Why are Jon Henke and I firing into our own ranks on the birther nonsense? Wouldn't it be better to take on Democrats?
Well, two answers to this. First, the WND folks are not, in any sense of the word, my people. I supported Obama, remember?
Second of all, it's not, like, true. It's not even reasonable to believe that it might be true. It is crazy nonsense. Even if everything that the truthers say were factually correct, Barack Obama was the son of an American mother, which means he is a natural born American citizen. This is a waste of time and energy that could be put to better use, like learning to play the banjo.
And third of all, as David Corn makes clear, allowing the Truthers and the Birthers to fester just sets you up for grief later on. So to the extent that I would like to vote for a Republican president in the future, if they can manage to find a candidate who doesn't actively give me hives, I think it would be nice if his campaign isn't undermined by revelations that key staff members supported the notion that Obama was a crypto-fascist secret Indonesian Muslim, or whatever.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
As with Glenn Beck, I'm barely aware of WND's existence and more than happy to dismiss either as fringe.
OTOH, it's hard to imagine a Birther being quietly appointed to a Cabinet position with no MSM coverage on the scandal until he resigned.
Birtherism seems more stupid than crazy. Trutherism required a massive conspiracy complicit in the deaths of thousands of Americans. Birtherism just requires one lie from one woman, but as you point out it wouldn't matter anyway.
Do you even know what administration jobs are "cabinet positions?" Evidently not.
Don't confuse him with the truth.
Sorry, I guess not everyone knows the exact definition of a "czar" with broad, loosely defined powers and little accountability outside of the executive.
Perhaps not, but they know what 'cabinet position' means.
But clearly you've already shown that he actually was far more powerful not being in the cabinet, even though you thought he was.
Brilliant.
I'm disappointed, BF. Your previous insults were much more entertaining than this hair-splitting.
Come on, I know you can do better.
Oh, he was just a czar. Well, I guess it was OK then,
Oh, looky here, Van Jones was just hired by the Center For American Progress.
Yes, the left is certainly keeping their crazies away from positions of influence.
Megan,
You know, I believe O is an American and I have no concerns about all the "secretly not eligible" crap or some such.
But what honestly bothers me is that the whole "transparency" thing was not being exercised with the long-form birth certificate. Just get a copy made and release it to the public for historical records, among other things. And do it up front.
People will always be crazy, but craziness only grows when there is still a rock to crawl under. In this case, it's the fact that the whole birth certificate was not released. When you want to get rid of the craziness AND you promise transparency, it's fairly easy to help both paths by just ordering the release of the whole thing.
And it's fairly insane that it's THAT difficult to get a complete copy of a president's birth certificate that is acknowledged as on file. It's not like this thing is lost or mis-filed or something.
Just my .02
Joe
P.s. Insanity will also continue to be driven as long as a news show finds that by bringing it up they can raise ratings.
Pfft. Any conspiracy theorist worth his or her salt would believe the birth certificate is a forgery. How about we just agree that Obama was elected by the people and that is the only transparency we need on the subject.
If I was a Democrat Party bigwig I would be urging Obama to keep that birth certificate locked up. Every nutcase birther who appears in public claiming some creat conspiracy is one more bit of evidence that the Republicans are crazy. It's like free political advertising. Why would you want it to stop?
I agree. I have no questions about Obama's legitimacy as president, but I'd like him to release the long form and it's quite odd that he hasn't.
My favorite truther memory is the guy on Democratic Underground that "proved" the WTC couldn't have collapsed from the jets by setting a rabbit cage on fire with gasoline. Since it didn't collapse, a 100 story steel frame building with thousands of gallons of jet fuel shouldn't either.
Say what you will, but believing someone's birth certificate is wrong is far less crazy than that.
Since yours should clearly state 'stillborn', then you might be right, my deranged troll colleague.
Was there supposed to be a relationship between the comment you were replying to and your ad hominem? Or, was this just a random response good for any thread on any blog?
I'm starting to wonder if the imposter "Basic Fact" is actually Andrew Sullivan. It would explain so much....
I think the lesson of trutherism and birtherism is to be very careful what you sign on to as a person aspiring to public life. According to Rasmussen, ~30% of Americans think the CIA/Bush "knew" about the 9/11 attacks before they occured.
This is usually taken to mean that 30% of Americans believe that Bush et.al. were involved in a massive conspiracy killing thousands of Americans. But Rasmussen doesn't ask about conspiracy. It just says "Did they know?"
Well, if by "did they know?" you mean, "did they have some reason to believe that Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Muhammed might be intending to hijack planes and drive them into buildings?", the answer is fairly banal: uh, yeah.
Course, interpreting "knew" as "knew something like this was coming" automatically transfers one to the camp of "conspired to make it happen". Which is why folks need to be careful what they sign up for.
Let me write slow so that McArdle and Henke can understand, although it won't do much good since both are lacking in intellectual honesty:
1. Did Hawaii's governor verify that Obama was born in her state? That's a fairly easy question: find a clear statement - a direct quote from her - in which she verifies in her official capacity that he was born there. (Throw-away lines on the campaign trail referencing him being from HI don't count).
2. Did CNN, the NYT, and the AP all strongly imply that HI's governor verified he was born there? (See the FAX at the last link for the first two).
3. OK, now if McArdle is even just a tiny bit intellectually honest, she'll see that CNN/NYT/AP deceived people over this issue.
4. Then, she'll note that I'm the only person who's pointed that out, and it will take just a tiny bit more intellectual honesty for her to realize that she's enabling CNN/NYT/AP to mislead people. She's not calling them on their deception; she's implying that they've told the truth about this issue.
5. In other words, McArdle, Henke, and the small number of others are enabling the BHO-supporting MSM to mislead. Most people will see that as them helping the other side.
P.S. BTW, I used to blog at TheNextRight, until I was banned about a month ago. I sent several emails and spoke to both Patrick Ruffini and Soren Dayton on the phone asking for an explanation. They both promised to get me an explanation but never did. I didn't get one until a few days ago from Henke: because I'd posted a couple entries with "Birther nonsense". Except, both simply pointed out that HowardKurtz and NRO were lying about the basic, cut-and-dried facts of this matter.
Not only that, but Henke somehow thinks he has some right to my copyrighted content, despite the fact that there was no agreement in place, I wasn't paid money to post there, there are/were spam links in comments on my entries that may be negatively impacting my search engine reputation, and I intended to delete my entries there for that and other reasons. (Because of their spam problem and other issues, Google may now or in the future consider TheNextRight what Google calls a "bad neighborhood", and they recommend against linking to "bad neighborhoods" if you want to remain in Google's good graces. I would never link to TheNextRight for that reason.)
To summarize: they banned me, they refused to tell me why for about a month, and then somehow think they have some right to my property.
And, regarding the whole "Birthers" issue, see my discussion here of how it shows once again that many of Obama's supposed opponents are incompetent and end up helping him and the Dems.
This message board really does cover all hues of the mental illness rainbow.
That was quick. So, tell me, what's insane about pointing out that CNN/NYT/AP were being deceptive?
1. Did Hawaii's governor verify that Obama was born in her state? That's a fairly easy question: find a clear statement - a direct quote from her - in which she verifies in her official capacity that he was born there.
Direct quote, verifying state of birth, in official capacity. OK, here ya go:
"I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."
Now, is that clear enough, or should I assume that you're going to concoct some reason why even *that* is still insufficient by your standards of proof?
I knew I should have written my comment in crayons.
My comment was referring to HI's governor, and your comment is referring to the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health. Those are two different people. Do you understand that?
Let me try to give an example you might understand. Let's say that CNN says that McArdle questions Trig's birth. Just because her colleague Sully questions Trig's birth doesn't mean that CNN is correct; CNN is still lying.
If that example isn't understandable, is there a kindergarten teacher around here who could help Loren understand my point?
Yep, my mistake. I guess I got my wires crossed as I foolishly assumed you'd prefer the word of the official who heads the Department of Health over the governor from Missouri. I should have realized my mistake: the birther standard of proof is perpetually defined as one more level of proof than what's already been proffered.
For instance, I don't believe for a second that a statement from Lingle would satisfy you either. Last December you were complaining about how Fukino's statements weren't clear and declarative enough, but not making any demands for statements from the governor.
Sure enough, Fukino finally makes a statement that is unequivocally in support of Obama's Hawaiian birth, and what's your response? To say, "OK, Fukino cleared up the ambiguities I had, so I'm good"? No, now you demand a statement from the governor too.
Loren: The first line of my comment refers to HI's governor. The only place on this page that Missouri occurs is in your comment. So, you seem to have a problem.
Of course, you seem to have other problems as well, including the complete inability to understand the point of my initial comment.
The point of my initial comment was to point out that CNN grossly deceived their viewers. That's actually independent from the other aspects of this issue.
So, for instance, if a video of BHO's birth was releaased with doctors all wearing leis, that wouldn't change the fact that CNN grossly deceived their viewers.
Understanding this issue - and my take on it - is an IQ and integrity test, and Loren has failed.
Laura Lingle is from Missouri. Granted, I haven't seen her birth certificate, so maybe her bio is a lie, and she was actually born in Mexico. That's a lot closer to Missouri than Kenya is to Hawaii, after all.
The point of my initial comment was to point out that CNN grossly deceived their viewers.
So CNN reported "The Republican governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, on record, she says Obama was indeed born in her state." And you yourself quote where Lingle said to Tom Brokaw that Obama was born in Hawaii. And you think that the problem is CNN?
Y'know, forget it. Clearly there's no evidentiary standard that will ever satisfy you. And you'll just change the subject to something like 'I think CNN exaggerated!' when confronted with facts.
CNN mentioned Lingle in the context of a debunking, and if someone didn't know anything about this issue they'd think that Lingle had - in response to the controversy - looked at BHO's records and confirmed in her official capacity that he was born there.
In fact, as pointed out at the link in my first comment, Lingle did nothing of the sort. She simply referenced BHO being born there on the campaign trail in passing in order to point out his lack of ties to her state. She didn't say anything about where he was born in response to this issue; she only mentioned it on the campaign trail and in an attempt to downgrade his ties to HI.
So, if you're honest, that's extraordinarily deceptive. If you're a BHO fan, well, the truth is a bit flexible.
Even if everything that the truthers say were factually correct, Barack Obama was the son of an American mother, which means he is a natural born American citizen.
I agree completely with your rejection of the truthers' claims, Megan, but the above is actually quite debatable - and the constant mischaracterization of the state of the law in this area almost certainly feeds the conspiratorial flames. I myself did not realize this until my first child was born overseas to my foreign spouse and US-citizen me, but under at least those circumstances (child born abroad to one citizen and one non-citizen spouse), I had to establish to the consulate's satisfaction that our child was entitled to US citizenship. Establishing that I myself was a citizen was not sufficient: If I remember correctly, I had to show that I had resided in the US for a minimum period of time, and that I had resided in the US for at least 2 (or was it 5?) years since I was fourteen. If 5 years, it was actually a little dicey for me, as I had spent all but barely five years of my life since turning 14 overseas.
In Obama's case, given that his mother was 19 (?) and that the statutory period was, I believe, longer in the 60s (5 or 10 years), it's entirely possible that, had he in fact been born abroad even to his undeniably American mother, he would not have been eligible for citizenship at birth and would have had to seek naturalization instead.
And the above analysis doesn't even get into the question of whether, for purposes of Article II, obtaining citizenship as my first child did qualifies as being a natural-born citizen. I remember having questions about it at the time - yes, I'm an ambitious parent - but I was never able to resolve it to my satisfaction (this was before I went to law school, and I've never thought to go back and actually figure it out).
My children were both born outside the US, but both their father and I are and always have been US citizens. I don't recall any trouble getting a report of birth abroad of a US citizen for each of them. The reports verify that they became US citizens at birth. How, then, could they be anything other than 'natural-born citizens'? They're clearly citizens, and they clearly have not been and could not be naturalized citizens, since they have been citizens since birth. Why would physical location at an arbitrary point in time make a difference, except for those who can only acquire US citizenship through our odd secondary track?
But the situation of my children is different, since both of their parents were life-long US citizens. I suppose Obama's situation is complicated somewhat by the fact that only one of his parents was an American.
Based on the rules about residing in the US for so many years after the age of 14, does that mean that if two 18-year old US citizens had a child while living overseas, the child might be stateless? After all, few countries have some weird secondary citizenship track based on location at time of birth, so if you don't get citizenship from your parents, how do you get it?
Ann - Check out the State Department page linked to below (http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html). You'll see that children born in mixed-citizen marriages are treated differently from children born in US-citizen marriages. (And that, interestingly enough, the residence requirements for the U.S. citizen mother in an out-of-wedlock birth are actually less onerous than the residence requirements for a U.S. citizen mother or father in a birth in wedlock. Nobody said that the law has to make any sense.)
I would not be surprised if stateless children were a fairly common (though increasingly less so) phenomenon. In many Asian countries until recently, citizenship passed only through the father, leaving, for example, many illegitimate children of US-military/local-women liasons effectively stateless.
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_citizen_of_the_United_States) has a good summary of the dispute over what exactly natural-born citizen means: It's complicated by the fact that none of the relevant statutory provisions employ the term, and there's a wide range of opinions, with some holding that those who receive citizenship via statute (as those who are born abroad do) rather than through operation of the Constitution (as those who are born in US territory do) are not natural born citizens. You may recall that Obama was not the only 2008 candidate whose eligibility was challenged: John McCain's was as well, born as he was on a military base in Panama, and academics held differing views on the matter.
I hate to bring this up, since giving aid and comfort to the birthers is evil, but you made a major error.
"Even if everything that the truthers say were factually correct, Barack Obama was the son of an American mother, which means he is a natural born American citizen."
Incorrect. See http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html
In order for person born abroad to one US parent between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986 to qualify for US citizenship, the US parent must have physically resided in the US for at least 10 years, at least five of which are after the age of 14. Obama's mother was 18 when Obama was born (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham), so the last requirement is not met.
Is this true? I've heard people say this doesn't actually apply, but I'm not sure why.
It's true. The people saying that it doesn't apply are, at best, pitifully ignorant.
If Obama was born to his mother outside of the US, then he is legally not a "Natural Born US Citizen", just at John McCain legally is a "Natural Born US Citizen", even though he was born in the Canal Zone.
Megan,
If you're going to try to "correct the crazies", it would behoove you to actually have some clue on what you're talking about before you shoot your mouth (fingers?) off.
And if you don't think a single mother might want to game the system to make sure that she can keep her son if there's a custody fight, then your ignorance about the human condition is even worse than your ignorance about US law.
It doesn't apply if BHO's parents weren't legally married, and his dad didn't get divorced before he married Stanley Ann. And citizenship law regarding children born out of wedlock to US Citizen mothers is incredibly lenient. See INA 309(c).
It’s incorrect to say that if Barack Obama were born abroad he would be a natural born U.S. citizen. Due to the law that was in effect in 1961 he wouldn’t be a U.S. citizen at birth because his mother was very young and his father wasn’t a U.S. citizen. While there are no laws in the U.S. that define what the constitutional term “natural born citizen” means it’s reasonable to believe that if someone is not a citizen at birth then he is not a “natural born citizen”.
The first I knew of the is-O-eligible business was when a Democrat stirred it up. I suppose he was a Hellary supporter. Lacking any other knowledge, I suppose that O probably is eligible, but that there must be something terribly embarrassing on his Birth Certificate that causes him to deny access to it. But it is not obviously loony to doubt my generous interpretation - perhaps the birth certificate is worse than embarrassing.
WND has raised the strong possibility that the "accepted narrative" has holes. That means that BHO may have lied - or repeated false information - in his book. McArdle doesn't want you to bother with messy things like that.
McArdle also can't get her mind around the possibility that it might not be the birthplace so much as the other things: school records and so on. The Berg case requested those of BHO, not just a birth cert.
Also, what few others know is that the Obama campaign creatively edited a Jerome Corsi quote in an attempt to make him look bad. They deleted a whole sentence from one of his paragraphs without noting that the sentence had been deleted.
Maybe McArdle and Henke could ask OFA/DNC if they would be interested in joinging forces to fight against Corsi, or something.
Sounds like they are students of the Maureen Dowd/New York Times school of editing.
Well, the fake certificate I saw had Frank Marshall (if I'm remembering the last name correctly) listed as the father.
If it were a real certificate, I'm sure we would have heard more about it.
Megan,
Before I disagree with some of the details of your post, allow me to agree with your major point: Republicans should dissociate themselves from the Birther movement. With that out of the way, allow me to make three comments:
First, you are incorrect when you say, Even if everything that the truthers say were factually correct, Barack Obama was the son of an American mother, which means he is a natural born American citizen. At the time Obama was born, US law included a residency requirement for the child of a US citizen to automatically have US citizenship. That is, Barack's mother would have had to live (IIRC) in the US for 5 years after reaching her 16th birthday. Since she was less than 21 when Obama was born, he would not automatically be a US citizen by birth if his birth took place outside the US. (Note: I've not bothered to refresh my memory by looking up the actual statute nor Obama's mother's age, but I have done so in the past. The important point is that she could not have conferred citizenship on her son because she could not have met the residency requirement.) So, the question of where he was born matters.
Second, I believe all the evidence points to his being born in Hawaii. I have no doubt that is where he was born. However, it's not "crazy" to believe otherwise. If Obama had to prove he was born in Hawaii in a court of law, he might not be able to do so based on the public record (much of the evidence might not be admissible depending on the rules of evidence that would apply). Indeed, Obama might not be able to obtain a passport or a professional license (in my state he'd need to provide a certified copy of his birth certificate -- I'm not sure if the state board would accept Hawaii's "certificate of live birth" in lieu of the actual birth certificate). Is it all that unreasonable for someone to demand the same level of proof that would be required by a court or a state board?
Third, while Republicans should distance themselves from birthers, why does this seem to be a one-way obligation? Many mainstream Democrats flocked to and praised Michael Moore's truther movie. He was welcomed and feted at their national convention. When Republicans appear on national TV, they are frequently asked if they listen to and agree with Rush Limbaugh. Why aren't Democrats asked similar questions about Keith Olberman? Despite all their associations with the left's loonies, Democrats won control of Congress and the Presidency. Why should Republicans think the public will be less understanding of their fringe's excesses?
"Many mainstream Democrats flocked to and praised Michael Moore's truther movie. He was welcomed and feted at their national convention."
What a great point! Why would they have such a wacko at their national convention?
It's not crazy to believe that 19-year-old Ann Dunham flew literally halfway around the world, while pregnant, to give birth in a third-world country and in a city that didn't even have an international airport, only to turn right around and hightail it back to the U.S. within days to falsely register her baby's birthplace as Hawaii, all while erasing any evidence or memory that she'd ever been to Africa at all?
I believe we have different definitions of "crazy."
What evidence is there that Stanley was the one who registered the birth/initiated newspaper announcements? Answer: there is none. That doesn't mean she didn't do it, it just means that there's no proof she did it.
Real proof would involve an actual paper trail or at the least documentation of how things were done then. No one has provided that.
So you think the state of Hawaii would issue a birth certificate to someone who couldn't produce a baby?
Because otherwise, the baby has to be back in Hawaii. And if the baby's back, it's hard to imagine any circumstances that Ann wouldn't be. And as the Certification states, the registrar filed the birth on August 8, four days after the birth.
1. No gov't agency has ever authenticated the picture of a COLB that's shown on BHO's site.
2. What exact proof is there that someone would have to habeas babius in order to get a cert? Apparently you don't have to habeas babius (link, link).
Jesus.
Really people?
None of it matters anymore. The horse has left the barn, Barak Obama was certified to run and is now President of the United States.
Let it go....find something more worthy of your time...
Did the Bush administration KNOW there would be an attack?
Of course not.
Did the Clinton administration warn them there might be an attack at some point in the future using planes.
Sure.
Was the information relegated to a pile of unimportant memos?
Maybe.
So is it possible that human error caused the previous administration to be caught with their pants down.
None of this needs anymore investigation.
Let it go....find something more worthy of your time. The Bush administration broke more then enough laws without adding 9/11 to the pile.
But like I have said before, if conservatives want the crazytrain to be what the voters in the middle think of when they think "Republican" then go right ahead and embrace your inner Michelle Bachmann.
I'll get the popcorn.
I've been thinking about learning the banjo. It looks like fun.
OK, let's try one that's even easier for McArdle and Henke.
1. CNN president Jon Klein and CNN's "political researchers" claimed that HI had discarded their paper records. (Klein had Dobbs repeat that claim on his show.)
2. A HI spokeswoman told Jerome Corsi that CNN's claim was false: "When the department went electronic in 2001, vital records, whether in paper form or any other form, [were] maintained. We don't destroy records.".
3. So, CNN got it wrong. Not only that, they haven't yet issued a correction AFAIK. I'd like to get a correction from them in order to make them look bad. Meanwhile, McArdle, Henke, and their small group of friends would dismiss any concerns about CNN's false claim as "Birther nonsense".
4. Who's side are McArdle and Henke effectively on? And, more importantly, are they on the side of telling the truth?
Megan, so just to get you on record. You are voting for Obama in 2012 because Sarah Palin gives you hives?
"And third of all, as David Corn makes clear, allowing the Truthers and the Birthers to fester just sets you up for grief later on. So to the extent that I would like to vote for a Republican president in the future, if they can manage to find a candidate who doesn't actively give me hives, I think it would be nice if his campaign isn't undermined by revelations that key staff members supported the notion that Obama was a crypto-fascist secret Indonesian Muslim, or whatever."
Oh, please.
Allowing these people to "fester" doesn't have ANY effect on your candidate. The Democrat Party is perfectly content that a plurality of its members are Truthers. You haven't seen any important Democrats try to purge Truthers from their party in the way that Henke is trying to purge birthers. And the fact that Truthers comprise a large segment of the Democrat Party had ZERO effect on Obama's election. It was never an issue.
Moreover, it isn't an issue now. It cost Obama exactly one green jobs czar - a person who was a wacky left-wing fringer anyway (a self proclaimed communist, natch). Have you seen Democrats start to purge Truthers from their party even after the Van Jones resignation? Uh, no. Because they know perfectly well that their existence in the party is completely irrelevant to electoral results (if not having a positive effect on electoral resutls).
I said it on the previous post about Henke and the Birthers and I'll say it again now. Henke is hurting the party far FAR more than the fringe Birthers are. If Henke cares at all about the Republican Party, he ought to stop. Immediately.
I have to agree, it doesn't make any difference. In fact, having crazy people in your party can be a big help. They are the shock troops who sacrifice their own credibility to smear your enemies.
Worked pretty well for Dems.
Just to be clear - I agree with Megan that the Birther stuff is "crazy nonsense". But it is irrelevant crazy nonsense. What Henke and Megan are doing is actually harmful to Republicans.
Alex, I can't see how what they're doing is, in any way, harmful to Republicans overall. Can you explain?
I can't speak for Alex S, but I outlined my argument here, and I reiterated it in this post about Ed Morrissey of Hot Air. They're basically doing what the MSM/Dems want them to do, which is fine... if your goal is to help the Dems.
And, see my comments on this page for how the "anti-Birthers" aren't taking on the BHO-supporting MSM over the MSM's lies about easy-to-understand, cut-and-dried facts such as whether someone said something or not.
OK, just one more, but a bit different.
Back in October 2008, Corsi went to Kenya and was shortly detained because - as they say - "his documents were not in order". Here's my round-up of reaction from Obama supporters. (Hint: the word "fascists" is used).
Then, as reported by the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (link), it turned out that: the initial explanation offered by the authorities for his deportation was that his travel documents were not in order. But it emerged on Wednesday that his deportation squarely lay on his suspect intentions and mission in the country, the launch of an anti-Obama book. According to [Foreign affairs minister Moses Wetangula], Corsi who was in the country on a tourist visa was ordered to leave the country by the immigration department.
If this happened today, does anyone think the reaction of McArdle, Jon Henke, and their small group of friends would be much different from that of "Booman" or those at the DailyKos?
Orly, don't you have some disbarment proceedings to prepare for?
Obviously, I'm not Orly. Just as obviously, comments like that are all the BHO fans are capable of.
In fact, I've repeatedly challenged anyone to find anything false, misleading, or illogical in my extensive coverage, and all those challenges have resulted in are comments like that or more lies and misleading statements from BHO fans.
If BHO fans want to be useful, start an "Obama fans for Megan McArdle and Jon Henke" group, if there isn't one like that already.
I thought this was neat:
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
- George Orwell
Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.
- John Derbyshire
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.
- Thomas Friedman
Friedman has won three Pulitzer Prizes (or as I like to call them, "Walter Duranty Freedom Prizes").
Ooh, well done.
Megan : I think it would be nice if his campaign isn't undermined by revelations that key staff members supported the notion that Obama was a crypto-fascist secret Indonesian Muslim, or whatever...
Did statements like this undermine your support for Obama?
From Jay Nordlinger at NRO...
I predict that U.S. senators will not joke about killing Obama.
In 2006, Bill Maher had a conversation with John Kerry. He asked Kerry what he’d gotten his wife for her birthday. Kerry said he had treated her to a vacation in Vermont. Maher said, “You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone.” Kerry replied, “Or I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone.”
This is the same Kerry who, in 1988, said, “Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they’re to shoot Quayle.” Then he said, “There isn’t any press here, is there?”
I predict that a New York official will not tell a graduating class about assassinating President Obama.
Also in 2006, comptroller Alan Hevesi said to students at Queens College that Sen. Charles Schumer, his fellow Democrat, would “put a bullet between the president’s eyes if he could get away with it.”
I've heard nastier jokes from politicians than that Quayle one. And when you talk of killing birds with stones, literal murder is not generally assumed to be implied.
Seriously, is this the best you've got, smearing John Kerry with bad jokes from two decades ago?
Jules' post at 1:14 ("Let it go people...") is pretty wise advice for both birthers and truthers. Many do struggle to let it go given that in both cases there may be some "there" there, but not enough in either case to do anything useful for our country.
For the truthers, Bojinka (linked in my post above) pretty much puts paid to the Bushian meme that no one could have dreamed of a suicide hijack planes plot. But so what? Should we launch a massive inquisition into who should have known what, and when? Will that be a net plus in our fight against Islamic Jihad? I'm guessing probably not.
For the birthers, maybe a frightened Ann Dunham fudged some stuff to keep her boy with her in the US, rather than losing him to her married-how-many-other-times ex-husband in Africa. Again, so what? Is Kenya going to invade the US to take back their Obama? I'm guessing probably not.
I get the sense that we should hold a giant festival for the birthers and the truthers (maybe two festivals), at which there will be games and dancing, and in the parting bag of goodies will be a statement to the effect of "yeah, not everything is always exactly as it seems...country first, though".
If "Ann Dunham fudged some stuff to keep her" son, then her son, Obama, is not a natural born citizen of the US. That would mean he's not qualified to serve as President. Maybe you're okay with blowing off such a constitutional requirement, but I suspect a lot of people are not. As I said above, I believe Obama was born in Hawaii. However, if it were proven that he were born outside the US, we'd have a mess. I have no desire to see that mess nor do I have any idea how it would be resolved (are there scarier words in the English language than "President Biden"?). Despite my desire to avoid such a mess, I'd rather we dealt with it than simply ignoring the Constitution (assuming for the sake of argument that it were proven that Obama was born outside the US).
Where do you come down on that question? Would Ann Dunham's fudging stuff be a mere technicality that we could safely ignore or, knowing Obama does not meet the constitutional requirement of being naturally born, should we address the question?
Bingo. Got it in one. We are okay with the infinitesimal chance that we are blowing off a constitutional requirement. He won the popular vote, he was certified by the electoral college, the certification was accepted by the congress -- there's nothing to be done now and we don't care.
(And I'm a McCain voter baffled that the American people could choose such an untested neophyte with zero executive experience.)
That's another good point. We're talking about dying to take a hill that most of us would gladly amend out of existence if we had reason to care. Does anyone care about the natural born bit, aside from people using it to smear Obama?
Personally, I'm from Canada. Canada has had 22 Prime Ministers, of whom 4 were born outside the country, including our founder. It took us a quarter century to have a Canadian-born Prime Minister. Our current Governor-General was born outside Canada. Most people don't even notice these things, and most of the ones who do don't care.
The fact that anyone cares, even if the allegations are true, seems pretty impressive to me.
I'm confused: are you a BHO fan, or are you just a somewhat clever satire of one?
Because, the idea that we should just sweep gross incompetence, malfeasance, and the MSM outrageously lying about simple facts for the greater good is incredibly un-American.
Did y'all read the full report about Bojinka? The part about the 1995 revelation about KSM's intent to drive a plane into the CIA headquarters? Murad's confession, in summer 1995, of basically the details of 9/11? In light of the Bush Administration's later hand-wringing that "nothing like 9/11 could ever be imagined" (cite, obviously, not necessary), "MSM outrageously lying about simple facts" is hardly the sole province of left-leaning folks.
Obama was probably born in Hawaii. Maybe not. If not, we can deal with that.
The CIA probably fumbled the ball on the Murad confession in war-gaming 9/11. Maybe not. Either way, we can deal with that.
FWIW, I'm not partisan. Actually, even if I were, who would care? In real life I am neither a Pete nor an L. So what would be the point of partisanship back here?
I'm simply saying that shit happens across the political spectrum, and shrill partisans boringly focus only on the other guy's (alleged or otherwise) shit.
Megan: Do you read this and weep?
Um, if we're going to throw the law around, we might as well consider a second scenario (disclosure: I am a 13 year immigration officer), at least as a thought experiment:
A brief google search shows that BHO was born in 1961, prior to Ann Dunham's 19th birthday. Ann Dunham was married to BHO the elder in February 1961, making BHO the younger a child born in wedlock, correct?
Actually, not so simple. Further google searches inform me that papa BHO was already married in Kenya, and he lied about having previously gotten divorced. There's some allegedly sentimental blather about wife #1 giving permission to take a second wife, but at that point my bureaucrat's instincts screech to a halt. U.S. immigration law (and that includes citizenship law) has NEVER recognized polygamous marriages; the only exception is the first marriage, which is considered the "real" one. Ann Dunham was a second wife, so for immigration purposes she ain't married. Thus, even if we presume that, however unlikely it was in real life, BHO was born in Kenya or Indonesia, the section of law cited above (First by Stephen at 12:56) is misapplied, as it specifically relates to children born in wedlock to one US Citizen parent and one alien parent. The proper section of law, if we take as truth the idea that papa BHO was a bigamist, is Immigration and Nationality Act Section 309(c), which states "... [n]otwithstanding the provision of subsection (a) of this section, a person born, after December 23, 1952, outside the United States and out of wedlock shall be held to have acquired at birth the nationality status of his mother, if the mother had the nationality of the United States at the time of such person's birth, and if the mother had previously been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year." I do not believe that there is any dispute that BHO junior was born after 1952, or that Ann Dunham lived in the United States at least one year in a row before baby 'Bama was born. Therefore, if I've got my cards lined up correctly, this whole issue is really...a non-issue.
Notice that the "Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent in Wedlock" section of the law says that "A child born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) INA" while the "Birth Abroad Out-of-Wedlock to a U.S. Citizen Mother" section does not contain the "at birth" language. So, it's not a non-issue.
"... [n]otwithstanding the provision of subsection (a) of this section, a person born, after December 23, 1952, outside the United States and out of wedlock shall be held to have acquired at birth the nationality status of his mother, if the mother had the nationality of the United States at the time of such person's birth, and if the mother had previously been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year."
Did I miss something?
You're right. The http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html link that you referred to doesn't contain the "at birth" language but the law itself does. I had to google a portion of your quote to track the law down.
Wow. So have we conclusively established that Obama was (A) born illegitimate, but (B) legitimately "natural-born"?
OK, time for a wrap-up:
1. No one has been able to find even one thing that's false, misleading, or illogical about any of my coverage.
2. As others have pointed out, McArdle has a problem with the facts.
3. As I'll point out now, McArdle has shown zero interest in doing any real reporting. If she were, she'd be on the phone to Hawaii getting the answers to the questions in my FAX.
And, an exit question: does anyone think that Jon Henke is a qualified - or even a competent - political strategist?
Megan sure does have a way of bringing the Birchers out of the woodwork.
How exactly is calling CNN/NYT/AP and a host of other sources on their lies and misleading statements a "Bircher" position?
The "Birchers" are and were right about some things, and wrong about others. It shouldn't take that much intelligence and integrity to be able to pick and choose, but obviously it does.
Personally, I haven't been able to understand your "coverage" - you seem to be plucking facts out of random places and then pointing at the ensuing mess and asserting that it means something. Maybe I'm missing some context, but I wouldn't even know where to begin refuting you, because I really have no idea about most of what you're trying to say.
Unfortunately, I've always been waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for "reinforcements". What I've done is documented how for over a year various MSM sources have lied and misled about the simple facts of this matter. What I hoped for was an "explainer" type to come along and help you. You, the type of person who writes "for Dummies" books, someone who can retail my coverage so that people like you can understand it.