Matthews has G. Gordon Liddy on, and they are going through the birther nonsense, and after stating all Obama needs to do is show a birth certificate, Matthews shows him one, and Liddy claims it isn’t good enough because it was redacted.
Liddy looks like he has had a stroke. He is mumbling and doddering, and is claiming that not only is Obama not an American, but he is an illegal alien.
Laura W
This is mind boggling and pathetic. I, too, am “flabbergasted”.
WHY ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT THIS?
Makes me ill, frankly. Why do I even tune in?
Liddy is even more insane, impaired, feeble and delusional than McCain, which is hard to fathom.
JenJen, just keep walking!
C Nelson Reilly
The rat diet was bound to catch up to him sooner or later.
Da Bomb
I am with Laura W. Why are we still talking about this BS?!
Yet again, I can’t help it, but wonder if we would be questioning his citzenship if he had a more ‘Merkin patriot name and look more like Chris Matthews or Chris Farley.
I am sick of hearing about it.
Doctor Gonzo
Frankly, I find the newspaper birth announcements to probably be more convincing to the average wingnut (you can fake a birth certificate, but how could BarackOsama have gone back in time to put that birth announcement in the Hawai’i papers?).
I think Matthews should lead off with that instead of the birth certificate.
Trollhattan
Liddy could prove his point by holding his hand over a lit candle. Jess sayin’
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
To be fair, we should probably recognize that Liddy does have a lot of expertise in redaction.
.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
I’m watching it too, in spite of myself. Liddy keeps asserting that Obama was born in Kenya (based on something Obama’s Kenyan step-grandmother said?!?) and that Obama has not released enough proof of his birth in America. Matthews keeps showing him Obama’s “certificate of live birth” and asks him why so many people are lying, including the republican governor of Hawaii. Matthews asked Liddy if Obama should be picked up as an illegal alien by the INS, Liddy just sits there looking weird and lost.
This is the most naked, pathetic attempt to delegitimatize our first aa president; nothing more, nothing less. Cretins got nothin’.
gwangung
Turn it around. If Liddy brought in a birth certificate like that to get a passport and some bureaucrat said that to him, he’d hit the roof and start screaming to get the worker fired. And he’d be entirely right to scream.
freelancer
@Da Bomb
@Trollhatten:
The trick is not minding.
Splitting Image
I see it as their contribution to the health care debate.
chopper
this is all a plot to get obama’s social security number so he can open a credit card in his name.
mcc
They can’t look directly at the birth certificate.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Doctor Gonzo:
Illegal. Alien. Must mean he traveled from a distant galaxy with a time machine. Sounds pretty logical if you’ve just smoked a big bowl and dropped some decent acid. Just mind the flying woodchucks, they aren’t house trained.
Zifnab
Who let G. Gordon Liddy in front of a camera again? How much did that asshole get paid? How does MSNBC continue to be the “liberal” cable news outlet? And why the fuck does anyone continue to watch cable news?
General Winfield Stuck
@Da Bomb:
Because the wingnuts want their country back and can’t find any good reasons why. They just woke up one morning and the sky turned black and a tanned Che is running the show.
Reminds me of the crazy Major in Dances With Wolves, who blathers about the “realm” and that he just pissed his pants and nobody can do any thing about it. Then blows his brains out.
r€nato
Let’s figure out who is in on this conspiracy:
The Supreme Court (twice refused to consider birther suits)
The RNC (failed to make an issue of this in the campaign)
The McCain/Palin 2008 campaign (ditto)
The director of the Hawaii Dept. of Health (lied when he testified to the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate)
The Hawaii Legislature (‘conveniently’ made original birth certificate documents protected by privacy laws)
The State Department (granted Obama a passport based on his ‘fake’ birth certificate)
Factcheck.org (Iied about having handled and examined the original birth certificate)
Have I missed anybody?
Seebach
Have I missed anybody?
The national security state that has apparently been spying on all of us for the past 8 years. One of them wouldn’t be able to piece it together? The CIA, FBI, ONI, NSA, MIB…?
The Moar You Know
Matthews is doing his part to kneecap the birfers, and this is a great way to go about it. Liddy looks like the walking definition of “insane”.
DwightKSchrute
Jon Stewart does what he does best on the birther issue.
slag
@JGabriel: I approve of this fairness streak you’re on. Please continue.
Joshua Norton
Liddy looks like he has had a stroke. He is mumbling and doddering,
It would appear that the real Liddy died and they brought his zombie back to stumble around, mumble and breath hard. He’ll get the hang of it eventually.
lotus
Why do I even tune in?
I’m watching it too, in spite of myself.
Why DO you tune in? Please tell me. I don’t understand.
Friends I consider otherwise smart watch this show (then bitch about it) daily. The times I’ve tried, I couldn’t take more than a minute or two of Matthews, and that was a stretch. What’s there that attracts you?
Senyordave
This is a giant conspiracy.
Did anyone see the South park episode right after the inauguration where it turned out the whol election was a conspiracy so Obama could get into the White House and steal the Hope diamond? It was a a takeoff on Ocean’s Eleven, and the team consisted of McCain, Palin (she was the mastermind, of course), Obama, Biden and Michelle (she and Obama weren’t married). It made at least as much sense as the Birther’s do.
Lev
@r€nato: Governor Linda Lingle (R-HI) is also in on it.
If I were Michael Steele, I’d try to bat back these rumors by playing up that sort of stuff, so that the birthers start to think that the Republicans are in on the conspiracy and they drift away from the GOP, like the Birchers did.
freelancer
Have I missed anybody?
THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
Calouste
The question is why someone who has been sentenced to 20 years in prison like Liddy is treated as a serious guest on news shows. Carter should never have commuted his sentence.
r€nato
G. Gordon Liddy having a radio show, would be like Bill Ayers having a radio show.
Once again… IOKIYAR.
Da Bomb
@General Winfield Stuck: I know. I am just sick of the craziness.
This is all the best the right can come up with…
Barack is an illegal alien, a radical, communist, soci ali st, Marxist, extremist, terrorist married to Angela Davis and he doesn’t wear skinny jeans… He stole the country’s right to vote in Hillary Clinton or Sarah “I can see Alaska from my backyard in real america, winky, also” Palin and is going to take away all the guns from people, just cuz’ he’s an angry field negro that wants to rule the world with his sidekick Pinky Biden.
It’s sad and pathetic.
demkat620
How can you be an illegal alien if your mother is an american citizen?
Are you going to tell me we have rich white people who have babies overseas that their kids are illegals?
Riiiight.
r€nato
“Why doesn’t Obama just show us his REAL birth certificate and end this controversy?”
Because he enjoys it when his enemies make fools of themselves.
r€nato
1) Shut up, that’s why.
2) She was a white woman who made a baby with a black man, so that law doesn’t apply.
3) His middle name is HUSSEIN! Don’t you get it?
4) Robert Byrd used to belong to the KKK!
kay
I think it’s great. They’re whipping the dupes into an absolute frenzy, and they can’t deliver, without one or another elected, ‘serious” Republican actually approaching the President and demanding he produce proof of citizenship.
Because Liddy doesn’t have any power to do that, and either does Glen Beck, and the courts have thrown every suit out, and at some point the birthers are going to demand that elected Republicans “take action”.
And then the whole thing comes crashing down.
Kirk Spencer
@Doctor Gonzo:
Go read their claims. The claim is that the announcement is just that the couple, residents of Honolulu, had a baby. He was really born in Kenya and the family sent it to the Hawaiian paper because that was the couple’s residence – they wanted their friends and family to know. Paper mis-understood and printed it as born in Honolulu.
The fact it’s under the Health Bureau Statistics is waved off as being a convenient label for the column, not from the actual bureau.
General Winfield Stuck
@lotus:
It’s because over time a lot of people who don’t otherwise study the issues, whether political or social, listen to and are influenced by cable news. That makes it relevant, and what is broadcasted needing to be appraised for truthiness. Plus, it can be entertaining in the way an unfolding disaster is.
Martin
Matthews is doing us a favor here by dragging these idiots out and giving them airtime to demonstrate just how fucking stupid and hateful they are. Every time Liddy or Campbell or one of the others does a birther rant, the Democratic Party picks up a pile of independents that are aghast at how petty the GOP has become.
Blue Dog
Since we are in a peaceful time, the economy is booming and there is little, noticeable disagreement among the political parties in D.C., the “serious” journalists and producers are easily distracted by these silly, factually-challenged non-issues.
r€nato
@kay:
I know it’s a long way off, but I really, really, really hope that in the 2012 campaign – up to and including the GOP convention – the birthers press candidates to take a position on Obama’s birth certificate.
And if I was a political ratfucker, I’d make sure the birthers get active in the 2010 campaign and demand that GOP candidates take a position on the birth certificate.
lotus
@General Winfield Stuck:
Ah. Thank y’all for taking up my slack then. Would you like my annual allotment of Co’Colas too?
Lidane
Unbelievable. I knew the first black president would freak out the racists and wingnuts, but I had no idea they’d go this far into the crazy.
Martin
And seriously, guys like Matthews really should be pulling out the real certificate by now.
El Cid
It’s not a real birth certificate unless it was printed on teabags stolen out of a psychiatrist’s office.
Kathy in St. Louis
If Liddy had a stroke, that will shorten my evening prayers by one line.
freelancer
Also,
5)Chappaquiddick!
r€nato
OT: only the fucking Democratic party – with the White House and solid majorities in Congress – could fail to pass a significant piece of legislation which has been a cherished dream of theirs (and all Americans) for DECADES.
Look at the fucking Republicans and what they got done over Terry fucking Schiavo. When it’s time to pander to the anti-sex nutcases, they get shit done. They even got President Clueless to come back from his vacation to sign a bill into law.
WTF is wrong with fucking Democrats? I really wish there was a serious Socialist party in this country for which I could vote; getting some more Bernie Sanders’ in office would seem to be the only way to get the Democratic agenda enacted.
General Winfield Stuck
@lotus:
Only if sugar and caffeine free. I do my part for the cause.
kay
@r€nato:
I don’t know what they do with this.
They’re hinting and winking and dodging and every day more and more people are hearing it. There’s an implicit promise of action in the crafty non-denial of this movement by elected Republicans, and it’s a promise they can’t keep.
They’ve already been forced to introduce legislation, but all that did (of course) was stoke the flames.
Every appearance sends the birthers into a frenzy. It’s further proof that the cause is just.
Okay, Republican leaders. Now what?
RedKitten
The Clintons.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m starting to think this shit may be tied to that brain parasite that humans get from cats.
demkat620
@kay: Like I said, its the new Vince Foster.
lotus
Only if sugar and caffeine free.
Shucks.
Martin
Take up arms would be the obvious answer. There’s even been a few willing to comment publicly that a lone gunman would solve the problem. They’re still working their way up to that line they know they can’t quite cross.
r€nato
WOOP WOOP WOOP! WOOP WOOP WOOP!
We interrupt this edition of Balloon Juice to bring you yet another married-family-values-Republican-caught-with-his-pants-down alert:
djork
so, no mentions of baracks package yet?
GregB
Why would Matthews give forum to a man who in the last 20 years called for his radio listeners to use headshots while shooting at federal and local law enforcement officials.
It is malfeasance on Matthews’ part. Matthews is also helping to advance this lunacy.
It’s not the debunking that matters with these assholes, it is the repetition of the hateful allegations.
-G
Wag
JGabriel
GregB:
To make the Republicans look … Republican?
.
Napoleon
OT, but all 3 evening network news shows lead with Obama and the Gates arrest.
Laura W
@GregB: This is my feeling tonight.
Exactly.
I don’t view Tweety as doing anyone any favors with this incessant bullshit beating. But I’m exhausted and cranky, so maybe I’m not seeing things clearly. It’s happened once or twice before in my life.
Asshole. (Tweety, not Martin.)
Napoleon
On NBC they have Barnicle on making up that Obama called the entire police department stupid.
linda
tweety’s ‘mission accomplished’ segment with liddy:
MATTHEWS: What do you make of this broadside against the USS Abraham Lincoln and its chief visitor last week?
LIDDY: Well, I — in the first place, I think it’s envy. I mean, after all, Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man. And here comes George Bush. You know, he’s in his flight suit, he’s striding across the deck, and he’s wearing his parachute harness, you know — and I’ve worn those because I parachute — and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run those — run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman’s vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn’t count — they’re all liars. Check that out. I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.
timb
@Zifnab: On my trip down the Potomac to Mt. Vernon last year, the tour guide noted one of the mansions over-looking the Potomac was owned by Liddy.
So, my guess is that after watching Yoo, Bybee, Liddy, and Scooter Libby, my main mistake in this life was having a moral code. Seems one gets a helluva lot further without it. See Woody Allen in Crimes and Misdemeanors….
Hell, see Woody Allen’s later life
r€nato
@djork:
you mean his enormous stimulus package?
timb
@Napoleon: Well Mike is a good Roman Catholic, who would defend a Boston police officer until death against one of those….you know.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead:”I’m starting to think this shit may be tied to that brain parasite that humans get from cats.”
Holy Shit! You mean that crazy bastard was eating rats AND CATS?
That’s just too many kinds of wrong.
Also, does this mean he’s crazier than a shithouse rat OR crazier than a shithouse cat?
Do shithouse cats even exist?
Are they crazy?
Do they eat shithouse rats?
I’m so confused.
Just Some Fuckhead
Just stop watching Tweety. Stop watching him and he’ll eventually go away. That’s how it works.
mcd
Will someone please explain to me how McCain, who actually was born outside this country, is a citizen and Obama isn’t?
kay
@demkat620:
What if Democrats had responded to liberal truthers by introducing legislation that forbids the President from launching a terrorist attack on the US? Just to shut them up?
That’s essentially what they did with the law to require proof of citizenship.
They said “well, birthers (pat-on-the-crazy-head) we’ll leave the usurper in for now and make sure it doesn’t happen again”.
Apparently they’re not familiar with these people. Now birthers can point to proposed legislation, which just feeds the crazy, and adds another “official document” to the claim.
Just Some Fuckhead
@mcd: Shut up, that’s how.
r€nato
@mcd:
one is a white man with a perfectly good American name.
The other is a black man with a funny-sounding furriner name, who has spent a significant amount of time outside the US without actually being in the military.
Do I have to draw you a picture? Duh.
GregB
Barnicle, a discredited hack of a plagiarist.
He was one of the panelists on a discussion about race about a year ago and he just kept offering up the lamest, most trite post racial gibberish.
Look around America my friends, beautiful new banks, drugstores and gas stations….
The rest of it is going to shit.
-G
CalD
Cable “News” has become such a ghetto, it boggles the mind that anyone still takes it with a shred of seriousness. There’s probably more relevance and professionalism in AM talk radio at this point.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Honest to god, where do they go with this? I understand the winger “base”, they’re just batshit crazy. But why is any Republican in an elected position even countenancing this crap? “All he has to do is produce his (long-form) birth certificate!” Well, he’s not doing it now because it’s beneath his dignity to do so and it’s almost inconceivable that he would ever be forced to. But just imagine the birthers win the lottery and a panel of witnesses actually get into that famous “vault” and get to see the original, like factcheck.org did–then what?
I mean, the whole thing is so easily disproven. There’s GOT to be something else they could trot out to use as a dogwhistle for their racism. Suppose the first black president was exactly the same guy as Barack Obama, but his name was Freddy Washington and he was born in Detroit? Surely they could come up with something that made better sense than this shit? Of course they threw Rev. Wright and Bill Ayres at the wall and they didn’t stick, so maybe this IS the best they can come up with. If that’s the case, I feel better than I have for a while.
And I’m sure Obama’s grandmother WAS there to witness the birth of Barack Hussein Obama, our president Barack Hussein Obama II’s, father. This proves…what exactly?
geg6
You know, I used to think Liddy was the most loathsome creature to ever crawl out of the fetid swamp that is the GOP of our era. But then I got to know and loathe Dick Cheney. And realized the Birchers tunneled in and really become the blackened heart and shrivelled soul of the party. This is who they are.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: “Just stop watching Tweety. Stop watching him and he’ll eventually go away. That’s how it works.”
I keep watching with the fervent hope that one of these crazy fucks like Liddy will take that one last little step over the edge, leap across the table, and strangle the Tweetster.
Filed under: 2 birds, 1 stone.
Nethead Jay
@r€nato: And the beat goes on and on. This one sounds like a real winner.
Dave C
@C Nelson Reilly:
He wasn’t eating them, silly!
Polish the Guillotines
@kay:
This.
mcd
Just Some Fuckhead, r€nato: Excellent. Got it!
Shalimar
@GregB: Why give Liddy airtime? I would normally say it was to deal directly with the birther b.s., since Matthews is on that kick this week. However, since I happened to watch part of the segment, I wonder if Matthews just wanted everyone to know that Liddy is no longer 100% with us, whether from stroke or meds or whatever else. If he wasn’t such an evil a-hole I would feel sorry for him, his cognitive abilities are that far gone.
Brick Oven Bill
Two possibilities:
#1. There is no birth certificate, the President is illegally seated, and is an illegal alien, subject to deportation; or
#2. There is a birth certificate, and this is political gamesmanship.
Both are bad.
Because it would be so easy to just get it re-issued, I suspect that the answer is #1. This scenario will come to a head either:
#1. When Obama is of no more use to the Wall Street crowd he is being blackmailed by; or
#2. When the CINCs receive a controversial order and demand to see proof of the President’s legitimacy.
If there is a birth certificate, Obama is acting recklessly, and is responsible in part for the death of the guard at the Holocaust Museum, and the rise of fringe groups.
The President should be responsible, and come clean with the American people on this issue.
dr. bloor
This thing can’t stay alive long enough for me. Aside from being enormously entertaining, it puts the private parts of more and more Republicans in the vise on a daily basis. Obama would be absolutely nuts to release the original document, even if he has the power to do so.
jwb
@Napolean
Obama is a smart guy. He had a prepared answer to the Gates question. He had to know that saying anything substantive on this topic would be catnip to the media. So the question is, why did he answer it this way? Why did he want the media to run with this story (rather than look carefully at health care) today. (Maybe he knew that Reid was going to dismiss the Senate and didn’t want that to lead?)
SiubhanDuinne
@r€nato: The entire HRC campaign during the primaries
ETA: Red Kitten got there first
dr. bloor
@Brick Oven Bill:
This is insane, even for you, BOB, unless you’re really Orly Taitz.
In which case it would be precisely as insane as I would expect it to be.
GregB
Ah yes BOB, I am sure that reissuing the certificate would instantly quiet the brainless, racist lunatics, right?
The cries of forgery, cover-up and fraud would be enough to deafen anyone.
Clowns, bigoted, race baiting, America hating clowns.
-G
Martin
Tweety often does it wrong and deserves to be flogged, but he’s not concern trolling this particular issue. He’s calling these guys out, letting them give their little birfer rant, holding up the birth certificate to make them look like fucking lunatics, and then pressing them individually on whether they think the President honestly is illegitimate.
Yeah, Rush’s audience is used to this crap, but a lot of Dems and Independents are totally unaware of the birfer movement and I think a little sunlight is a good thing to illustrate just how fucking stupid some people are. If Matthews can keep digging them up, to make it appear that the GOP is a bottomless pit of idiots, that can only help the left.
I mean, my wife had NO idea that people genuinely think that Obama isn’t a US citizen. She’s aghast that the GOP would go there, and she’s not an active Dem.
Epicurus
The best part was the fact* that Obama’s mother was smart enough to take out a birth announcement 47 effing years ago and fake out the Hawaii newspapers! How prescient of her….
*Something with which these Birthers are clearly not acquainted. Also, reality…but they get to go on TeeVee!!!!
Cat G
@Brick Oven Bill: OK, ‘fess up, who’s hiding BOB’s Haloperidol?
Murc
You know, it’s… can I ask something, because maybe I don’t entirely understand this, but what’s the endgame here?
The impression I get from the people frothing about this is that their endgame is proving Obama doesn’t meet the technical requirements for holding the office of the President, and he gets removed. That’s CRAZY but not actually INSANE; there’s a certain amount of logic to it.
Only… that’s not the way it works, is it? Obama’s mother was an American citizen, ergo, Obama is an American citizen. He could have been born on the MOON and it wouldn’t matter, right? So even supposing that the birthers are right, that he was born in Kenya… okay. He was born in Kenya. Now what?
Or am I missing something somewhere?
jwb
BOB, you are so surreal. You know perfectly well that the answer is #2, and that because it is all about gamesmanship there is no evidence in the universe that will serve to put this to rest (because that would put an end to the game, and we can’t have that, now, can we?).
Brick Oven Bill
The Museum shooter named the birth certificate as one of his grievances.
I am a mild mannered guy, believe it or not, but view the Founding of this Country with reverence, and take its Constitution very seriously. There are people who I am sure are less mild-mannered than I.
Janet named the birth certificate issue as one contributing factor to the rise of ‘modern militias’, I think she called them, among these less than mild-mannered individuals. This is Janet’s assessment, not mine.
The President should come clean on this issue either way. It is his responsibility. He is no longer a community organizer.
freelancer
The Onion has been sold to the Chinese, evidently
http://www.theonion.com/content/index
Napoleon
@jwb:
I think he answered it bad, PURELY from a standpoint of how it would hurt his health care push. I really do.
Regardless, maybe his answer is exactly what it seems. It is exactly what he really wanted to say, because it is exactly what he believes.
Bokonon
The whole birth certificate issue is pointless anyway. Obama’s mother was a U.S. citizen. Therefore, Obama is an American citizen.
TAA-DAAA!
But … I know. These are the same people who can focus on kerning, the fine points of forgery, and rumors about the Kenyan government abusing people who went to Kenya to discover the “truth”, while missing the obvious flipping thing right up front of them.
This is about illogic.
Dave C
@Brick Oven Bill:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Martin
So, Obama posted his birth certificate over a year ago now, in the only venue that could reach the entire country. Several major publications has stepped up and verified it as have numerous government agencies (before he was elected), and Obama has managed to evade the scrutiny of the FBI and Secret Service both of whom have more background information on Obama than any parent has of their children.
What do the birfers suggest:
It’s just awesome. And BOB, like the others, won’t tell us what venue would suffice since every other one has so far failed their purity test because no venue would suffice. It’s simply unprovable by Obama and the only point for the birfers to continue with this madness is specifically to tweak the fringe groups, given that they ARE a fringe group. Yes, BOB, you are part of a fringe group, whether you want to face it or not.
geg6
BOB, how many times must you be told that he HAS released what he has the power to release and all the relevant governmental officials in Hawaii have vouched for its authenticity. Hawaiian law requires the original of EVERYONE’S original and, just like when you go to your state’s Bureau of Statistics to get a copy of your birth certificate, they release the copy he provided all through his life, such as when he got his passport. I know I shouldn’t try a rational argument with you, I remain hopeful you might one day join the rest of us in reality world.
CapMidnight
Hawaii is close enough to Vietnam for John Kerry to have planted the fake birth announcement in the newspaper, then return to Vietnam to self-inflict his wound to get the Purple Heart for his Presidency.
David
The one and only reason Birthers pretend to not accept that Obama’s birth certificate is real and that he was born in Hawaii is that they get attention from it.
Mike
Is anyone else starting to get suspicious about the amount of attention
the nutcase conservative personalities and their nutcase followers are
getting since Obama was elected?
I realize that the Republicans are in the wilderness right now, and have no
actual leaders, but a cynical observer might begin to wonder if someone
in a high position in the Obama administration has decided to spend the
next few years chaining the Republican party to their wacko base.
(The quote about throwing an anvil to a drowning man comes to mind)
Certainly clever political operatives would be able (under the radar), to nudge
the lazy press into covering these folks, from biggies like Rush right down
to the crazy birther woman at the town meeting.
The resultant publicity forces the right wing to cater to these people.
The Fox commentators and the Republican politicians depend
on them for their livelihood.
Pure wingnut insanity, or a diabolical scheme by Obama? Or both?
Joshua Norton
And BOB, like the others, won’t tell us what venue would suffice since every other one has so far failed their purity test because no venue would suffice.
Since they can’t go around hollering ni**er, this is all they have to fall back on.
Brick Oven Bill
Good God Bokonon, can you reality deniers not read?
A letter from a Hawaiian government hack doesn’t cut it. People would understand this more clearly if they spent more time with government hacks.
A letter from Annenberg’s Fact Check doesn’t cut it either as this is a political ally. The certificate should be released to opposition groups. If it is real, it is real.
jwb
@Napoleon
Obama was clearly ready for the question. So I have to think that answering it this way was calculated. (It may be what he believes, but that is neither here nor there; the point is that he wanted to answer the question and he wanted to answer the question in this way.) I also think that it’s true that it completely distracted from what he said on health care, and I really believe that he knew that it would have this effect. What I don’t know is why he would want to distract from what he said on health care. That’s the question.
Dave C
@Brick Oven Bill:
I repeat: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAHAAHHAAHHAHAHA
HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
chuck
@Murc:
You’re missing SHUT UP, that’s what.
Seriously, I think I need to do my little performance art piece of “right-wing reasoning”. Basically it involves me grunting and screaming and gesticulating and smashing things. It’s the political party of pure id.
Brick Oven Bill
Something about last and loudest.
GregB
Bill,
A handwritten note from Jesus wouldn’t work.
It’s why we laugh at ignorant fools who don’t believe in facts, data, evidence, and science.
We laugh loudly at your proud ignorance.
-G
Comrade Kevin
@Napoleon:
Barnicle does have a history of making stuff up.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mike: Yeah, Mike, and I am personally holding a gun to BOB’s head making him write all his retarded shit.
It’s just one big fucking conspiracy and we’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.
shelley matheis
Shalimar
@Brick Oven Bill:
Two possibilities: #1. There is no birth certificate, the President is illegally seated, and is an illegal alien, subject to deportation; or #2. There is a birth certificate, and this is political gamesmanship. Both are bad. Because it would be so easy to just get it re-issued, I suspect that the answer is #1.
Why would he have to get it re-issued when he has already released the document provided by the state of Hawaii to any of it’s citizens who need a birth certificate?
@Brick Oven Bill:
A letter from a Hawaiian government hack doesn’t cut it. People would understand this more clearly if they spent more time with government hacks. A letter from Annenberg’s Fact Check doesn’t cut it either as this is a political ally. The certificate should be released to opposition groups. If it is real, it is real.
And there is your problem. The state of Hawaii could give “opposition groups” the original, along with hundreds of others from the same year and same area to prove they were done in the same manner, and those “opposition groups” would react by burning them and claiming they were still waiting to see “real” evidence. There’s no cover-up, just racist assholes who are scared to death of having a black President do to them what they have been doing to others for their whole lives.
mcd
@Murc: IMO, the endgame here is to obfuscate everything to the point it’s “politics” and a game of he said/she said. It derails us from our agenda as we spend more and more time arguing against insanity.
Climate change and evolution are the ones that immediately spring to mind, but it’s something they do damned well. And it’s damned frightening.
debbie
@Bokonon:
“Obama’s mother was a U.S. citizen.”
I was listening to a birther on the radio a while ago, and he said she really wasn’t an American citizen because Hawaii had become a state less than 8 years before Obama was born.
Don’t know if that’s a fact, but that’s what they’re claiming.
linda
i am thoroughly enjoying the replay of tweety demolishing a barely coherent liddy. oy, i hadn’t realized liddy had proclaimed that obama was born in a kenyan slum. lol.
Mike
Oops…sorry…
Martin
He has. It’s you who hasn’t. Precisely which document that he actually would be expected to have access to does he need to send to which individual, by name? The long form doesn’t exist any longer – there isn’t a magic repository of 500,000,000 hand-written birth certificates from the last century. All that exists are the document that the state of Hawaii are willing to release and have released.
And who is ‘the opposition’? You? Rush Limbaugh? Michael Steele? North Korea? The KKK? Who exactly?
Demo Woman
If I did not live through Watergate, I would feel bad for Liddy. I did live through Watergate though and the guy is a crook.
Martin
She was born in Kansas. Kansas became a state in Jan 1861. Is 100 years and a few months no longer adequate?
BOB needs to address this: do you deny that Obama’s mother is a US citizen?
abo gato
What the hell is that rat fucker Liddy on anyway? He is nearly incoherent. Why the fuck does anyone care what he might say about any subject, anytime?
JK
Lou Dobbs is carrying water for the birthers right now.
Tonal Crow
@The Moar You Know:
I agree on points (2) and (3). I’m not quite willing to concede (1).
linda
“Obama’s mother was a U.S. citizen.”
I was listening to a birther on the radio a while ago, and he said she really wasn’t an American citizen because Hawaii had become a state less than 8 years before Obama was born.
she was born in kansas, fer chrissakes; and what the hell does hawaii becoming a state eight years PRIOR have anything to do with any of this. goooood grief:
Stanley Ann Dunham was born on November 29, 1942 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Madelyn Payne and Stanley Dunham. Her parents were born in Kansas, met in Wichita, and married on May 5, 1940.[6] After the attack on Pearl Harbor, her father joined the U.S. Army and her mother worked at a Boeing plant in Wichita.[7] She was born while her father was stationed at Fort Leavenworth.
EchoesBunniesRemoteFromWork
Brick Bob reminds me of what Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons would have been like had he gone to college.
shelley matheis
Brick Oven Bill
1. The mother, to my knowledge, was born in Kansas, and is a straight-up Citizen.
2. This does not change the rule that she had to reside in the US for 5 years after the age of 14, which she could not have, in order to transmit her Citizenship to her son. See the above link.
3. Release the certificate, whichever one I had to produce to get my passport, to the Plaintiff’s attornies, and to any US Senator and CINC who requests to see it.
Texas Dem
“The President should come clean on this issue either way.”
This isn’t about Obama’ s birth certificate. Never was. It’s about challenging the legitimacy of the election and discrediting the Obama presidency. No matter what information he provides the birther nutjobs will never be satisfied. And the more attention they get, the better for Obama. That’s why he’ll never release the “real” birth certificate. Just keep talking, guys, keep talking.
Brick Oven Bill
Texas Dem makes the same point that the Fight the Smears website makes. Namely that:
“This isn’t about that piece of paper.”
This is a bad point because it is about that piece of paper. Which is another reason why #1 has the better odds. This does not rule out #2 however. Either way it is bad.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
God Fucking Damn it BoB! She WAS NOT A NATURALIZED CITIZEN, so none of that “Residency Requirement” shit you keep posting is relevant! FUCKING ACKNOWLEDGE THIS or STFU!! !! !!
gwangung
Yes, it does, given that she was BORN in Kansas, and not naturalized.
Dave C
@Brick Oven Bill:
Sweet Jesus, BOB. If you can’t even get this right, there is no hope for you.
Martin
You’re misinterpreting the intention of that rule. The rule was to make sure that someone who left the country at the age of 5 didn’t try to claim citizenship for their child. It was never intended for someone who had never even left the country to be denied, lest every 18 year old mother that gave birth on the other side of Niagra Falls or on a cruise ship be prevented from bringing her child back to the U.S.
No court would interpret the statute the way you are, which is actually part of the reason why they changed the statute.
Since he surrendered it to the State Department all those years ago to get his passport, not to mention to get his security clearance, hasn’t that already been done – repeatedly? And wouldn’t a certificate he produced back before there was any presumption that he might run for President be better evidence of it’s genuineness than one that could be produced today, when there’s is more to be gained by falsifying it? (since everyone has accused him of that as well) The State Department has had his birth certificate on file at least since he was in college and got a passport to travel overseas. That’d be the best evidence and Condi could have provided that to anyone while she was there a year ago. The FBI and Secret Service have had access to it for years, and they both ran background checks on him under a Bush administration. But that isn’t adequate for you either.
And there is no way he should be expected to produce the certificate to anyone who can hire a lawyer. Otherwise the members of this board would demand the same of you and bankrupt you by Labor Day.
Mike
BOB=Rahm staffer.
I rest my case…
ScreaminginAtlanta
@DwightKSchrute: That was a thing of beauty.
Tonal Crow
@kay: Wheeeee! I can’t wait for Mitch McConnell and John Boner to hold a presser on this.
Brick Oven Bill
OK, reading comprehension master of knowledge. We will now go through the rule with assistance from me.
Here we go…
Birth Abroad to One Citizen [Mommy from Kansas] and One Alien Parent [Daddy from Kenya] in Wedlock: A child born [Barry] abroad to one U.S. citizen parent [Mommy] and one alien parent [Daddy] acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) INA provided the citizen parent [Mommy] was physically present in the U.S. for the time period required by the law applicable at the time of the child’s [Barry’s] birth. (For birth on or after November 14, 1986 [no], a period of five years physical presence, two after the age of fourteen is required. For birth between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986 [yes], a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen are required [18 minus 14 is 4 which is less than 5] for physical presence in the U.S. to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child [since 4 is less than 5 there was no transmission of Citizenship to little Barry].
…
Tomorrow’s lesson: Counting.
Anne Laurie
You know what I’d like to see? A live confrontation between Liddy and Darth Cheney. Given the Secret Service, not gonna happen, ’cause Liddy would probably try to leap across the table and strangle his former comrade-in-der-kause. But I’d donate a modest sum towards making it happen, really.
Tax Analyst
r€nato says:
OT: only the fucking Democratic party – with the White House and solid majorities in Congress – could fail to pass a significant piece of legislation which has been a cherished dream of theirs (and all Americans) for DECADES.
Look at the fucking Republicans and what they got done over Terry fucking Schiavo. When it’s time to pander to the anti-sex nutcases, they get shit done. They even got President Clueless to come back from his vacation to sign a bill into law.
WTF is wrong with fucking Democrats? I really wish there was a serious Socialist party in this country for which I could vote; getting some more Bernie Sanders’ in office would seem to be the only way to get the Democratic agenda enacted.”
r€nato, I think it’s because the Republicans rarely, if ever, actually pass anything that needs to be implemented in any meaningful way. Cut taxes – Hell, eliminate them…that’s what we really need, right? And if you can’t do that, well, then do the Flat Tax Fandango. No implementation needed except tossing out those troublesome old Income Tax Bracket Tables. OK, then you must deregulate – no implementation needed, just get out of the way of and let the friendly corporations and business interests decide what works and what doesn’t. No abortions – no implementation needed, just a few rabid DA’s and properly motivated nut-cases with guns and explosives. No gun control – again, just get out of the way, let everyone have as many guns and types of guns as they want. I guess at that point we’re just supposed to “Let God sort it out”. Terry Schiavo? Just have Bill Frist make an InterNet Diagnosis. Oh, and be sure to villify her husband as much and as often as you can. That’s how you prove how very Pro-Family you really are. Anyway, my point is that their “bills” are generally a bunch of randomly thrown-together sound-bites, campaign slogans, bumper sticker messages and party Talking Points that either explicity prohibit or require everybody to either do or not do what they seem to think they would like us all to do, except there are generally a lot of pork & perks tossed in for the well-off and/or Family Members or Cronies. Now and then there will be a License to Steal section slipped in for some Special Interest or another. And the total beauty of all this is that these bills don’t even have to pass constitutional scrutiny, because if they are overturned in the courts it just makes the issue a critical Talking Point for the NEXT ELECTION cycle, which is really all these very twisted clowns are interested in. “Activist Judges” anyone? Or if that doesn’t suit your tastes perhaps I can interest you in some “Down With Death Taxes” promotional materials today?
Seriously tackling important, monumental issues requires a lot of serious thinking, which Republicans simply cannot be bothered with (and Democratic politicians, bless their tiny, self-interested hearts and minds) sometimes try to do, albeit with varying degrees of success. Once you’re done with that serious thinking you need to put that into written language in a way that clearly and properly explains the intent and illustrates to some degree how that intent should be carried out. And oh, you probably need to word that document carefully or you won’t be able to pass the bill at all. After you’ve managed all that you must convince enough of your colleagues that they will not be politically harmed by voting for your bill. Remember, almost every one of these folks is VERY risk adverse when it comes to their own careers, so you may have to agree to vote for whatever schlocky piece of manure that they wish to push through into law. It is also possible you may have to wear a pig or donkey mask and make appropriate animal sounds at specified times and places. Be prepared.
There’s more, but I think that’s probably quite a bit more than any of you wanted to wade through. You probably can see the general thrust at this point.
Later.
Tonal Crow
@r€nato:
So *that’s* what you mean by “bipartisanship”!
demkat620
@Brick Oven Bill: I really think you need to build a Delorean and go back to 1961 and find out the truth.
We’ll wait for you to get to the bottom of this BOB.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
(New name, same great drive-by snark.)
Why anyone is arguing with Klanner Bob is a mystery. Nothing is going to trump the fact that he believes the President to be an uppity negro. So just let the old bastard spew away, knowing that he’ll die a bitter old man and no one’s going to pick up his battle flag from the ground once he’s gone and forgotten. There are more important things to work on: Like why anyone is giving a fascist crook like Liddy public air time.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
BoB, you are one tedious motherfucker. Obama’s mother was born IN the US to two US citizens. If she had left the country the next day and had 50 children by 50 different aliens, they would ALL be US citizens. She did not acquire her citizenship by naturalization or being born here to alien parents, therefore she has no “residency requirements” to meet. You are out of your fucking mind!
Blue Raven
BOB, please. You really need to double-check your Euell Gibbons books. Those mushrooms are NOT safe for human consumption.
Brick Oven Bill
I refer the readership back to the ‘Mommy’ provisions of the State Department link. Now I have to go.
Bill H
Am I missing something? Will someone explain to me why a “Cerificate of Live Birth” is not a “Birth Certificate”???????? That’s what Liddy said. “That’s not a birth certificate, that’s a certificate of live birth.”
Paul L.
Someone need to call Matthews on his lie that Obama released his Birth certificate when he shows the Certification of Live Birth.
Why so hostile to the birthers? They are just asking questions.
b-psycho
As a former resident of Georgia, I felt a strange obligation to find out what Neal Boortz thought about the birther crap, and…I’m shocked: he doesn’t buy it at all.
Note how his audience takes it in the comments. Some are insinuating he’s a librul on the strength of this alone…
shelley matheis
“the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii,”
I think my favorite insane rant of the birthers is ‘if he was born there how come there aren’t any doctors or nurse who remember>”
I beg your pardon? I was born at East Orange Memorial over 50 years ago. Think I could find any staff, doctors or nurses, who would happen to remember this one birth all those years ago? Even my mom’s ob has gone to his reward these 30 years past.
It’s beyond nuts.
Mike in NC
Looks like it’s high time for B.O.B. to rename himself “Birther Obsessed Bozo”.
gwangung
You mean the one that refers to naturalized mothers?
What does THAT have to do with Obama?
Dave C
@Brick Oven Bill:
So what you’re saying is that statute says that if you’re pregnant but not yet over 19 years old, you better not leave the country lest you wind up giving birth to a non-citizen child? Seriously?? You actually think that’s what that means?
gwangung
That’s what they give you when you ask for a birth certificate. That’s what they accept when they ask for a birth certificate.
Someone needs to call you a moron, Paul L.
ScreaminginAtlanta
@b-psycho: As a current resident of Georgia who has occasionally attempted to listen to that smarmy hack Boortz, that is surprising.
cleek
Hawaii has been US territory since 1898. there is no “abroad” in this calculation.
EchoesBunniesRemoteFromWork
Why so hostile? Gee Paul, are you that fucking dumb or dense or both?
You know goddamn well ALL of this bullshit is just that, bullshit crowed by stupid white people who really don’t have anything else to complain about Obama.
Ever ten cent smear against him didn’t stick…he’s a racist, he’s a communist, he’s a traitor, he hates honkies…
So now, they go for the GUSTO…He’s not even Amurican! Wow, I guess this one will be the one to really get him!
Questions my ass.
They’ve been answered AD NAUSEUM, unless you are a total imbecile that lacks basic comprehension and understanding skills.
It’s so fucking stupid, it’s infuriating. I don’t know why I bother, but I do because I love watching brain dead cultists squirm when they realize the LEADER cannot ever be seen by anyone.
NickM
Imagine the Inquisitions these loonies are going to be able to pull off once they get back in power. And seeing the Dems in action, you know it’s gonna happen sooner than we’d all hope, probably while they’re still insane. It’s freakin’ scary.
Paul
Orly Taitz, from Orange, CA, sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger and acts like Sarah Palin. Now I know what the mean when they say “behind the Orange Curtain”, when they talk about Orange County, the captial of Conspiracy Theories. Oh well…
Shalimar
@Brick Oven Bill: 3. Release the certificate, whichever one I had to produce to get my passport, to the Plaintiff’s attornies, and to any US Senator and CINC who requests to see it.
He has produced the one he had to produce to get a passport. And he got a PASSPORT with it. And has had a passport for decades. He was also vetted by our intelligence agencies before getting his current security clearance. If there was any indication at all that he was born abroad, it would have come out in that process. Unfortunately, no authority is sufficient to prove this to your moronic satisfaction. If a Republican Senator did see the birth certificate and vouch for it’s authenticity, you would call him a lying sellout and keep going with this nonsense.
Redshirt
I love you all here, but some of y’all are rather easy to troll. Know BOB, know your enemy: They lie. All the time.
As for the Birthers, while I enjoy laughing at the rubes, I am concerned about the escalating sense of crisis and panic in some, and their love of guns and ignorance. It’s not a good combination.
Origuy
The birthers claim, with no evidence whatever, that President Obama was born in Kenya. For Ann Dunham Obama to have given birth to him in Kenya, in 1961, she would have had to spend several days and several thousand dollars to get there. Even today, it takes two days and thousands of dollars to fly from Honolulu to Nairobi. To claim that a pregnant 19-year-old college student would do that is beyond absurd.
Davebo
Brick Oven Bill..
Bringing the stupid since 2004.
A freaking national treasure!
Mike G
This is the winger’s “Whitewater” for the new Dem president.
In their fevered minds, no Dem can be a legitimate POTUS by definition. It’s just a matter of creating a ginned-up vehicle on which to hang the ‘illegitimacy’ charge, then they hop aboard like the Beverly Hillbillies and motor off, wheezing and belching smoke, hollering and shooting off guns in the air and congratulating themselves on being such brave warriors for Jeebus ‘Murka.
Anne Laurie
Heck, I seem to remember reading that transoceanic air carriers in 1961 weren’t very eager to let visibly pregnant passengers even board their nice planes, for fear of premature delivery. Not that it would matter to the birfers, who are desperately attempting to “make their own reality”, just like back in the glory days of 2003.
forked tongue
Holy Moley.
The Symbionese Liberation Army cited poverty in America as one of its grievances too. Consequently, every politician who has failed to enact a guaranteed income for every American citizen shares in the responsibility for Marcus Foster’s murder and the Hibernia bank robbery.
Pug
G. Gordon Liddy: The future of the Republican Party.
PaulB
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
I don’t see anything in that law about naturalization. Can you point me to the citation that shows that none of the residency requirements apply to regular U.S. citizens as compared to naturalized citizens?
As far as I can tell, Bob is correct that Obama’s mother doesn’t automatically pass on her citizenship. Fortunately for Obama, it doesn’t matter, since he was born in the U.S.
Montysano
The fact that the birther lawyer’s name is Orly Taitz is just so full of win.
I put up a Faceborg post, asking what people thought of the presser. About 15 comments in, a high school classmate leaps in and says “He don’t saloot rite; his salootin’ is all rong!1@”
Self awareness: they don’t haz it.
PaulB
Of course, but that’s why the birthers are insistent he couldn’t have been born in the U.S. If he weren’t, then that statute, potentially, could have mattered.
PaulB
A PUMA to the bitter end, eh, Paul? You just cannot accept that you were wrong about damn near everything you wrote and that your candidate lost, can you?
Free clue: It’s not a “lie” when what Matthews is calling it is what everyone calls it.
We’re not hostile to the birthers; we think they’re hilariously stupid. We are hostile to a mainstream media that insists on giving these insane morons air time.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Why so hostile to the birthers? They are just asking questions.
Questions that have been repeatedly, decisively answered, but the answer isn’t what they want, so they double down.
After a while it gets tiresome. Much like your questions!
Gus
Seriously, why does anyone engage BOB. If he’s a spoof, let him spoof. If he’s serious, he’s an assclown and needs to be ignored.
Crystal
Taitz has a “Bob” in her comment section that was actually Taitz as another posting persona. “Bob” was divulging info that Only Taitz could possibly know. Taitz was complaining about a threatening email, then continued to talk about the email signed on as “Bob”.
Xenos
@Paul L.: Certification of live birth = Certification of Birth = Birth Certificate.
Same damn thing, just slightly different terminology based on state. Hawaii does not issue, ever, a document entitled “Birth Certificate”.
Only a functionally retarded person could misunderstand this. So you are either that stupid, or you act as if the rest of us are that stupid. So you get a hostile reception. What do you expect?
Englischlehrer
well, that took me a half hour to read all of those comments and it is shocking that in a microcosm we can see the political prism. Dems have all the power and cant get shit done to help the people who stood by them during their wilderness at the beginning of the century and the Repubs are acting as if Obama has been president 7.5 years and everyone is sick of him and the wars he has started, the American city he let drown and that he is not an American citizen. It is good to see they are thinking about what is best for the people.
PurpleGirl
Debbie @ 113: Hawai’i became a state in August 1959. They celebrate statehood’s 50th anniversary this year.
Mac from Oregon
Certificate of Not Live Birth. What else could we call that, hmm, how about a Death Certificate? Therefore a Certificate of Live Birth could be reasonably called a Birth Certificate.
I was born in NY 59 years ago, have no surviving witnesses, have never seen my original Birth Certificate, yet the copy I got with seals and stamps and such got me a passport, security clearance, etc., etc.
I believe the biggest problem with Obama’s Birth Certificate is that it does not show him to be a White American.
Furriner name, wrong color, and perpetrator of the most elaborate hoax ever perpetrated on the American public. Look at the careful planning that went into this starting in 1961! How can we win if they can plan this well? I propose a full on investigation of all births say from 1970 on to see if we can detect the same patterns that caused this hoax to flourish.
Nip it in the bud people!
Show us your papers, you filthy swine!
Morans.
OriGuy
Regarding the “Live Birth” terminology, twenty-some states issue a “Certificate of Still Birth”. This appears to be due to a campaign by a group called The M.I.S.S Foundation, a support group for parents of stillborn babies. (Caution, link leads to a page with loud, somber music starting automatically.)
BDeevDad
I just checked. My kids, who were born in hospitals in San Diego, CA, won’t be eligible for the Presidency because CA issues Certificates of Live Birth and not Birth Certificates.
trollhattan
Hey zeus kristos half a day later and this is still going? Oh, BOB was here. ‘splains everything.
A few days ago I got embroiled in a thread with some moon landing deniers and you know what? All birthers too.
That is all.
Mac from Oregon
Origuy-
25 states have a Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth (CBRS), seven more are considering it. It is very new, but an application can be made at anytime for a CBRS.
But I would not accept it as identification for a passport.
I mean, really.
Donald G
Re: #177:
I also pulled out my birth certificate from 1966 from the Commonwealth of Virginia (along with a 21st century replacement document from when I believed I had lost my birth certificate in a move). I also pulled out my children’s birth certificates from the 1990s (the elder child’s from Virginia, the younger child’s from Texas) for comparison purposes.
By birther logic, neither I nor my children are eligible to become POTUS since all have printed on them “Certificate of Live Birth”, and not “Birth Certificate.”
My 1966 certificate has – in addition to the names of myself and my parents – the name and address of the hospital in which I was delivered, my parents address at the time, my racial classification, my mother’s signature, and the signature of the doctor who delivered me. Neither of my two children’s certificate from the 1990’s has all that additional information (and since my daughter was delivered at home, there was no hospital or Doctor, only an attending midwife, so for the birthers, my daughter might as well not exist).
My replacement birth certificate – sorry, “Certificate of Live Birth” – from the 21st century largely matches the format of my children’s certificates and also lacks the additional information that is included on my 1966 certificate.
Have these birthers ever bothered to examine their own certificates, or compared them with the certificates of their recently born children and grandchildren to see just what a birth certificate is officially called and just what information is included on today’s birth certificates. By birther standards, it appears that no-one born later than 1990 will be able to present a birth certificate which has the level of information on it which meets their misconceived standards.
glocksman
Perhaps its just auld lang syne, but I actually feel sorry for Gordon Liddy.
Background:
The very first issue of Playboy I ever ‘read’ was the November 1980 issue.
It had some blonde chick on the cover ‘wearing’ a Canadian Mountie uniform jacket, but I digress…
It also had an interview with Gordon Liddy, and in between palm hair growing sessions, I read the interview.
In it, he came across as one serious badass with brains, an education, and a dedication to what he saw as the best interests of his country.
Though he also came across as somewhat ‘strange’ in his childhood infatuation with Naziism and Hitler, but he wove it into a narrative about how his ‘will’ could overcome any obstacle.
In fact, that interview led me to spend some of my hard earned paper route money on a copy of his autobiography.
That, coupled with a used copy of None Dare Call It Conspiracy, started my 30+ year role as a wingnut Republican Stalwart.
What Gordon Liddy did, reality and George Bush finally undid.
It was almost like what happened to Roddy Piper’s character in They Live when he put on the shades. :)
In retrospect, Liddy was quite the wingnut back then but he also was very well educated and intelligent and it showed when he wrote or talked.
Today, all animus aside, he sounds as if he’s had a stroke or is suffering from Alzheimer’s when he talks.
Also, unlike 99.9% of his compatriots in wingnuttia, Liddy actually ‘put it on the line’ and was willing to serve 20 years in order to protect Richard Nixon.
Somehow I don’t envision Rush or Sean Hannity being willing to do so in order to protect GWB or Dick Cheney.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
The most vehement Birthers are not interested in Obama being proven an American citizen, that is not their objective. IMO I believe they are racists, outright or can’t admit it to themselves, but they are racists and they are using this ‘issue’ to prove (in their fevered minds) that Obama is not an American citizen. Obama not an American citizen, ergo he is not the President and thus a black man has never legitimately held the office. The purity of White Rule is still unbroken, all they have to do is hound Obama out of office and restore the rightful, whiteful rule.
They know that he is an American but they don’t care. No matter what is presented to them, Obama is illegitimate because he is black so they have no choice but to distort reality to make their fantasy world their own personal reality. That they have so many fellow citizens in this fantasy world they have created is only buoying their hopes that this contrived reality may one day displace actual reality. They feed off of each other, using each other to build support, feeling like they are the ones who know the truth and that everyone else is a mindless rube.
This is all about race and nothing more. They can’t admit that he is legitimate because they hate the idea of a black man as the leader of the good ol’ US of A. What really burns is that he is their leader. They are supposed to look up to and respect a black man.
They can’t do it.
While BOB ain’t real, what sucks is that there are too many people out there who are just like him. They are real. BOB is a good reminder that there are actually people like him out there.
And worse.
John S.
The bottom line is that no matter what BOB and Cokehead Roberts think, Hawaii is not a foreign country. There is no ‘abroad’ in the equation.
sparky
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): exactly. and the Rs in position of authority are just using them the way they used the other fringer folks. all they have to do is let it continue to burn without getting singed and it’s all gold for them. think of it as professional trolling: every TV show, blog and whatnot that is devoted to this fantasy is that much energy diverted from changing the status quo. what’s not to like from the GOP perspective?
RememberNovember
For a convicted criminal to call a fairly elected President “illegal” is laughable. I thing GGodamnLiddy should buy the WAtergate and set it up as a soup kitchen for all his fellow unemployed birthers- they have too much free time.
sameasiteverwas
Good point. Hey, could you do me a favor and provide documentation that your mother didn’t spend her high school years giving out blow jobs under the bleachers to anyone who’d give her a pack of Luckies?
Why so hostile? I’m just asking questions!
Ajay
I dont understand why people have cable. I gave up 10 years ago and havent missed it. Watching TV is complete and utter waste of time.
Catsy
Hmm, I’ve had BOB on my pie filter for a long time now, and been much happier for it. The revelation through quoted replies that he’s a full-on birther does nothing to change my mind on this point.
The following is all that needs to be said:
Fact: There is no dispute that his mother was an American citizen, that she was present in the United States for at least five years prior to his birth, and that two of those years were after the age of 14.
Fact: The above are the sole requirements for a child born outside of the United States to a mother who is an American citizen to receive citizenship themselves, per INA 301(g).
Conclusion: Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that the insane conspiracy theories of the birthers are true and that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii, he is still a natural-born citizen of the United States.
That’s really the beginning and the end of this.
Kilkee
@John S.: Hawaii not a foreign country? Well, sure, most of us think so now. But I predict that by, say, September, as Birther Phase 2 kicks in, they will be talking long and loud about how, gee, as it turns out, Hawaii really is NOT a real State:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/HAWAII/hawaii.html
Paul
To all the birthers in La, La Land, it is on you to prove to all of us that your assertion is true, if there are people who were there and support your position then show us the video (everyone has a price), either put up or frankly shut-up. I heard Orly Taitz, is selling a tape (I think it’s called “Money, Lies and Video tape”). She is from Orange County, CA, now I know what the mean when they say “behind the Orange Curtain”, when they talk about Orange County, the captial of Conspiracy Theories. You know Obama has a passport, he travel abroad before he was a Senator, fooled them too?