Hey Look!!! It's Obama's Birth Certificate!

[Boris Godunov]

I seem to recall making a bet with TCO that once the birth certificate was released (if ever), it wouldn't show anything out of the ordinary. Where is he these days? I'll have to dig up the bet when I have time...

[Docfeelgood]

As I said above, this isn't "I hate ******s!" racism. This is the unspoken, innate, cultural "soft" racism we are all guilty of from time to time. This quite simply would not be an issue if he were white, plain and simple.

There are 1,001 legit reasons to dislike Obama. I have more than a few myself. Birtherism makes it all too easy for all opposition to be denigrated as racist since birtherism is so obviously itself racist.



DFG: just stop it. Stop it.

stop what?

[Docfeelgood]

If you guys feel guilty that is fine with me, but don't try to lay that white mans guilt **** on me.

I have nothing to feel guilty about.

[Guynemer]

Well, there is the matter of your stupendous credulity and breathtakingly asinine behavior, for starters.

[Docfeelgood]

Well, there is the matter of your stupendous credulity and breathtakingly asinine behavior, for starters.

ok

[rah]

I have absolutely no problem with the pre-election vetting.

Then why did you post

But take an honest look at the roots of the movement.

This all started before the election.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Then why did you post

This all started before the election.

At the risk of speaking for JR, I think he followed conventional wisdom in thinking the birtherism was a movement initiated by hard core anti-obamots (Read GOP and likely fringey types even by tea partier standards.)

Having not known any better until the Politico article, I would have defaulted to the same position. Now upon reflection, it makes much better sense. All the best kooks and wing nuts have given us such conspiracies as: trutherism, birtherism, and Trigerism.

[rah]

I see overlap, and I think it's futile to debate exactly where it changes from those initial challenges to when it was taken over by the nuts. It's still my opinion that the initial challenges was simple politics and not necessarily racially motivated. The articles posted seem to support that.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

My point is that it always was part of the 'nuts' crowd both as it started and later as it matured as a movement. The right wing kooks are off their rockers first and foremost for ever believing a Clinton-ite in the first place.

[-Jrabbit]

Then why did you post

This all started before the election.

Our misunderstanding lies in the timeline. I was talking about the Birther Movement (which didn't have a name in 2008).

And your statement triggered me. "Questioning whether a candidate is legit based on birth or residence is common practice in Chicago," is just not true. Residence? Constantly questioned. Signatures? Constantly questioned. Birthplace? No. Not in Chicago.

I see now that you were talking about the vetting process in general (though you said Chicago), and on that we agree (including questioning birthplace/citizenship where that's a legal requirement to hold office).

When you expanded that to say that calling birthers racist is uncalled for, well, that's a two-way street. Remember, these are the same people who are calling Obama a Kenyan, a secret Muslim, etc. And once the initial, legitimate legal challenge is met, there are only so many reasons for not letting it go. And yes, being a racist is one of them. Sure, some of it is people who really do want to "take our country back" from the evil Dems and libs. But a lot this just doesn't pass the sniff test.

I'm well aware of the fact that birtherism all started with Hillary supporters. That was actually my point: the question was asked and answered.

So my issue is post-election. The election was over 2.5 yrs ago, the primaries almost 3. Every birther theory and alleged "evidence" has been long discredited. Yet it remained an "issue" among the people I'm talking about - right-wing fringers, conspiracy nuts, sour grapes losers, and yes, closet (and not-so-closet) racists. Not to mention the media, OMG the effing Murdoch media, which refused to let this die.

Fun fact: every birther I know personally (and sadly, via Facebook, I know several) is also a Tea Partier. They have been strangely silent the past couple days. I guess they're waiting for their new marching orders.

[rah]

Was what was released yesterday released before?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

In actuality the propogation of the myth of birtherism was far more covered by the non-Murdoch media cable new outlets than Faux news. Reason being is it allowed a ongoing development of the meme that right wingers are teh crazy. The thing had a life of its own more often than not given life or at least visibility via snarkvision.

key graph

Indexing of last week’s news coverage by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that of the three main cable news channels, MSNBC hosts spent substantially more time talking about the citizenship issue than those on CNN or Fox News. What were they saying? That the theory was ludicrous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/bu...l?ref=politics

[-Jrabbit]

Fair enough. I'm more than happy to blame all the media.

[-Jrabbit]

Was what was released yesterday released before?

Now you're just baiting me. Obviously not.

What was released previously meets every citizenship test used by any state or federal department. And the bonus evidence of hospital records and newspaper birth announcements support it all, without so much as a typo. This includes a sworn statement by the Republican, McCain-supporting governor of Hawaii at the time, attesting that they had the original and verifying its legitimacy.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Now you're just baiting me. Obviously not.

What was released previously meets every citizenship test used by any state or federal department. And the bonus evidence of hospital records and newspaper birth announcements support it all, without so much as a typo. This includes a sworn statement by the Republican, McCain-supporting governor of Hawaii at the time, attesting that they had the original and verifying its legitimacy.

That seals it. I was firmly in the non-birther camp but not a single typo. That boggles the mind as a statistical impossibility. Remove the imposter immediately