The birther movement is finally over after Obama releases his long form birth certificate, giving the critics everything they wanted and have been demanding!
As if.
Not only have the birthers not thrown in the towel, but they have called fraud, doubted the document, and ramped up their demands as to what they need to see from this president to, in theory, legitimize him: college transcripts seem to be the next document du jour, but make no mistake, this too would be inadequate.
Compare this situation to Bush v. Gore in 2004. The popular vote suggested and in fact was ultimately concluded to have made Gore the winner of the general election. Democrats were outraged at the supreme court decision that handed the presidency to Bush. However after the decision and the rage and the snarling, the vast majority of democrats dug in to accept the unfortunate reality that George W. Bush was their president. Six months after the ruling, the idea of protesting Bush on that grounds was considered mostly ridiculous even in liberal circles.
Yet almost three years after Obama is elected and after numerous third party organizations have put the issue of his birth to bed through research – exhaustively so – the birther movement remains unsatisfied and nearly 60% of Republicans have doubts about Obama's status as a natural born American. Something about this president bothers them enough to doubt everything from the affidavits of state officials to photographic evidence and official seals designed to avoid these kinds of conflicts along with the assertion of every single nonpartisan group to take this issue on. Nobody who pays attention to the actual available facts doubts Obama was born in Hawaii.
And therein lies the core of the problem.
What has been evident to me since day one is that there is a segment of the population that is in love with the IDEA of a magic bullet; a button they can press that removes Obama from office and makes everything he's done illegitimate. This is not about a papers, or documents. It is not about getting facts or determining truth. It is about the pursuit of a wonderfully satisfying thought; a calming balm that something out there would allow these men and women to get the strange named man out of the White House so we could elect a real US president.
Never in US history has a group demanded the papers and birth authentication of a president. Never have they so rabidly denied the so much evidence while holding out hope that the leader of the nation was not their president. It is a shocking and embarrassing reality to watch people like Donald Trump, Fox News, and Sarah Palin lead their troops of willfully ignorant men and women to make fools of themselves like this by carefully picking a choosing the facts they want to see in order to construct a conspiracy that defies any we've seen in recent history. To believe the birthers is to put on a tinfoil hat and talk about mind control lasers from black helicopters, and yet our news takes this whole thing seriously and Obama actually responds to it releasing the long form certificate.
Really? Obama? Doesn't that just lend legitimacy to the crazies?
Yes. But not for the reasons you might think or for that purpose.
When the tea party won the 2010 elections, they placed an interesting crop of Republicans into office. These Republicans terrify liberals and Democrats, and scare the hell of out classic Republicans as well. The general population, coming off their Obama high of 2008, was so determined to re balance the scales and vote the bums out, that they paid precious little attention to who they were actually voting in. But this group was more, and arguably less, than just Republicans. These people were ideologues and dangerously ignorant of how our country works and is balanced. To put it in perspective, imagine congress taking up a bill to limit egg farming in April so the Easter bunny would have time to gather eggs for the holiday. That is the kind of politics we've been seeing. Irrational choices and bizarre decisions made on the premise of fantastical and unsupported mythology about how government needs to focus and behave.
So against this backdrop, we start to see state birther bills. The ignorant few moving draconian laws limiting who can be on the presidential ballot through their local legislature to lock out people like, well, Obama. Your circumcision records? Really? It says something very important to us when someone like Republican Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona vetoes a bill passed by her party because 'it goes too far'. Anyone who wants to make the argument that Jan is a liberal is welcome to call me directly and get laughed at loudly for the duration of the conversation.
The Obama administration saw these bills rising across the country in Republican held legislatures and saw the writing on the wall. Laws of this kind ARE unconstitutional – we have precedent on that. However PROVING them unconstitutional is still a legal battle that could and would take time and could and likely would be delayed by Republicans in those states. With the election looming in 2012, the administration could not afford to be running legal battles in multiple states to get Obama's name on the ballot for re-election. So to preempt the fights and hopefully contain the maniacal manifest ignorance of this group of belligerent dreamers, he had to bow to the request. And sure enough, the moment it is released, the movement picks it's next proof it needs despite claiming hundreds of times this would be adequate.
So Obama's reason for turning over the long form certificate was very straight forward – stop the eruption of potential fights in the states a year before a presidential election. But what about the birthers? Without the 2012 target to remove him from candidacy, what's left?
It's clearly not the birth certificate, they have that.
It's not a lack of credible, verifiable information, they have plenty of that too.
It's not normal questions asked of a president, it's never happened before or been required before.
It's not a current issue, nor is there any evidence in the last few years to add to the original concern.
What's left?
Unfortunately for those of us proud of the USA, not very much.
In the background of all this, rational Americans stare on in horror as our national media and discourse proclaims loudly to the world we are afraid of black leadership, and prepared to sink to abysmal lows of irrational delusion find a reason why this man shouldn't be who we elected him to be.
As if.
Not only have the birthers not thrown in the towel, but they have called fraud, doubted the document, and ramped up their demands as to what they need to see from this president to, in theory, legitimize him: college transcripts seem to be the next document du jour, but make no mistake, this too would be inadequate.
Compare this situation to Bush v. Gore in 2004. The popular vote suggested and in fact was ultimately concluded to have made Gore the winner of the general election. Democrats were outraged at the supreme court decision that handed the presidency to Bush. However after the decision and the rage and the snarling, the vast majority of democrats dug in to accept the unfortunate reality that George W. Bush was their president. Six months after the ruling, the idea of protesting Bush on that grounds was considered mostly ridiculous even in liberal circles.
Yet almost three years after Obama is elected and after numerous third party organizations have put the issue of his birth to bed through research – exhaustively so – the birther movement remains unsatisfied and nearly 60% of Republicans have doubts about Obama's status as a natural born American. Something about this president bothers them enough to doubt everything from the affidavits of state officials to photographic evidence and official seals designed to avoid these kinds of conflicts along with the assertion of every single nonpartisan group to take this issue on. Nobody who pays attention to the actual available facts doubts Obama was born in Hawaii.
And therein lies the core of the problem.
What has been evident to me since day one is that there is a segment of the population that is in love with the IDEA of a magic bullet; a button they can press that removes Obama from office and makes everything he's done illegitimate. This is not about a papers, or documents. It is not about getting facts or determining truth. It is about the pursuit of a wonderfully satisfying thought; a calming balm that something out there would allow these men and women to get the strange named man out of the White House so we could elect a real US president.
Never in US history has a group demanded the papers and birth authentication of a president. Never have they so rabidly denied the so much evidence while holding out hope that the leader of the nation was not their president. It is a shocking and embarrassing reality to watch people like Donald Trump, Fox News, and Sarah Palin lead their troops of willfully ignorant men and women to make fools of themselves like this by carefully picking a choosing the facts they want to see in order to construct a conspiracy that defies any we've seen in recent history. To believe the birthers is to put on a tinfoil hat and talk about mind control lasers from black helicopters, and yet our news takes this whole thing seriously and Obama actually responds to it releasing the long form certificate.
Really? Obama? Doesn't that just lend legitimacy to the crazies?
Yes. But not for the reasons you might think or for that purpose.
When the tea party won the 2010 elections, they placed an interesting crop of Republicans into office. These Republicans terrify liberals and Democrats, and scare the hell of out classic Republicans as well. The general population, coming off their Obama high of 2008, was so determined to re balance the scales and vote the bums out, that they paid precious little attention to who they were actually voting in. But this group was more, and arguably less, than just Republicans. These people were ideologues and dangerously ignorant of how our country works and is balanced. To put it in perspective, imagine congress taking up a bill to limit egg farming in April so the Easter bunny would have time to gather eggs for the holiday. That is the kind of politics we've been seeing. Irrational choices and bizarre decisions made on the premise of fantastical and unsupported mythology about how government needs to focus and behave.
So against this backdrop, we start to see state birther bills. The ignorant few moving draconian laws limiting who can be on the presidential ballot through their local legislature to lock out people like, well, Obama. Your circumcision records? Really? It says something very important to us when someone like Republican Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona vetoes a bill passed by her party because 'it goes too far'. Anyone who wants to make the argument that Jan is a liberal is welcome to call me directly and get laughed at loudly for the duration of the conversation.
The Obama administration saw these bills rising across the country in Republican held legislatures and saw the writing on the wall. Laws of this kind ARE unconstitutional – we have precedent on that. However PROVING them unconstitutional is still a legal battle that could and would take time and could and likely would be delayed by Republicans in those states. With the election looming in 2012, the administration could not afford to be running legal battles in multiple states to get Obama's name on the ballot for re-election. So to preempt the fights and hopefully contain the maniacal manifest ignorance of this group of belligerent dreamers, he had to bow to the request. And sure enough, the moment it is released, the movement picks it's next proof it needs despite claiming hundreds of times this would be adequate.
So Obama's reason for turning over the long form certificate was very straight forward – stop the eruption of potential fights in the states a year before a presidential election. But what about the birthers? Without the 2012 target to remove him from candidacy, what's left?
It's clearly not the birth certificate, they have that.
It's not a lack of credible, verifiable information, they have plenty of that too.
It's not normal questions asked of a president, it's never happened before or been required before.
It's not a current issue, nor is there any evidence in the last few years to add to the original concern.
What's left?
Unfortunately for those of us proud of the USA, not very much.
In the background of all this, rational Americans stare on in horror as our national media and discourse proclaims loudly to the world we are afraid of black leadership, and prepared to sink to abysmal lows of irrational delusion find a reason why this man shouldn't be who we elected him to be.
Insightful and well articulated.
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