY or an Abstracted COPY. That’s not very convincing to me, but that’s not the reason it is pathetic.) The reason it is pathetic is the official looking backgound was added after the copy was made, which is more than a little weird (see here: http://www.henrymakow.com/imaging_expert_reports_obama_b.html ) and the information on the form was, at the least cut/pasted into the form, and at worst just drawn up in photoshop (see here: http://www.henrymakow.com/birth_certificate_pixels_dont.html )
“Fool me twice”?
Third and by far most important he’s made all the spectators to this sideshow lose sight of the ball. I defer to words chosen by Ken Apr 28 on Makow’s site as I can not be more succinct than him (the money quote is the fifth paragraph):
Ken then draws two conclusions that I do not share based on the evidence I have seen, however I include it here in fairness to Ken and in the spirit of full disclosure:
conclusion 1
conclusion 2, which sounds okay to me is this:
April 28th, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Enk, the Onion picture link of TRUMP was dead on – he needs to show his original long form birth certificate and college grades (if he even went there) before demanding it of others.
April 29th, 2011 at 5:17 am
I question whether he is right, I don’t know he isn’t but it seems Obama’s father’s history was known enough that if that is the law it would have come out back then. But I’ve been amazed through this whole ordeal how little is known about this requirement in the constitution.
But onward since there isn’t much that can be done now anyway, hopefully he will be a one termer and it will all be moot, except to prevent it in the future.
If I’m right, and I’m probably not, but if I am, this is a classic example of just not being honest. Gaski said the other day that when McCain filed he came fully loaded with all sorts of documentation since he was born on a military base (as I recall). I assume he knew it would be questioned so he over did it. Nancy and the Dems just basically said our guy is cool, he is qualified. My guess is they knew all they had was the certificate of live birth, but instead of saying this is all we have, nothing else exists, they played this hand because as in this game you don’t want to lose even the slightest bit of ground. Now they are kind of stuck.
April 29th, 2011 at 10:21 am
I’m so glad that you’ve ended all three wars in the M.E., balanced your budget and solved your energy problems so that now we can finally turn to something as crucial as Obama’s place of *birth.
Even though official doucmentation has been available for years to anyone who took 10 seconds to go and look at it.
April 29th, 2011 at 10:59 am
Actually, the quitter from twitter says Libya is just a squirmish, you betcha
*wink!*
So… this community organizer and Constitutional Law professor wants to run for IL Senate. He phones up (or snail mail or email whtvr) his state of birth and says, “can you please send me my birth certificate? thanks!” “Sent” they say. This same fellow eventually runs for US Senate. Calls them up again and says “I need another copy of my birth certificate” “here you go!” they say. Finally this gentleman runs in the Democratic primary to select the D candidate for a run at the US Presidency. He calls the state of Hawaii and asks for his BC again. “Sure, here you go!” The document sent by the state of Hawaii is legally accepted as proof of birth in every state in the union (except Wingnutistan). There are *two* different newspaper announcements from that same time period that say he was born in Hawaii on such and such a date. How do the ‘birthers’ explain that? Time travel?
Not to mention the plain as the nose on your face fact that he was born to an American citizen. Therefor he is a natural born US citizen. He could have been born on Krypton to his mother and he’d *still* be a US citizen (just super strong and stuff ;)
So please, I am all for civility, but being polite to outright racism and crazy bullsh!te is not productive. It moves the goalposts of rational conversation into outright crazy-land. Up is up (not down, sideways or whtvr) 2+2=4 (always) Mock, deride, prove the falsehoods are bullsh!te and move on.
ffs indeed
April 29th, 2011 at 11:29 am
my understanding is that 99% of the birthers don’t have a clue on this issue, but from Enk’s post it seems 99.9% of the non-birther’s don’t either.
The issues not resolved are: Long Form Birth Certificate has not been released (re-re-re-releasing the same short form certificate of live birth is not the same thing.)
the LFBC is important for some info it contains (I know not why and do not care enough to google it) which presumably will settle the technicality one way or another.
It is apparent Obama was born in Hawaii but the “technicality” issue is that his father seems to have been a British subject. Due to the way the laws were AT THE TIME OF HIS BIRTH, he supposedly does not fit the technical citicenshipo requirements.
I’m not saying it is right or that it even matters, it just bugs me to have to repeat what was more clearly stated by Ken in my post above.
Disclaimer – I think Obama sucks because he couldn’t even close Gitmo when he promised he would.
April 29th, 2011 at 11:51 am
IIf he released all the documents years ago then what is at the top of the page?
April 29th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Perhaps you should look more deeply into how the state of Hawaii sends out birth certificates when asked: they have the ‘long form’ on file, always have. When a request is made, they send out a legally valid birth certificate (I’m not going to get pedantic about the exact nomenclature, enjoy) They do not give out the long form. Obama asked for a special waiver to this *law* so as to satisfy the birthers.
Obama shouldn’t have to satisfy anyone’s demands: they need to prove he *isn’t* who he says he is. They’ll just keep moving the goalposts. ‘well, i didn’t get to hold it in *my* hands, so I think it’s a pshopped fake-a-rooney! neener!’
What makes this extra ironic is the Rs were all atwitterpated when Arnold bumped Grey Davis out of office: they wanted to change the Constitution so the Governator could run for President (oh yeah, that would’ve been great)
The birthers won’t be happy until he shows everyone his certificate of whiteness.
April 29th, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Enk,
Appreciate the irony of Arnold vis a vis Rs. Amusing. Also would like to see Trigs birth certificate before asking obama to do anything else.
I agree 100% that 90% of the birthers won’t be happy until O shows his certificate of whiteness. Most of the remaining haven’t got a clue what’s going on. It seems there are a very small % who share Ken’s theory that since his father was British or whatever but not American, that means O is not allowed to be POTUS. Sounds crazy to me too, I’m just saying O has not disproved that crazy theory. But I agree, he shouldn’t have to disprove it, onus of proof and all that. You’ve made me curious enough to spend 2 minutes on google. Result is wiki says:
And following up on that the wet towel WaPost says:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/08/AR2008120803710.html
No conclusion from the court. Just a declined to comment (I imagine that is fairly common in cases where the court thinks the case is stupid, but still they could have said so so I wouldn’t think: wtf?). Hence I am still curious as there does not seem to be enough info to bury this, yet. But let me repeat, this is purely academic to me, even if O is found to be technically not eligable to be POTUS I would demand that he remain so as he won fair and square. Even though I think he sucks.
How about that Jack Layton, eh? My son is going to elect the first Green member of parliament on Monday. All that enviro brainwashing over the past 20 years has paid off!
Has Palin released Trigs birth certificate yet?