Yesterday President Barack Obama, in an attempt to finally put the “birther” conspiracy to rest, released a copy of his long-form birth certificate (see below). However, despite the release of President Obama’s long form birth certificate, some birthers are still skeptical.
- Orly Taitz, the so-called “queen of the birthers?” Still not convinced.
- Judson Phillips of the Koch-funded Tea Party Express? Skeptical.
For the record, here’s an image of President Obama’s long form birth certificate:
While I’d like to think the release of President Obama’s long form birth certificate will finally put this issue to rest, I know better, because there are plenty of folks out there who’ll believe this is all part of a grand conspiracy.
Here’s some video of President Obama discussing the release of his long form birth certificate, along with a swipe at Donald Trump as a “carnival barker” stoking the made-up controversy:
So next to be released should be:
George Bush’s full military records
Scott Walkers full transcripts and record from Marquette
Donald Trumps Taxes
An insightful an truly illuminating discussion of tghe psychology of birtherism and other irrational conspiracy theories, and an explanation of just how birtherism can survive a devastating “body blow” like the release of President Obama’s long form birth certificate for which birthers had been clamoring, can be found here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42809364#42809364
Per Jed Lewison today at http://www.DailyKos.com:
“So the birthers have been reborn: they now think the newly-released long-form birth certificate is a forgery.
Basically their complaint boils down to the fact that PDF files containing images of the copy of the original birth certificate don’t actually contain the original birth certificate. That is of course true in much the same way that [a] picture of pizza isn’t really pizza. But just like you wouldn’t get very far if you tried to eat [a picture of a slice of pizza], you shouldn’t expect to actually find a physical copy of Obama’s original birth certificate inside the digital PDF of the document.”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com had more:
“With Drudge Report’s Help, Birthers Latch Onto Phony Forgery Theory”
“In a predictable turn, conspiracy theorists are now rallying behind a bogus claim that President Obama’s long form birth certificate is a Photoshopped forgery — with a huge helping hand from one of conservative media’s biggest names.
The fringe theory’s rapid spread within hours of the certificate’s release presents almost a perfect example of one of the White House’s justifications for taking on the birther issue — namely, that thanks to the internet, conspiracy theories can migrate quickly from the fringe and into the mainstream if left unchecked.
In this case, it took only hours. The forgery claim appeared to have first started as an offbeat blog post from an Atlanta-based art director at an ad firm, Bryan Michael Nixon, less than two hours after Obama’s statement. By the end of the day it had become a headline on Drudge Report, one of the single most trafficked news sites on the internet. The debunked forgery revelation drew thousands of comments on messageboards, migrated to birther and truther conspiracy guru Alex Jones’ site, while a video explanation was viewed over 160,000 times on YouTube.”
How did we ever get to the point where Judson Phillips and Orly Taitz can get on National TV? Maybe there’s something to all that End Times talk after all?
From the New York Times editorial (Thursday 4-28) entitled, “Certificate of Embarrassment”:
“If there was ever any doubt about Mr. Obama’s citizenship, which there was not, the issue was settled years ago when Hawaii released his birth certificate. The fuller document that Mr. Obama had to request contains some extra information, including his parents’ signatures and the name of the hospital where he was born, but it was unnecessary to show his legitimacy.
So it will not quiet the most avid attackers. Several quickly questioned its authenticity. That’s because the birther question was never really about citizenship; it was simply a proxy for those who never accepted the president’s legitimacy, for a toxic mix of reasons involving ideology, deep political anger and, most insidious of all, race. It was originally promulgated by fringe figures of the radical right, but mainstream Republican leaders allowed it to simmer to satisfy those who are inflamed by Mr. Obama’s presence in the White House.”
Shame on Trump and the rest of the birthers, along with the cynical birther-enabling Republicans who let this bullsh*t fester and percolate, who refused to exercise responsible leadership by decrying it.
President Obama was again the adult in the room. Voters, particularly Independents, will remember that.
The country should be proud that he is the face of America. I know that I am.
Well thank goodness, now he can get on with the big business – doing the work of the people – and this will no longer be distracting him from doing so. Still trying to figure that out…this was a big enough deal that it was actually a distraction…but not not so much that he didn’t do this earlier to actually stop it.
Of course the big things immediately following the press conference were a trip with the wife to Chicago to see Oprah, then fundraisers in NYC.
But great, because as he said, the press would never carried his press conferences for things other things. Disingenuous is probably too week of a word.
@ Locke
Funny, disingenuous is the perfect word for your comment.
President Obama wasn’t distracted by the issue. He simply gave it the attention that it deserved. None.
At some point, regretting, I’m sure, the need to have to dignify it with a response, the President decisively addressed the issue because the issue wasn’t going away and was distracting the nation.
Some issues linger because there is some merit to them. Some linger because the political fringe, and the politicians, pundits, cable “news” outlets and fat-ass radio talk show hosts that pander to it, desperately cling to it like their lives depended on it.
The President didn’t owe the political fringe an explanation or “evidence” of anything, regardless of how long the fringe, drenched in racism, clamored for one. You demean your obvious intelligence by suggesting that he did owe them one based upon nothing more than that the fringe had clamored for it for two years, something which the President had the good sense, presence and dignity to ignore.
In any event, Locke, stop deflecting. The President’s release of his long form birth certificate lays the issue to rest once and for all. Although it does give you something to talk about, to attempt to “save face” with, blathering on about how long it took for him to release it doesn’t change that fact.
The rightwing drank the wrong flavor of Kool-Aid this time. The rest of the country, Independents who actually like to see “an adult in the room” included, knows that, regardless of the spin people on your side of the political equation try to put on it, and will remember it come election time.
Not my words, his. He was the one who called it a distraction & taking away from the big, important business. He’s the one who said the networks wouldn’t break in if he was talking about national security. I don’t believe that’s true for a second. He has never had a problem getting the attention of the press.
So it was nothing. But it was distracting the nation? Which was it? can’t really have it both ways.
I wish he would’ve done this sooner – not because I had a shred of concern about the issue. It absolutely was a fringe, conspiracy-theorist lover’s issue. Of the people on the right who I ever give any consideration to, I can’t think of a single one who I ever heard express concern about this or who believed the idiocy. But you, and he much preferred the issue to linger – because it allowed you to use it to paint with a broad brush & attribute it to a much larger group.
Obviously he had this document. So why not shut down the whole thing years ago? Yeah – the fringe will find something else – but what did it take to decisively shut it down once & for all? But he didn’t want that. He had fun watching the idiots make fools of themselves, and he benefited politically from that.
Look, Locke, you just need to let it go.
Your questions have already been asked and answered in my comment.
But, let me amplify on one thing that you seemed to have had, whether sincerely or disingenuously, a problem in understanding.
First, you said:
“[President Obama] was the one who called it a distraction & taking away from the big, important business.”
Then you quoted from my comment:
“At some point, regretting, I’m sure, the need to have to dignify it with a response, the President decisively addressed the issue because the issue wasn’t going away and was distracting the nation.”
And then you went on to say:
“So it was nothing. But it was distracting the nation? Which was it? can’t really have it both ways.”
Well, Locke, it really isn’t a “can’t have it both ways” kind of situation.
In the first quote, you seem to be agreeing with me that the President called birtherism a distraction for the nation.
In the second, you deride my explanation for the timing of President Obama’s release of his long form birth certificate by suggesting that it is somehow inconsistent for President Obama to consider birtherism pure and simple “silliness”, a matter of zero rational importance, yet recognize that it is distracting the nation, and see the need to remove such regrettable and racist “silliness” from the public discourse in order to get the nation, not to mention the media, focused more exclusively on matters of true importance. It isn’t.
You’re truly reaching, Locke. And it is beneath you.
You should seriously reconsider your place in the political spectrum inasmuch as it appears that your partisan blinders are shielding your intellect from the facts and logic which are staring you right in the face.
Read what I wrote again, but first take a step back, and take off the blinders, so that you can contemplate it more carefully and rationally.
“Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?”
I like you, Locke, and I have a lot of respect for you. You generally bring a lot of genuine and intelligent insight to the table here.
Not this time, though.
Actually that’s one thing I absolutely promise I will not do. I won’t reconsider my place in the political spectrum. You can’t really reconsider something if you haven’t actually considered it in the first place. If I were to compile a list of things I simply do not care the least bit about, do not spend an ounce of consideration of, where my political views on something fit in on the political spectrum – especially in terms of R or D – would certainly be on it.
I do have to say – I find it amusing the degree to which I seem to have ruffled feathers on this. After disagreeing with the majority viewpoint here on dozens of issues – probably every single one of them of more consequence – expressing the opinion of wishing the President would have released the full version of his birth certificate sooner to shut up the birthers seems to have lost me all kinds of fans & respect. Go figure.
Locke, he didn’t have the long form of the document. Hawaii doesn’t give that out. He had to send an attorney to get a copy and the certification and seal on the long form produced this week has a date of April 25, 2011 on it I believe. I am not going back to verify it…because as we have all proven here…it’s a distraction to the nation.
So on to important stuff: OUT OF LIBYA, OUT OF IRAQ, OUT OF THE ‘STAN, WHERE ARE THE JOBS, no to privatizing Social Security, universal health care so we don’t need medicare for seniors or medicaid for the disabled, no voter ID, Madison get out of Milwaukee’s business – particularly items that ain’t budget or state related (like residency), respect workers and workers rights in both the public and private realms, put transit back in transportation, stop friggin’ with clean water and clean air…AND WHERE ARE THE JOBS?
Of course I should expect you to come up with a legitimate counterpoint, Ed. I took about 2 seconds to look at the thing – never thought to look at the date stamped on it.
But let’s go here…you’re saying we’ve proven it’s been a distraction to the nation. I don’t know that I grant that. If you’re point is that any time spent on it by people on blogs & such has been wasted, I could probably give you that. But in any sort of way that actually matters? Has President Obama or anyone on his staff really not been able to get something done because of it? I may disagree with him on many issues, but I simply cannot fathom that this issue has prevented him from thinking about other things. Has a single story not been covered because of this?
Give me an actual example of some way this issue – ridiculous as it has been – has somehow prevented something of importance from getting done or getting covered by the media. You’ve rattled off a list of important issues. Can you honestly say that you believe that this issue has had any impact whatsoever on something being accomplished on them?
No Locke, I don’t think that the White House nor Capitol Hill has been unable to do their jobs because of the issue…and as you pointed out all of us blogging about it didn’t prevent them from doing so either.
Did the media miss something because of it? I hope it prevented additional in depth coverage of the royal wedding…LOL!
But yes I think the perception is the press was overlooking something or the President felt he couldn’t get his message out. And frankly I think other more newsworthy stories did get buried under the hysteria. But I have wasted too much of my own time when I should have been working on the other posts I want to make…hopefully I can get to them this weekend.
I think President Obama just wanted Hannity and Fred Dooley to be able to move on to other issues.
I salute you, Ed.
Locke,
So it’s Obama’s fault he didn’t shout down the kooks earlier? Good God.
People like you and the repub leadership should have shouted them down a long time ago, and the fact that you didn’t is strong evidence of just how ethically corrupt your ilk is.
I can’t believe you wrote the comment above. I honestly thought you had more integrity.
I rarely shout, so I’ll cop to not “shouting them down” but I’ve most certainly told birthers they’re idiots and that there’s nothing to it when I’ve run into them. My position has been that he should release the damn document and shut the idiots up. Not sure how you get that agreed with the birthers.
You should re-examine what you label a fact and evidence, since that was neither.
Not quite sure who my ilk are, so I can’t really comment on whether they’re corrupt or not.
Forgive me for not feeling a sense of loss over something I never had. I don’t think I’ve ever once read something from you that showed you had even an ounce of respect for me or my positions.
Your ilk are those who claim to not know what Michele Bachmann, or Glenn Beck, or Orly Taitz, are saying or doing, and so it’s just not any of your above-it-all business. All the while you enjoy the fact that Obama, Pelsoi, Reid, whomever, are the recipients of whatever batch of crazy the above named whackjobs are currently launching, without ever having to dirty your own hands.
You and your ilk should have told the idiots to shut up a long time ago. It might have had some impact if it had come from you and your ilk. It was never up to Obama to do it in the first place, and you know it. You’re a fraud, Locke. A fraud.
Spear to God I have no idea who that last person is. Never heard of him/her. I had never really heard of Bachmann or knew anything about her until I read stuff on lefty blogs. And if the sum total of time I’ve listened to/watched Beck in my lifetime exceeds maybe an hour, I’d be pretty shocked.
But I guess, that’s what you’d expect me to say. Never mind that it’s the truth, that’s of no consequence.
Locke,
Do you think Obama is some kind of Affirmative Action President? I believe this is where the birthers are really going. I find it hard to believe that many Teapublicans are this racist. So it must be they think the got the job because of his color.
Just like Trump is claiming he got into college because of his color. Not that he was simply qualified but that his color got him elected President.
So do you think he was an Affirmative Action President?
Unless I’m mistaken, he’s in the White House because he got more votes in more states than any other Presidential candidates. Not quite sure how affirmative action could possibly apply.
Then we’re all on the same page. Be sure to write Trump and tell him that. And, of course, tell any wingnuts/birthers that you run into, as well. Maybe you could also spend a little time on Wingnut Nation websites which are now touting the affirmative action angle, in addition to the fake long form birth certificate angle, telling THEM that it holds even less water than the birth certificate thing does.