If I was looking for a reason to not vote for Donald Trump for president, he handed it to us all last week, once again jumping into the "birther" conspiracy with both feet. This has been a fascinating, if interminable, debate, one that is important to Constitutional law, but good grief, this has run its course. For those of you living under a rock over the last three years, the basis for the argument is that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen, i.e. passed into being in the United States of America proper, and therefore is ineligible to be president. Never before in our nation's history has this ever been brought up with a previous president -- shall I point out, any white president with a white-sounding name. But the prospect of having a black president with an African and/or Middle-Eastern name, whose father was a Muslim? In a post-9/11 America, that's just too much for some people to swallow.
The theory that Barack Hussein Obama was not born in Hawaii has followed a pretty tangled path, and both PolitiFact and FactCheck have attempted to sort it all out in a non-partisan fashion. Both organizations are documented to be scrupulously non-partisan and not, as some folks have suggested, Democratic shills. Part of what seems to be feeding the conspiracy angle on this is that Hawaii is a heavily Democratic state, and that their state functioning would do nothing to undermine their candidate. Whether by being in on the deception, or simply unwilling to look for possibly finding something that would challenge them, the broad suggestion is that the state government of Hawaii is in on it.
So let's quote FactCheck's summary on the issue: "FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate (the birth certificate issued to Obama in 2007 by the state of Hawaii --ed.). We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as 'supporting documents' to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said."
They also pat their PolitiFact colleagues on the back, pointing out their summary: "It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world's biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything's possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what's reasonable has to take over. There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact's conclusion that the candidate's name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn't authentic."
The remaining doubts not answered here are a combination of unsubstantiated hearsay (Obama's childhood friend recalls him talking about growing up in Kenya or Indonesia) and flat out James-Bond style espionage. I've been told that if an impartial person went into the document archives in Hawaii, they would find a perfectly formed original long-form birth certificate that says all the right things and looks genuine. Of course they would, because the CIA has ensured that will be the case by planting a perfectly forged instrument that says what they want it to say. They also replaced all the microfiche for all the various archives of the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin newspapers -- every little city and school library in Hawaii, most likely -- with similarly doctored pages from August 13, 1961. What, you doubt the CIA could do that? How naive are you? Oh, I'm sorry, I meant the USIA, bet you didn't even know they exist, eh? You spoonfed sheep....
Why, oh why, after all this time, is this still an issue? Why do some otherwise reasonable folks, under the guise of "just wanting to be thorough and sure for the future, because, you know, this could set a precedent", continue to give ear to the conspiracy nuts? And who *are* the conspiracy nuts? I have found, in my casual observation of the movement, that they actually aren't typical straightforward racists who simply want the Black guy out. Nearly all of them are conservative Republicans with a vested interest in keeping the doubt stoked, and others are particularly bitter Hillary Clinton supporters. For partisan purposes, they want all of Obama's presidency invalidated, all that he has attempted to do to be declared null and void. Most of them actually believe it, while a few know better but keep bringing it up anyway because it is politically expedient to do so. A very small handful are of the "overly reasonable" variety, not wanting to say something so rash as to say "Obama is a natural-born American" because only a liberal Democrat would say such a thing with complete conviction.
This was never about the Constitution. It was always about keeping a Democrat out of the Oval Office. It's just that Barack Obama's unique life experience handed his enemies a plausible cover story. The entire hijacked Tea Party movement has always been about one thing and one thing only: Getting Barack Obama out of office, after an election had put him there. Stopping his health care plan. Saving America from the Liberals. Whatever original noble intention the Tea Party had (it was about TARP, remember?), it became an ugly glob of God, Guns, and Gays. The revolt against the bi-partisan financial corporations' bailout became, instead, Republicans on Steroids.
It's an ugly accusation. I don't like making it. Early on, I was sympathetic to the Tea Party. I thought whatever racist overtones existed within it were subconscious accidents. I still think that the vast majority of Tea Party supporters are not *consciously* racist. No, disagreeing with Obama doesn't make you a racist. But I do think that, after all this, if you still carry water for the birthers, you have a racist streak you probably don't want and wouldn't like to face. I know I didn't. Early on, I was hopeful that the Tea Party might bring (gasp) Libertarians to the fore, in a fashion similar to the effect Ron Paul had on the 2008 presidential race.
Instead, the Tea Party favorites are, nearly to a person, darlings of ultraconservative Evangelical Christians (people with mean streaks call them "fundies", but I find that term too explicitly disrespectful -- it's not wrong to be a person of faith). They are, in essence, transplanted Constitution Party candidates. When Ron Paul endorsed Chuck Baldwin for president, a big part of me inside was betrayed. I've since given every telemarketer from Paul's organizations an earful about that betrayal. It turns out, however, that it was simply a harbinger of things to come. By endorsing Baldwin, Ron Paul anticipated the hijacked Tea Party. The Constitution Party simply serves no purpose any longer. The hijacked Tea Party has injected all of who would have been their candidates into the Republican Party.
The new Republican Party, after the 2010 midterm elections that put so many of the hijacked Tea Party into the House, showed its true colors in grand style during the recent budget debates. The deep cuts in the Federal budget were inevitably aimed at social programs (which they assume are only used by valueless sluts and slackers), with a noticeable lack of cuts in military spending and other neo-con causes, and specific potshots they euphemistically termed "social riders" that included that great Satan of American life, Planned Parenthood.
The next budget battle will inevitably get even uglier, as those ultraconservative "Tea Party" representatives gear up to be re-elected, the entire Republican Party gears up to try to knock off the first incumbent president since George H. W. Bush, and the Federal debt threatens to crush us all. At this point, the status of Obama's citizenship is barely a blip on the radar.
The theory that Barack Hussein Obama was not born in Hawaii has followed a pretty tangled path, and both PolitiFact and FactCheck have attempted to sort it all out in a non-partisan fashion. Both organizations are documented to be scrupulously non-partisan and not, as some folks have suggested, Democratic shills. Part of what seems to be feeding the conspiracy angle on this is that Hawaii is a heavily Democratic state, and that their state functioning would do nothing to undermine their candidate. Whether by being in on the deception, or simply unwilling to look for possibly finding something that would challenge them, the broad suggestion is that the state government of Hawaii is in on it.
So let's quote FactCheck's summary on the issue: "FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate (the birth certificate issued to Obama in 2007 by the state of Hawaii --ed.). We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as 'supporting documents' to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said."
They also pat their PolitiFact colleagues on the back, pointing out their summary: "It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world's biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything's possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what's reasonable has to take over. There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact's conclusion that the candidate's name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn't authentic."
The remaining doubts not answered here are a combination of unsubstantiated hearsay (Obama's childhood friend recalls him talking about growing up in Kenya or Indonesia) and flat out James-Bond style espionage. I've been told that if an impartial person went into the document archives in Hawaii, they would find a perfectly formed original long-form birth certificate that says all the right things and looks genuine. Of course they would, because the CIA has ensured that will be the case by planting a perfectly forged instrument that says what they want it to say. They also replaced all the microfiche for all the various archives of the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin newspapers -- every little city and school library in Hawaii, most likely -- with similarly doctored pages from August 13, 1961. What, you doubt the CIA could do that? How naive are you? Oh, I'm sorry, I meant the USIA, bet you didn't even know they exist, eh? You spoonfed sheep....
Why, oh why, after all this time, is this still an issue? Why do some otherwise reasonable folks, under the guise of "just wanting to be thorough and sure for the future, because, you know, this could set a precedent", continue to give ear to the conspiracy nuts? And who *are* the conspiracy nuts? I have found, in my casual observation of the movement, that they actually aren't typical straightforward racists who simply want the Black guy out. Nearly all of them are conservative Republicans with a vested interest in keeping the doubt stoked, and others are particularly bitter Hillary Clinton supporters. For partisan purposes, they want all of Obama's presidency invalidated, all that he has attempted to do to be declared null and void. Most of them actually believe it, while a few know better but keep bringing it up anyway because it is politically expedient to do so. A very small handful are of the "overly reasonable" variety, not wanting to say something so rash as to say "Obama is a natural-born American" because only a liberal Democrat would say such a thing with complete conviction.
This was never about the Constitution. It was always about keeping a Democrat out of the Oval Office. It's just that Barack Obama's unique life experience handed his enemies a plausible cover story. The entire hijacked Tea Party movement has always been about one thing and one thing only: Getting Barack Obama out of office, after an election had put him there. Stopping his health care plan. Saving America from the Liberals. Whatever original noble intention the Tea Party had (it was about TARP, remember?), it became an ugly glob of God, Guns, and Gays. The revolt against the bi-partisan financial corporations' bailout became, instead, Republicans on Steroids.
It's an ugly accusation. I don't like making it. Early on, I was sympathetic to the Tea Party. I thought whatever racist overtones existed within it were subconscious accidents. I still think that the vast majority of Tea Party supporters are not *consciously* racist. No, disagreeing with Obama doesn't make you a racist. But I do think that, after all this, if you still carry water for the birthers, you have a racist streak you probably don't want and wouldn't like to face. I know I didn't. Early on, I was hopeful that the Tea Party might bring (gasp) Libertarians to the fore, in a fashion similar to the effect Ron Paul had on the 2008 presidential race.
Instead, the Tea Party favorites are, nearly to a person, darlings of ultraconservative Evangelical Christians (people with mean streaks call them "fundies", but I find that term too explicitly disrespectful -- it's not wrong to be a person of faith). They are, in essence, transplanted Constitution Party candidates. When Ron Paul endorsed Chuck Baldwin for president, a big part of me inside was betrayed. I've since given every telemarketer from Paul's organizations an earful about that betrayal. It turns out, however, that it was simply a harbinger of things to come. By endorsing Baldwin, Ron Paul anticipated the hijacked Tea Party. The Constitution Party simply serves no purpose any longer. The hijacked Tea Party has injected all of who would have been their candidates into the Republican Party.
The new Republican Party, after the 2010 midterm elections that put so many of the hijacked Tea Party into the House, showed its true colors in grand style during the recent budget debates. The deep cuts in the Federal budget were inevitably aimed at social programs (which they assume are only used by valueless sluts and slackers), with a noticeable lack of cuts in military spending and other neo-con causes, and specific potshots they euphemistically termed "social riders" that included that great Satan of American life, Planned Parenthood.
The next budget battle will inevitably get even uglier, as those ultraconservative "Tea Party" representatives gear up to be re-elected, the entire Republican Party gears up to try to knock off the first incumbent president since George H. W. Bush, and the Federal debt threatens to crush us all. At this point, the status of Obama's citizenship is barely a blip on the radar.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.