Appeasement: Obama Accommodates Racist Conspiracy Theorists

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tiassa, Apr 27, 2011.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Bury Bachmann For Her Dishonesty

    Well, think of it this way. Even here at Sciforums, we've argued about the Certification of Live Birth.

    George Stephanopolous put before Rep. Bachmann the same sort of argument we've seen many times before, and when cornered, on television, facing the facts, Bachmann had a choice.

    She could, for instance, explain why a legally binding document is not good enough.

    Or, perhaps, she could concede the point.

    Instead, she came up with a fairly creative solution: She pretended she'd never seen this document before.

    "I have the president's certificate right here," he said. "It's certified, it's got a certification number. It's got the registrar of the state signed. It's got a seal on it. And it says 'this copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding.'"

    Bachmann replied, "Well, then that should settle it."

    "So it's over?" the host asked.

    "That's what should settle it," she said. "I take the president at his word and I think — again I would have no problem and apparently the president wouldn't either. Introduce that, we're done. Move on."

    "Well this has been introduced. So this story is over?" Stephanopoulos pressed.

    "Well as long as someone introduces it I guess it's over," she said, adding later, "That is not the main issue facing the United States right now."


    (Haberman; boldface accent added)

    In other words: "Well, as long as someone introduces what has been on the record for us to consider for over two years ...."

    Apparently, it's everyone else's fault for not having raised the issue before.

    That is, nobody ever introduced the Certification of Live Birth, pointed out its attributes as a genuine document, or established its authority in related legal proceedings.

    Imagine that. We've had this document for over two years. We've talked about it many times before. And if oh, only someone had introduced the document before George Stephanopolous mentioned it in April, 2011, the issue could have been settled.

    Yeah. That counts as a victory.

    This is the sort of argument, though, that drives after the heart of a president's legitimacy.

    As far as I'm concerned, after Bachmann embarrassed the hell out of herself and every Birther in the world, Obama could have let it sit. The Birthers acknowledged, "If only someone had shown us what we have been refusing to acknowledge for over two years. Even though we've looked at it and argued that it's illegitimate, we're losing this battle, so if only you'd shown it to us two years ago—if only you weren't so evil and dishonest as to hide this from us—we could have been done with it. This is all your fault."

    That would have been a poetically—and politically—brilliant end to Obama's involvement with the Birther issue.

    There is no legal reason for Obama to release the document. The Certification of Live Birth is legally sufficient, and Birthers have besmirched the states throughout this argument.

    Except for getting a prominent Birther to acknowledge that what we've had all along is sufficient. That's not a failure. Indeed, the fact that Bachmann had to try to blame other people—"Well as long as someone introduces it I guess it's over"—only raises a familiar question: If one cannot be bothered to educate themselves about the basic facts of a situation, what credibility do we owe their opinion of that situation?

    Seriously, if Bachmann isn't to be taken as a politician trying a transparently underhanded trick that isn't going to work, then she's admitting she's as big of an idiot as people have long suspected. I mean, really, how could you be one of the leading Birthers in Congress and not be aware of the Certification of Live Birth?

    Indeed, I'm quite sure that if I bother to track back through the months, we'll find Rep. Bachmann telling us what is wrong with the Certification, and why the long form is necessary. That is, we'll find that she was already aware of what she said needed to be introduced.

    You don't get a prominent politician up against the wall like this very often. And for whatever reason, Obama made sure that Bachmann and the Birthers—hey, is that a band name, yet?—could make their getaway.

    I take your point, but in the flurry of punditry taking place today are some ideas about what this means for the politics. For instance, some would say that Obama should have let the Birthers dangle and make Republicans look even crazier. Others would suggest that the GOP will not be able to escape the gravity of the Birther/Tea Party movement, and thus Obama has put them in position to look even worse.

    I, too, expect Obama to be more forceful after he wins re-election, but he's doing everything he can, as I see it, to make sure the GOP has a fighting shot. He is, thus far along, the best Republican president since Clinton. It is rather quite astounding.

    I admit, I'm confused at why he wouldn't put his best spin doctors on burying Bachmann and her fruit loop club.

    And I'm also just furious that Obama caved yet again. I don't get why he does this. It's like he's three moves from inevitable checkmate, and decides to concede the game instead of win. All I can say is that his post-2012 politics better blow my fuckin' mind. There better be a master plan behind all of this, and it had best be the coolest master plan in the history of American politics.

    Well pointed.

    Can we stop hearing that song, then, in the twenty-first century, when it no longer applies?
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Haberman, Maggie. "Michele Bachmann ready to 'move on' from birther issue". 2012 Live. April 20, 2011. Politico.com. April 27, 2011. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53468.html
     
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  3. superstring01 Moderator

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    Sigh.

    Wrong move.

    There are layers upon layers of reasons why this was the wrong decision.

    First and foremost: We (as in the leader of this country) gave in to the fringiest of fringe groups. It sets a terrible precedent and--in accordance with my growing discontent with this president's general leadership--it really disappoints me. Do we now start worrying about truthers? Or any other "ers" out there? Shit! I hope not.

    Second off: He should have never even acknowledge this group just to spite them. This goes beyond our mothers' demands that we "just ignore the instigator". This is about demonstration of control. The president doesn't acknowledge the kooks. He doesn't let them know that they are important enough to even register on his radar.

    And now they do.

    Sigh.

    A sad day.

    ~String
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2011
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  5. superstring01 Moderator

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    It won't. And that's why it's such a goddamned shame.

    Here's why it won't: Those who hate Obama will continue to hate him and stonewall him no matter what. Releasing his long birth certificate will only shift the targeting a bit. Because it will make no difference, and because it won't distract the birthers one micron (do you really think that these insane retards will "believe" the form? No, they'll say it was a fake or that he "pressured" Hawaii to create one for him or some other vacuous conspiracy).

    Since it won't appease the birthers, since it won't move the hearts of his opponents and because it won't make him more loved/liked by those who supported him already, what--then--was the point?

    ~String
     
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  7. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    The fringe, is about 75 percent of the Republican Party.
     
  8. superstring01 Moderator

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    12,110
    Sigh.

    Joe, how does that help the discussion? Is that a fact? Do you know it for sure? Or was that number just for flair? If so, then you've sunk to the levels that you claim to abhor.

    And. . . even if true, it still served no purpose to acknowledge the birthers.

    ~String
     
  9. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    16,931
    8 U.S.C. § 1408

    1. If both parents are U.S. citizens, the child is a citizen if either of the parents has ever lived in the U.S. prior to the child's birth

    2. If one parent is a U.S. citizen and the other parent is a U.S. national, the child is a citizen if the U.S. citizen parent has lived in the U.S. for a continuous period of at least one year prior to the child's birth

    3. If one parent is a U.S. citizen and the other parent is not, the child is a citizen if
    the U.S. citizen parent has been "physically present"

    "[6] in the U.S. before the child's birth for a total period of at least five years, and at least two of those five years were after the U.S. citizen parent's fourteenth birthday."

    Barry Obama is the issue of a legal marriage, between a Citizen and a Foreign National, and His mother did not meet the requirements of residency for Obama Jr. to become a Natural Born Citizen.

    Mr. Obama Jr. birth certificate show a lawful marriage between His Father, a Foreign National, and His Mother a Natural Born American, so now how about the rest of the U.S. Code Governing determination of Natural Born Citizenship
     
  10. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    2,595
    "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
     
  11. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    6,460
    I looked at Section 1408, it said Section 1401 already confers citizenship on Obama because he was born in Hawaii and was subject to its jurisdiction and laws, so the point is completely moot. A question for you, Buffalo Roam: what difference would it make if it turned out there had been some bureaucratic error, and neither of Obama's parents were citizens, and they weren't legally married? How does that prevent Barack Obama from qualifying for office based on proven achievements, vetting by countless top experts in many fields, and, most importantly, popular vote?
     
  12. YoYoPapaya Trump/Norris - 2012 Registered Senior Member

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    1,039


    I'm sure they will go easy on those things in the republican primaries. The GOP people have a record of going easy on their opponents.
     
  13. Bells Staff Member

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    I can understand the belief that he has given in or given the fringe credence by acknowledging them.

    I see it differently though. That fringe group - aka the tea party types - garnered a lot of support and the birther's amongst them also have a strong following. They can do a lot of political damage. While many in the Republican camp are moving away from the whole issue, it has only been in very recent times (the last few weeks) that this has been happening.

    What Obama has effectively done is make them all look like complete idiots and has clearly labeled them as being in the fringe - the kooks of society.

    The best thing that Obama can do for his campaign is to make Trump popular amongst the ultra right of the Republican Party. Remember when Trump came out and claimed he had sent detectives down to Hawaii to investigate Obama's birth certificate and then saying how he was shocked by what they had discovered... Talk about eating crow..

    Obama has just openly branded the likes of Trump, Palin, Gingrich and co - many of whom who may soon be announcing their Presidential run - as fringe dwellers and carnival like freaks with nothing better to do than to go after his birth certificate. When he said this:

    We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve."

    "We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other ... if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers,"



    (Source)


    Kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it?


    Look at the words he used.. "make stuff up".. "vilifying".. "pretend facts are not facts" ... And he has proven they have done all of this by releasing his birth certificate again and they cannot now deny that they have not made stuff up, pretended that facts were not facts, nor can they deny that they were not vilifying him..


    Personally I think it is a brilliant political move. In a few short minutes, he has made them all, and all those who remained silent in the hope that the birthers could stir up enough doubts, look like lying and racist hacks who have nothing better to do and who are vying for the support from the idiot fringe dwellers.
     
  14. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    4,955
    The speech he gave at today's news conference made it worthwhile IMO. But, no doubt, nothing will satisfy the freepers. But we can laugh at them even more freely now.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you, Mr. President

    And what does that mean to Americans?

    Virtually nothing.

    I hope I'm wrong.

    We'll check back in the coming days, weeks, months ....

    What bothers me is that President Obama has just hurt future presidential aspirants. Did you know I've never seen an accurate long-form birth certificate for my daughter?

    The one we were issued at the hospital contained incorrect information, suggesting she was born three days later than she actually was.

    If she ever runs for president, imagine what the tinfoil regiments will do with that.

    Or the fact that I am not listed on the original birth certificate as her father; because of a specific quirk of the law, I was not allowed to be listed on the original, long-form certificate.

    So what will she do? Can't even tell when she was really born, nor who her daddy was? What, do we think these conservative paranoiacs are suddenly going to become decent people?

    But now they've been legitimized. Whatever dumb-assed excess they demand, the president now owes.

    Watch how quickly, when a white man is back in the White House, that standard evaporates.

    And watch it come racing back when it's a woman, or Hispanic, or anything but a white male with a respectable, Euro-Christian sounding name.

    Obama just sold out everybody, and once again walked away from his presidential oath.

    I hope you're right about the politics. But compared to the damage he did to this nation and its future by coughing up his long-form birth certificate, I'm given to doubt that the political return is worth the investment.

    He screwed us all, for a bunch of lunatic bigots. Thank you, Mr. President!
     
  16. JuNie Registered Senior Member

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    163
    Lies and misrepresentations of the truth.
     
  17. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    I think what it means is that it's finally put to bed and the ridiculous fringe of the right have had the wind taken out of their sails. It was almost a name and shame moment, without the naming. But we all knew who he meant.

    No President has ever had to do what he has done and I doubt any will ever have to in the future after this. I am sure Mr Romney may be breathing a sigh of relief over this.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Obama has effectively outed his opposition as being liars and racist fringe dwelling twats who have nothing better to do with their time than obsess over the black man in the white house. He now has the platform and proof to out them as liars each time they even open their mouths to say 'boo'.

    On a lighter note:

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  18. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    The Return of Hope

    I do hope you're right, Bells. I really do.

    I mean, I know it starts to sound like a mantra with me, but these are Americans you're talking about. To wit, the problem with jokes like the image you posted is that sooner or later, someone's going to take it seriously, and prove the joke true.

    Wait a minute ... does this mean Obama has brought back the hope?
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,882
    The New Standard?

    Source: SeattlePI.com
    Link: http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhors...ificate-release-won’t-stop-birther-mendacity/
    Title: "Obama's birth certificate release won't stop birther mendacity", by David Horsey
    Date: April 27, 2011


    Cartoonist David Horsey considers the president's decision to release the birth certificate.

    If the question was just about Joseph Farah's book, I would say there's a sucker born every minute, so let them gobble up that sort of toxic sludge until they choke to death on it. But the issue has interfered with our nation's political processes at a time when we actually need them running as well as they ever have.

    Why accept the actual truth when the lie so nicely bolsters what you want to be true?

    And so, the fact that President Obama has finally succumbed to the demands of conspiracy-mongers by obtaining and releasing a copy of his long form birth certificate will not settle the issue of his birthplace in the more paranoid strata of the American electorate. As my friend, veteran journalist Hal Burdett, writes in his Potomac Digest blog, "You can wager the farm, the cow, the pigs, the silo and the outhouse that the lunatic fringe will insist that the document the Obama administration released was an obvious forgery."

    I completely understand why, until now, Obama resisted submitting to the demands of the nutcases. It is demeaning and, as Burdett observes, probably futile. But, the constant chorus of crazies has become like a dripping faucet in the night. Somebody needed to get up and try to turn it off.

    The good result of Obama's disclosure should be that no Republican official will, any longer, be able to play coy with this issue to appease the full half of their party loyalists who believe the birther fantasies. Nevertheless, making a screeching u-turn on the subject, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, had the gall [to] blame the birther brouhaha on Obama.

    "The president ought to spend his time getting serious about repairing our economy," Priebus said. "Unfortunately his campaign politics and talk about birth certificates is distracting him from our number one priority — our economy."

    And speaking of gall, Donald Trump is brazenly claiming credit for pushing Obama to obtain the more detailed birth certificate from state records in Hawaii. In a series of interviews on TV, Trump had given credence and new life to the birthers’ wild speculation. Only a person with a huge ego and a tiny capacity for critical thought would claim spreading such lies was a public service. But, then, that describes Trump rather precisely.

    Look, I know politicians, generally, are shameless bastards, but the Republican Party is really setting a new standard for shitness.

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    David Horsey, SeattlePI.com, April 27, 2011
     
  20. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    And now everyone knows it and can see it for what it is.

    He's made them all look like a bunch of idiots and they know it.

    And it will continue to look bad for them as their fringe element go after Obama's educational records... How did the black man get into two such good schools..?

    The best thing that could happen to Obama is Trump. And this is why:


    Then Trump, the lead architect of the biggest campaign distraction so far this year, tried to blame the president for the distraction. Instead of talking about birth certificates, Trump said President Obama should be focused on gas prices, which according to Trump, is really easy to solve if Obama just "gets off his basketball court." That's rich. The guy who won't announce his candidacy for president because he's too busy taping a reality show is criticizing the guy who actually is the president for not taking his job seriously.

    But there's a deeper meaning to Trump's basketball dig. Trump was once again reminding Americans that Barack Obama is, dare I say it, black. And not one of "the blacks" with whom Trump apparently gets along so well. Obama, in Trump's eyes, is not one of the exceptional blacks like Kwame Jackson, the Harvard MBA who finished in second place in the first season of Trump's NBC show The Apprentice.

    Instead, Trump suggests that Obama is one of those stereotypical basketball-playing black men who are, presumably, too lazy or too dumb to get a real job, or to inherit their father's $40 million business, as Trump did.

    Just in case you missed the "race card" there, Trump drove it home with his following point at the press conference -- that Obama did not deserve to go to Columbia or Harvard Law School. Although our last president was, by his own admission, a sub-par student, Trump argues that our current president, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, has risen through his life solely because he is the beneficiary of that dreaded right-wing conspiracy theory called affirmative action. That's the code language Republicans have been using for years to win votes in the south, and it's the same language my MSNBC colleague, former GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, employed just this week to describe America's first black president.



    (Source)


    There is something shameful about Trump. Makes you squirm with discomfort. Politically he is a gold mine as his racism comes to the fore. AS Mr Baratunde states of his opinion after he saw footage of Mr Trump's ranting about how "he" had to be sure it was real:

    "I thought of my ancestors, both direct and collective, who had fought and died so that I might be treated as an American. I then thought of this fetid, smug, hate-filled, wealthy white man taking credit for the release and yet still not being satisfied. It does not matter how long we've been in these United States. We will never be American.

    So, tears in my eyes, pain in my heart and rage in my soul, I composed this video message. More than written text, it comes close to expressing my full pain at witnessing a white man who was handed everything call the President of the United States (and me) a nigger."


    (Source)


    The Republican Party should have been quicker to distance themselves and denounce Trump and not quietly accept and appear to support him for so long with their silence.
     
  21. superstring01 Moderator

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    Any child born in the USA, regardless of who his parents are, is an American citizen. Read your constitution for a change.

    How about you be honest for a change and quote the entire code you posted and its intended relevance?

    I expect you won't. Far be it from you to actually admit you were wrong. I mean, SHIT, the whole country is having a debate about the nature of children being born in the USA to illegal immigrants and if we should change the XIV Amendment to prevent them from being "anchor babies", but sure. . . President Obama somehow is excluded from the XIV Amendment.

    ~String
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2011
  22. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    It is a well known fact. The majority of Republicans either believe that Obama was not born in The United States or are unsure about where he was born despite the overwhelming evidence that Obama was born in The United States.

    http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs...-now-make-up-a-majority-of-gop-primary-voters

    http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/02/romney-and-birthers.html

    You should know I don't post material I cannot support. The point is that the "birthers" are not a small fringe as some would have us believe. They are now the majority of the Republican Party.

    And if Republicans believe such bizzare notions (e.g. birtherism) as the polls indicate they do, then how can they be expected to address the nations ills with any degree of credibility?

    Answer, they cannot.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2011
  23. superstring01 Moderator

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    12,110
    Mod Note: Buffalo has been giving a warning for posting half truths or portions of information in order to give a false impression.

    Here's the real truth.

    Buffalo posted this SECTION of a law (selectively) and failed to post the whole thing. It worked like this:

    NOTICE how he left out the proviso: "Unless otherwise provided in section 1401 of this title, the following shall be nationals, but not citizens, of the United States at birth. . . "

    In other words, one would think it important to spell out for us what 1401 is, wouldn't it? No.

    He left out the critical information that actually proved he was lying. Had he done the right thing, the post would have contained the table of contents of the codes on "Nationality at Birth and Collective Naturalization"

    From the US Code Archive:

    He posted §.1408. But he failed to post the relevant portion at the beginning of the code called § 1401. Nationals and citizens of United States at birth which clearly states:

    In other words: If Buffalo was smart enough to look up one section of the law and select it for his own dishonest desires, then he was smart enough to look up the first portion and post it correctly.

    ~String
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2011

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