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You are here: Home / The Insanity Continues

The Insanity Continues

by John Cole|  July 29, 20097:31 pm| 170 Comments

This post is in: Clown Shoes

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Sullivan digs in:

I want Obama to instruct the Hawaii officials to release the official original document they say they have in their hands. Why not?

Release it to who? Release it where? Could Glenn Beck and Geraldo Rivera have a live primetime special with the birth certificate? Or should we mat it on a nice American flag background and display it in the Capitol Rotunda? Or maybe a train tour of major cities, and people could pay $5.00 to view it. Or, we could spend 100 million dollars of the stimulus money and mail everyone a color photograph. Or maybe ACORN could just tack xerox copies on to telephone poles around the country.

At this point, I’m thinking we are a day or two away from him changing the color of his masthead to show unity with the birfers. I’m saying this as a friend, Andrew. It is still July. Go back on vacation for two more weeks. You need it.

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Previous Post: « The Mystery Of Megan McArdle
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Reader Interactions

170Comments

  1. 1.

    Mnemosyne

    July 29, 2009 at 7:35 pm

    My suggestion was to have the Hawaii Department of Health mail a certified copy to every household in America. Not that it would work. You’d have people with the frickin’ envelope in their hand screaming about Obama not releasing the birth certificate.

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    July 29, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    And besides, even if Obama did send a copy of the fabled “vault copy” via registered mail to every citizen in the country, it still wouldn’t shut up the birthers. They’d either claim it’s a forgery or come up with some other reason why Obama shouldn’t be president. Or, most likely, both.

    The only way to win that game is not to play.

    -dms

  3. 3.

    Trinity

    July 29, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    And yet again today, I am left speechless by teh stupid.

  4. 4.

    robertdsc

    July 29, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    He’s a fucking loser.

  5. 5.

    Comrade Dread

    July 29, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    I think what Sullivan fails to understand is that it won’t matter.

    You can’t argue with these lunatics. When you cite proof showing their claims to be bulls***, they simply change the topic or accuse you of being in on the grand conspiracy.

    As I told one of these cretins yesterday, what is more likely: that they are right and the entire Republican party, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton all wanted Obama to win? That the entire media, including many right-wing sites, Fox News, and NRO now, are in the tank for Obama? Or that the birfers are wrong.

    I got a general consensus that NRO is now in the tank for Obama.

    I’m becoming more convinced that these people are either genius Democrat trolls or bugf*** insane Republicans who need to be prevented from breeding.

  6. 6.

    Kathy

    July 29, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    Sully is one of my favorites, but I have to say I really think he has gone off the deep end on this. I don’t know if it is the bad weather in P’town or what. I understand the need for transparency, and that Obama has been disappointing on that front. HOWEVER, not on this. There is no satisfying these nut cases. Orly Tits said as much on Colbert last night. Obama has realized enough to satisfy the state department (who gave him a passport) and 100 percent of sane humanity. Time to move on.

  7. 7.

    Calouste

    July 29, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    I want Sullivan to check himself into a mental hospital for some much needed examination. Why not?

  8. 8.

    MikeJ

    July 29, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    I think we should require everyone in the us to have it tattooed on the back of their hand in order to buy or sell anything, or perform any financial transaction.

  9. 9.

    shabadoo

    July 29, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    I think he should change his site to white-on-white. Solidarity with Glenn Beck.

  10. 10.

    General Winfield Stuck

    July 29, 2009 at 7:41 pm

    I want Obama to instruct the Hawaii officials to release the official original document they say they have in their hands. Why not?

    I’d thought they said it was destroyed, oh well. Then I agree with Sully if the things exists. Tape on the backside of a cheap hooker and turn her loose in Greater Wingnuttia. Just to be sure they all get a gander.

  11. 11.

    MarkusB

    July 29, 2009 at 7:41 pm

    Sure. Buckle under to these nutty demands, then what next?

    Or, in other words, what dmsilev said.

  12. 12.

    freelancer

    July 29, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    Wow, that shoots to hell the slightest doubt I was possessing that the morning’s post about the Hawaiian official might not have been serious.

    Talk about Doubling Down on retarded. There’s a reason that even though I find Sully fascinating and have been reading BJ since about Cole’s Fall, I have never felt conservative in nature. WTF?

  13. 13.

    eric k

    July 29, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    Even by Sullivan;s absurd standard his parallel between Palin and Obama doesn’t hold up.

    Obama has let Fact Check post high resolution photo’s of his birth certificate on their web site. How much more transparent could he be? The whole point of organizations like Fact Check is to be clearing houses for stuff like this.

    Palin hasn’t shown anything to anyone.

  14. 14.

    Martin

    July 29, 2009 at 7:44 pm

    I want Obama to instruct the Hawaii officials to release the official original document they say they have in their hands. Why not?

    Why bother? 22 posts earlier:

    It is not my job as a journalist or yours as a citizen to take public officials on trust. They are not to be trusted, whoever they are.

    Since the certificate is the product of public officials made valuable by the policies of public officials and where any consequence of the birth certificate would be levied by public officials, why bother? If they are not to be trusted, than nothing they touch should be trusted.

    Sounds like the private-sector-solution-to-everything kneejerk reaction applied to a situation where there is no conceivable private sector solution. Actually, there is, private sector documents really aren’t that hard. I created an official California marriage certificate for a friend of mine so he and his fiancee could share a hotel room in China. There, done. Who wants to be born in Hawaii? I have a must-be-trustworthy non-public official solution right here.

  15. 15.

    Kathy

    July 29, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    My attempt at a blockquote:
    {Tape it on the backside of a cheap hooker and turn her loose in Greater Wingnuttia. Just to be sure they all get a gander}

    FTW General Winfield Suck!

    Perhaps putting it on a billboard on the Appalachian Trail might work?

  16. 16.

    BombIranForChrist

    July 29, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    Gah, the only reason Sully is doing this is because he has to defend his Trig insanity.

    If he wasn’t trying to cover his own ass, he wouldn’t be doing this.

    I don’t mind Sully that much, honestly, but he’s basically spinning his own shit at this point. Ego.

  17. 17.

    Laura W

    July 29, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    Here’s a heretical idea:
    Stop Refreshing The Insanity.
    Wild, I know.

  18. 18.

    RedKitten

    July 29, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    I want Obama to instruct the Hawaii officials to release the official original document they say they have in their hands. Why not?

    Exactly, release it to whom?

    Bit of a quandary there, Andy.

    So the State of Hawaii is supposed to release this to some impartial third party, I gather. Because SURELY Sullivan isn’t that much of an idiot that he’s suggesting that the birthers should be the ones who get to verify Obama’s birth certificate, right?

    SURELY he’s not saying that the very ones who loathe Obama and have SUCH a marked interest in him not being a citizen would actually review and analyze his birth certificate with any sort of degree of fairness and impartiality.

    So if Sullivan isn’t suggesting that a birther review and vet the birth certificate, and that a neutral third party should do it, then pray tell, is he naive enough to think that the birthers would actually accept the word of someone who is not one of their own?

    Sully, if by chance you are reading this, give your head a shake, man. Obama could go door-to-door, accompanied by Jesus Christ himself, with his original birth certificate on a pillow woven from threads from Saint Ronald Reagan’s finest blue suit, and the birth certicificate nuts would STILL not believe him. They don’t WANT to believe him, so no amount of proof will ever satisfy them. Ever. That’s the reality. Those are the people with whom you are aligning yourself right now, and it is only making you look like an utter twit.

  19. 19.

    Wapiti

    July 29, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    Obama is the President of the United States. One hopes he does not react to whatever demands Sullivan and the other crazies make. The President should just ignore them and their silly made-up allegations. There’s no need to get in the mud with some guy in a pig-suit, just because pig-boy demands attention.

  20. 20.

    mcc

    July 29, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    release the official original document they say they have in their hands

    I imagine a bureaucrat in a suit opening up his hands to let loose a scared little piece of paper, flapping like a butterfly, fluttering off into the wind, free.

    Do I have the long and short of it here?: Sullivan says some stupid, unreasonable things about Sarah Palin’s medical records. Months pass. Sullivan then realizes he has to say some stupid, unreasonable things about Barack Obama’s medical records, for “consistency”. He does so. Sullivan walks away satisfied this his vaunted political independence is intact; the liberal blogosphere has an Andrew Sullivan pileon, as happens about every two or three months; and just like all those other times everyone forgets the whole thing happened a week later.

  21. 21.

    freelancer

    July 29, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    No Edit function anymore.

    @Eric K

    Plus Palin’s persona has been Flag Lapel Pin Barbie showcasing ignorance and a superficial shallow litany of BULLSHIT explanations about everything from “asking her kids’ permission” to “bridge to nowhere”. Not to mention the bizarre word salad vitriol and victimization.

    Obama has made a campaign out of addressing tough gray areas with complexity, honesty, and a nuanced intelligence.
    He’s slowly shuffling his feet on important things like Healthcare, DADT/gay rights, Torture, Transparency, Wall St. regulation, but one gets the sense he’s doing this because change does come slowly, and not because he’s a pathological contemptuous paranoid liar.

  22. 22.

    bvac

    July 29, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    I personally want nothing less than a .999 pure silver proof issued by the American Historic Society (limited to 30 striking days) celebrating the President’s certification of live birth.

  23. 23.

    kay

    July 29, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    I think he’s embarrassed because he stupidly thought factcheck had the original, because he didn’t read the article, or look at the document, so people sent him emails. Not me. His readers.
    Now he has to demand the original. I don’t know why he’s still on the birth certificate, actually. Obama’s mother has medical records somewhere, I assume. That way he could post some more ill-informed mean-spirited gibberish on pregnancy, a subject he knows nothing at all about, as he proved, twice, with both the Palin crazy and the Tiller stupid.

  24. 24.

    General Winfield Stuck

    July 29, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    I miss my edit function

  25. 25.

    Steve T.

    July 29, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    1) The Hawaii vital records department went all-digital years ago. The form Obama’s doctor filled out when he was born was either scanned or entered as data, and then discarded with all the rest. It doesn’t exist any more, and I got that from Sully himself, so he knows. The database is certified, and they do printouts as necessary. But that won’t satisfy the birthers, as they’ll just scream “Forgery!!!”

    2) Well, they could let people look at the certified copy that Factcheck.org examined last year at Obama’s Chicago campaign office. Something you can pick up and hold in your hand! You let every birther who shows up do that and it will damn well disintegrate, worn to shreds, and you’ll have to get another printout from Hawaii. Which has them screaming “Forgery!!!” yet again.

    You can’t satisfy these people. Only laugh at them.

  26. 26.

    JenJen

    July 29, 2009 at 7:56 pm

    Oh for the love of fuck!

    I stopped reading Sully weeks ago, but only because I could only access The Atlantic via Blackberry and those annoying pop-ups disabled the entire site.

    Now, I’m thanking the pop-ups. What is Sully doing, here? Is he just trying to keep it all-equal vis-a-vis TrigGate?

    This is stupid, and when smart people become unreasonable, it’s just damned depressing.

  27. 27.

    Dave C

    July 29, 2009 at 7:56 pm

    He’s walked back somewhat on his earlier comments. .

  28. 28.

    lamh31

    July 29, 2009 at 7:56 pm

    Like I said in the first Sully thread, Sully can suck it. This birther nonsense is bullshit and he knows it. What’s happening with Andrew is what is currently happening with all Conserv who “voted for Obama”. The glamour has worn off, and now they are reverting back to their old “I hate liberals” ways, with a little dash of racism in for good measure.

    he should just get on with it, and leave this birther business alone. As for the transperacy, DADT/DOMA, etc issues, people all over the liberal blogosphere ain’t happy with Obama on some of those issues, but they sure ain’t embracing the birther movement because of it.

    also, I was never a fan of the Palin/Trig rumor, Sully, chief among others, spent way too much time on it. He didn’t like Palin, and like this birther bizness, he was just projecting that dislike into the rumors of Trig birth.

  29. 29.

    Dave C

    July 29, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    Sorry, my last comment contained an html fail. Here’s the link: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/07/the-original-ctd-1.html

  30. 30.

    Hugh

    July 29, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    Like I said in a previous thread, Sullivan likes to think he’s speaking truth to power. But really he’s just a thoughtless, reactive, narcissistic dick (I’m gay too so don’t read any homophobia into that). God he’s awful.

  31. 31.

    Sharon

    July 29, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    Andrew: Meds. Halve em or double em. They ain’t working.

    I still have a copy of my original hand-written birth certificate (California)issued in 1942. However, when I want a certified copy of same, the state sent the digitized version that looks much like Obama’s.

    I couldn’t get a copy of the original one now even if I wanted to because the hand-written records are long gone — replaced by the digitized ones. I admit, the new ones lack the charm of the old one that specifies race and father’s occupation, etc. but that’s GONE.

    Andrew really needs to get a grip.

  32. 32.

    Comrade Mary

    July 29, 2009 at 8:02 pm

    Sullivan is downright incoherent here.

    The Original, Ctd.

    To all those readers furious at me for even asking to see the original birth certificate, I should note that [1]I was made aware today that FactCheck.org did see the original, and [2]I’d encourage the Obama peeps to show it to other outlets. After following all these confusing stories, and [3]realizing that others have indeed seen and vetted the original, [4]I don’t see any further obligation on Obama’s part. [5]I’m still confused as to how the same original could be simultaneously in Chicago and Hawaii, but [6]it seems to me that the president has done what is necessary.

    My goal here is transparency and avoiding double standards. I’m sorry I got lost a little in the weeds there. And I would think it’s clear enough I’m not part of the Birther crowd. I’m trying to defuse them. I’m done now.

    [1] Sullivan is still unclear that what FactCheck called the “original” in a photo caption was not the Hawaii original record, but the certified copy mailed to Obama that was scanned for the web site. It’s not clear if he thinks that the physical, certified copy should be issued in many multiple copies, of if this single certified copy is, indeed, his holy grail.

    [2] But he still thinks the certified copy should be shown to “other outlets” (unspecified) but does not explain why several high quality scans and the Hawaiian declarations that it’s really real are insufficient.

    [3] Still unclear on “original”.

    [4] Forget what I said in [2]: Obama doesn’t have to do anything else.

    [5] He’s still confused, you betcha!

    [6] Rinse and repeat of [4].

    I’m not even going to tackle the second paragraph.

  33. 33.

    Trinity

    July 29, 2009 at 8:04 pm

    I am just flabbergasted at how he is ignoring the historical context of race in this issue. This is not about transparency and never was! Sweet Jeebus.

    Earlier today I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but now that he’s doubled down on the insanity I am more then disturbed.

    Sully, seriously, step away from the keyboard and go on a long relaxing vacation.

  34. 34.

    Rick Taylor

    July 29, 2009 at 8:06 pm

    Release it to who? Release it where?

    That was my thought exactly. I guess he wants them to have a guard ready at all times to escort anyone who wishes to view it? Since these questions are obvious, and Sullivan doesn’t even attempt to address them, just throws away the question as though it’s obvious, I really wonder what he’s up to.

    And I’m still confused as to what “it” is? Is it supposed to be the genuine decades old document, signed by the original doctor? What magical properties does it have that will satisfy the skeptics that the official pronouncements of the so-called state of Hawaii don’t? Does it need to be carbon dated? Chemically tested?

  35. 35.

    geg6

    July 29, 2009 at 8:06 pm

    Sully, in a fine pout, has now conceded that he’s wrong and walked it back. The pout comes in when he says how can there be an original in Hawaii and one at the Obama HQ in Chicago. Sully’s a bright guy, but when he’s determined to be stupid, that stupid burns like the sun.

  36. 36.

    SpotWeld

    July 29, 2009 at 8:06 pm

    My question for Sullivan: “What is your question” this original birth certificate.. it’s information that will definitively answer a question right?

    The only “question” that has been proposed by birthers is the possibility that Obama is not eligible to be president of the US because he is not a “natural born citizen” .. right?

    Okay. So to answer that question it is necessary to ensure that Obama was born at a specific time and a specific place. In this case, Hawaii when it was part of the US.

    So.. what information has been provided. A Certificate of Live birth substantiating the date and place already mentioned. Also it has been verified by Obama, the Gov. of Hawaii, the head of the Hawaii dept of heath, the hospital and further confirmed by the historical documentation of the local newspapers birth announcements on the day in question…

    If this does not answer the question at hand, then there is no reasonable expectation that any information provided it.

    It’s like the moon landing deniers. We have astronaut statements, film footage, countless engineers and tech staff, the reflection off the laser targets and now orbital photographs…

    At some point, you either explain yourself why all these integrated and supremely credible sources are not acceptable, and you must do so convincingly so you can explain why this additional documentation is *necessary* ..

    ..or you shut up because you have stepped beyond the realm of actual reasonable argument and into the mantle of the conspiracy theorists.

    Yo Sully. You have been given enough information to answer you question.

    If you are still not satisfied the blame lies with yourself because you seem to be unable to admit what your real question is.

  37. 37.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    July 29, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    Alternate Andrew Sullivan: I want the President to override the sovereignty of a state simply to pacify the same brand of assholes who are pissing their pants over adding GLBTs to the hate crimes bill and who pushed back against lifting the immigration ban on people who are HIV+. The fact that this will set a precedent whereby vindictive shitheads can harass anyone they perceive as not 100% RealAmerican(TM) is an added bonus!

    The man is a fucking putz.

  38. 38.

    David

    July 29, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    The Birthers keep saying that the government documents they’ve seen are faked, or incorrect, or have been gamed and that all these government officials are in on the conspiracy but as proof they want to see

    a government issued birth certificate.

  39. 39.

    SpotWeld

    July 29, 2009 at 8:08 pm

    Even more to the point.. is Sully so damm credible that if is his convinced that his statement to that effect will have one bit on impact on the birthers?

  40. 40.

    demkat620

    July 29, 2009 at 8:08 pm

    Um, again where was Sully during the 90’s? This is exactly the same shit they buried Clinton under.

    It was all noise, all nonsense, all day long.

  41. 41.

    Dreggas

    July 29, 2009 at 8:08 pm

    @Hugh:

    A dick is a dick. Now if you said he was totally queening and acting like a silly fa**ot then there might be a bit of homophobia, then again according to my gay friends you’d get a pass.

  42. 42.

    Mister Papercut

    July 29, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    Y’know, I’m no big brain, and I certainly I don’t get paid the big bucks like Andy, but is this a precedent he really wants set? Because I thought the idea of the president ordering State X to Y — where “contravene the laws of State X” for all values of Y — is the sort of thing that should send All Good Conservatives™ into paroxysms of rage. Hell, I think it’s a fantastically bad idea myself.

    Meanwhile, my most nagging thought about this theory (again, no big brain, me) is if the principals were willing to engage in a decades-long fiction, why make the fiction so damned elaborate? Why not just have some verifiable Amurrrican black dude agree to be named as little Barry’s dad? What did Stanley Ann, The Psychic POTUSMother have to gain by getting the tricksy Kenyans in on it? Style points?

  43. 43.

    Frank Sobotka

    July 29, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    Can someone explain to me why the fact that Obama’s mother was unquestionably an American citizen means absolutely nothing to these lunatics?

  44. 44.

    Will Danz

    July 29, 2009 at 8:11 pm

    “I want Obama to instruct the Hawaii officials to release the official original document they say they have in their hands. Why not?”

    Why not? Let me count the ways:

    1) First of all, Sullivan doesn’t even have the basic facts down here. HIS DRAMA-QUEEN “CONFUSION” IS NOT OBAMA’S PROBLEM. He’s either too damned thick or too “I want to believe” re the birther crapola, and he’s made it more complicated in his pea brain than it is. (See Comrade Mary’s deconstruction of Sullivan’s confusion, in # 32 above.)

    2) The President of the United States hasn’t the time or obligation to debunk every truly insane rumor. THERE WAS NEVER ANY LEGITMATE CONTROVERSY, TO ANYONE WITH A BRAIN. It’s always just rightwing lunatics, or people who want to get them riled up, promoting this. Sullivan has now joined the ranks of one or the other — well done, you idiot!

    3) As John says above, “release” exactly what to who? The creeps who believe this will never, ever be satisfied — they’ll always find some reason to believe their insane fantasy. And the even creepier creeps who are trying to rile them up don’t deserve the time of day.

    Sullivan is really repulsive.

  45. 45.

    demkat620

    July 29, 2009 at 8:11 pm

    And just a reminder, it is August and MJ is still dead, no overseas incident or some missing white woman case.

    The only thing being discussed right now is policy. And to the press, that health care shit is boring.

  46. 46.

    demkat620

    July 29, 2009 at 8:13 pm

    @Frank Sobotka: Because shut up, that’s why!

    He’s a moooslem who pals around with terrorists and doesn’t see America the way you and I see America. Also.

  47. 47.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    July 29, 2009 at 8:13 pm

    Or maybe a train tour of major cities, and people could pay $5.00 to view it.

    Yeah, right alongside the liberty bell and the declaration of independence.

  48. 48.

    Trinity

    July 29, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    @demkat620: Very good point.

  49. 49.

    kay

    July 29, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    @Comrade Mary:

    But if he wants to speak truth to power he can’t be so sloppy.

    The official who signed the factcheck copy is not the person who would have signed the original in 1961.

    “We can assure readers that the certificate does bear a raised seal, and that it’s stamped on the back by Hawaii state registrar Alvin T. Onaka (who uses a signature stamp rather than signing individual birth certificates).”

    Onaka was in high school in 1961. He didn’t sign the original. It’s a copy.

    Sloppy. Why is still confused about whether the original is in Hawaii or Chicago.

    This isn’t that hard.

  50. 50.

    David

    July 29, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    What’s wrong with saying the all the evidence I’ve seen has convinced me that Obama was born in Hawaii? I’ve seen normal, reliable proof and I’m convinced. I don’t need any other proof other than regular, everyday reality. I can see it online and sane state officials have certified it.

    I’m now convinced Obama was born in the USA.

  51. 51.

    lamh31

    July 29, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    This is so OT, but I OMG YA’LL!!!

    Am I crazy or does that NC terrorist suspect look like one of the dudes from the morphing segment of Michael Jackson’s Black or White Video (just older and a little fuller in the face).

    Here’s a pic of the guy:Terror Suspect Daniel Boyd…

    Here’s the “Black or White” morphing segment:
    Black Or White Morphing Video

    AM I CRAZY?????

  52. 52.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    July 29, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    @Rick Taylor: Yeah, and after the testing process destroyed or damaged the document they’d all shout “AHA! The usuper lacks unaltered documented proof that he’s a U.S. citizen!!”

  53. 53.

    Sirkowski

    July 29, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    Standard Log Cabin crazy.

  54. 54.

    kay

    July 29, 2009 at 8:18 pm

    “5]I’m still confused as to how the same original could be simultaneously in Chicago and Hawaii,”

    I’m telling you, he wouldn’t make the 90 day probationary period at the post office. He’d wash out.

  55. 55.

    MikeJ

    July 29, 2009 at 8:19 pm

    Yeah, right alongside the liberty bell and the declaration of independence.

    Somebody took a third grade field trip to the Freedom train.

  56. 56.

    SpotWeld

    July 29, 2009 at 8:19 pm

    @Frank Sobotka

    You answer your own question, they’re lunatics.

  57. 57.

    Josh Huaco

    July 29, 2009 at 8:20 pm

    @Frank Sobotka:

    Can someone explain to me why the fact that Obama’s mother was unquestionably an American citizen means absolutely nothing to these lunatics?

    She forfeited her citizenship when she fornicated with a foreigner. Also.

  58. 58.

    DaBomb

    July 29, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    Actually we all know that Obama’s birth certificate will be found on a pillow made out of silky dashiki material. It will be presented to Orly Taintz and Balls by Nelson Mandela because he really was there when Barack Obama was born. That’s why he was sent to jail for so many years because he knew of the conspiracy, it had nuthin’ to do with that Apartheid shit.

  59. 59.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    July 29, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    @Frank Sobotka:
    1. He’s an African-American.
    2. He’s in the White House.
    3. He’s not there to polish the floors.

    There’s a chance they’d be this apeshit about a Caucasian president if he were a Democrat, but there’s also a chance I’ll look out of my window and see Palin and Bachmann mud wrestling on my lawn.

  60. 60.

    EchoesBunniesRemoteFromWork

    July 29, 2009 at 8:22 pm

    Sullyvan has a really bad habit of letting himself get obsessed with certain issues, and he gets himself into these feedback loops that keep oscillating over and over again.

    I am pretty shocked at reading this kind of shit from him. I thought he was smarter than this.

  61. 61.

    Davis X. Machina

    July 29, 2009 at 8:22 pm

    It’s enough to make one slit ones’ wrists — with Ockham’s razor.

  62. 62.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    July 29, 2009 at 8:22 pm

    Maybe we could fund health care with charged Obama birth certificate viewings.

  63. 63.

    mcc

    July 29, 2009 at 8:23 pm

    Sullivan is downright incoherent here.

    Reading this one wonders how the post you quote might have been different had he simply done something basic like reading the appropriate Wikipedia article before posting. I mean– he seems to have so many questions, and so many of them are on subjects that answers are really, really easy to locate. Though come to think of it, if he did have a policy of just quickly checking a Wikipedia article before posting, would this even have gotten to the point where this update post was necessary in the first place…?

    I don’t update my blog very often– like maybe every few months– and it doesn’t seem to have many readers. But when I do post on it I at least try to do a thing of compulsively taking every sentence, every claim I make over the course of the post, and taking a moment to fact-check it to the limit of my ability, such that if someone stopped on any particular sentence and said “cite?” I’d have a source in mind to respond with. This is quick and easy enough to do that it boggles my mind that there can be people who have A-level blogs with zillions of readers, people who in theory could hire fact-checkers, and it never even occurs to them to attempt something like this before posting. But I guess if you stopped to learn something about a subject before posting about it then it would be difficult to achieve a rate of 53 posts per day…?

  64. 64.

    WMass

    July 29, 2009 at 8:24 pm

    I’m now convinced that Sullivan is a superhero and his superpower is the ability to get otherwise intelligent people to pay attention to him. He is virulenty racist, sexist, brain-numbingly stupid, and the sort of asshole who only cares about problems that impact him personally. But somehow DougJ, John Cole, and many other rational people can not resist taking him seriously. Come on people, don’t you get it? He is a steaming pile of syphilitic shit, with a thin patina of good grammar and vocabulary on top. You are demeaning yourselves by engaging him.

  65. 65.

    PaulB

    July 29, 2009 at 8:25 pm

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    I’d thought they said it was destroyed, oh well.

    That was a claim in one article, but Hawaii officials stated just a day or two ago that that report was false and that the official record still exists.

  66. 66.

    General Winfield Stuck

    July 29, 2009 at 8:26 pm

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:

    I’ll look out of my window and see Palin and Bachmann mud wrestling on my lawn.

    I’d pay 5 bucks to view that.

  67. 67.

    PaulB

    July 29, 2009 at 8:28 pm

    From USA Today:

    In an e-mail, the Times reported, Klein wrote that CNN researchers determined that Obama’s 1961 birth certificate no longer exists because Hawaiian officials had discarded paper documents in 2001 — a claim denied Monday by Hawaiian health officials.

    In 2001, Hawaii’s paper documents were reproduced in electronic format, but “any paper data prior to that still exists,” Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said.

    Okubo would not say where Obama’s original birth certificate is but said, “We have backups for all of our backups.”

  68. 68.

    Tsulagi

    July 29, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    So Sullivan finds himself on Loony Road with a bunch of retards speeding down the same highway then instead of hitting the brakes and turning around he hits the gas, huh? Smart.

    Love the birthers. Special Olympians could be in the stands munching popcorn while pointing and laughing watching birfers on the field competing for The Birth Certificate goal.

    They have given me an idea, though. The next time mom hassles me about my agnostic ways, I’ll ask her if anyone ever actually saw Jesus’ birth certificate. Any of the disciples? Don’t think so. The Bible is eerily quiet on that issue. How do we really know Jesus was born in Nazareth? Could have been Rome, and as a Roman citizen he would not have been qualified to be King of the Jews. And if God is not even listed as father on Jesus’ birth certificate, then all bets are off. All burning questions that could be answered if the Vatican would simply release the long form of Jesus’ birth certificate from their archives.

  69. 69.

    Ana Gama

    July 29, 2009 at 8:30 pm

    just gettin me a cookie

  70. 70.

    bdc

    July 29, 2009 at 8:30 pm

    “It’s a reproduction.”
    “It’s a forgery.”
    “They delayed the release so they could plant this one.”
    “It was easy to bribe clerks in Hawaii back then to falsify state documents.”
    “Hawaii’s record keeping was very poor, so we can’t trust it.”
    “There’s a misspelling in a name, so it can’t be trusted.”
    “How do we know he’s the same person as referenced in the document? The same name proves nothing.”
    “Someone in Africa claims he was born there so all these documents are meaningless.”
    “Why can’t we find the doctors who delivered him?”

    Add your favorite possible responses.

  71. 71.

    General Winfield Stuck

    July 29, 2009 at 8:32 pm

    @PaulB:

    Okubo would not say where Obama’s original birth certificate is but said, “We have backups for all of our backups.”

    “Janice Okubu”. Oh right. The conspiracy widens/wingnut birthers

  72. 72.

    Jim Pharo

    July 29, 2009 at 8:32 pm

    I think a lot of this has to do with the public’s misperception about how birth certificates (and other similar documents) work. The original document is on file with the governmental office — typically a county clerk. What you have in your shoe box is a copy that has been certified by a government official as accurate.

    There may be exceptions to this in some jurisdictions, but the truth is that this is how it works generally in most US jurisdictions.

    I’m not saying any of this would make any difference to the truly committed birthers. But it does cause many a Congressional staffer to think there’s more here than there really is.

    Just sayin’,

  73. 73.

    Josh Huaco

    July 29, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    @WMass:

    [Sully is] the sort of asshole who only cares about problems that impact him personally

    Yes, but there’s more. He has some sort of weird simultaneous near and far-sightedness where he can write about the things that impact him personally (gay marriage, immigration) or that relate to general principles (separation of church and state, civil liberties, torture). But when it comes to shit that matters to actual living people, he reveals himself to be a selfish crank.

  74. 74.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    July 29, 2009 at 8:34 pm

    @bdc: “Those are three nines on his scalp.”

  75. 75.

    mantis

    July 29, 2009 at 8:35 pm

    He’s already walking back a bit:

    To all those readers furious at me for even asking to see the original birth certificate, I should note that I was made aware today that FactCheck.org did see the original, and I’d encourage the Obama peeps to show it to other outlets. After following all these confusing stories, and realizing that others have indeed seen and vetted the original, I don’t see any further obligation on Obama’s part. I’m still confused as to how the same original could be simultaneously in Chicago and Hawaii, but it seems to me that the president has done what is necessary.

    He still doesn’t even understand the demand he was making earlier today.

  76. 76.

    mantis

    July 29, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    Oh, Comrade Mary’s way ahead of me. Oops.

  77. 77.

    cbear

    July 29, 2009 at 8:37 pm

    @WMass:

    Who the fuck gives a fuck what the fuck Andy “Bareback-Fucking” Sullivan has to fucking say about fucking anything?

    Seriously folks, just because some asshole stands up on his hind legs and, for a couple of years, acts like something resembling a human being regarding a few of the issues normal human beings give a shit about–does not make him any less of an asshole than he has been for most of his life.

    Fuck him.

  78. 78.

    Demo Woman

    July 29, 2009 at 8:38 pm

    WTF is a long copy of a birth certificate… When my second son was born I received an original birth certificate at the hospital with dr.’s and midwife’s signature but since it was not filed with the state it was not valid. The certified, notarized copy that I have is much smaller. One of my son’s birth certificate is for a live birth, the other says birth certificate.
    I am so sick of racist assholes.

  79. 79.

    demkat620

    July 29, 2009 at 8:38 pm

    @Tsulagi: Yup. Remember he supported the invasion of Iraq too.

  80. 80.

    slag

    July 29, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    Legend has it that once there were some who were foolish enough to look directly at the original birth certificate. No one’s seen or heard from them since.

  81. 81.

    Mister Papercut

    July 29, 2009 at 8:41 pm

    OT, but AFAIC there’s no nasty birther stank that couldn’t be masked by some strategically-deployed, well-timed Tunch’n’Lily. Just sayin’.

  82. 82.

    cbear

    July 29, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: “Those are three nines on his scalp.”

    THAT may be the funniest thing I’ve heard/read this month.
    Bravo.

  83. 83.

    David

    July 29, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    Hey Birthers! Now do you understand why Peggy Noonan hates you?

  84. 84.

    WMass

    July 29, 2009 at 8:43 pm

    @Josh Huaco: That’s a really good point, he has no ability to relate philosophy to everyday life.

  85. 85.

    Ash Can

    July 29, 2009 at 8:44 pm

    Maybe Sullivan is actually still on vacation and his account has been hacked by someone at Fox News Current-Events Entertainment.

  86. 86.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    July 29, 2009 at 8:51 pm

    From the department of Make up your rabbit mind you daft twat:

    I’d encourage the Obama peeps to show it to other outlets.

    Not sure which Obama peeps he’s talking about. Supporters? Staff? Yummy marshmallow filled candies? Why would any of those people need to do it; because he’s a credulous jackass? Neither am I sure which outlets he means. Most outlets are treating this like the joke this is. Those who aren’t will only run “The Obama Administration is trying desperately to quell rumors they say are unfounded…” stories. Causing Sully to go back into ponderation mode. But wait, there’s more:

    After following all these confusing stories, and realizing that others have indeed seen and vetted the original, I don’t see any further obligation on Obama’s part.

    Wait, you just said Obama’s peeps should show this to “outlets” (I assume he doesn’t mean the place where you plug in electronics, but one can never tell). Now you’re saying there’s no further obligation. Oh wait, are we back to appeasing people who deserve nothing more than a supersized cock punch just to make sure they’re happy?

    Fuck you then.

    If he starts whining ‘cos everyone’s being so mean to him I may become annoyed.

  87. 87.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    July 29, 2009 at 8:57 pm

    If we are not to believe gummint officials because they are not to be trusted then I would say we absolutely must not believe the establishment media either. They are on about equal footing when it comes to credibility and realibility. BTW we can vote certain officials out and then have them replace the recalcitrants who won’t bow to the wishes of the majority, no? The media people we just have to stop consuming the product they churn out. That I have already done.

    Ultimately we, each one of us, must travel to Hawaii and personally verify the Barack Hussein Obama’s birf certikat is indeed his! How else can we be sure otherwise? Besides Sullivan isn’t a citizen anyway.

    Sigh …

  88. 88.

    Augustine

    July 29, 2009 at 8:58 pm

    @RedKitten 18

    Saint Ronny wore brown suits, doncha know.

    In solidarity, mayhaps, for the victims of Operation Hummingbird.

  89. 89.

    Maus

    July 29, 2009 at 8:59 pm

    “Yup. Remember he supported the invasion of Iraq too.” Yeah, the guy has a cushy gig regurgitating these lines. He says fairly reasonable stuff every once in a while and snaps to attention every once in a while to please his masters. It’s not as if he holds himself to any standards.

  90. 90.

    demimondian

    July 29, 2009 at 9:02 pm

    Worse…the ‘original’ doesn’t exist any more, Andy. It’s been shredded. There is a record in a database, from which new copies can be made. There *is* no original.

  91. 91.

    Augustine

    July 29, 2009 at 9:03 pm

    Oh, and “yay, the CSS is back; I can read the site”

  92. 92.

    pika

    July 29, 2009 at 9:03 pm

    Ironically, the very thing that Sullivan’s asking for–‘proof’ that Obama exists according to the terms of the state–is the very thing that is oppressing Sullivan: the state recognizes neither
    Sullivan’s marriage nor his right to be here in the U.S., despite his rightly held belief that because he generates his own effects, the state should recognize him as a subject possessed of rights, responsibilities, and privileges. Vacation shmaycation: Sullivan needs a good dose of Intersectionality 101. And I agree with the folks above: we need a good dose of Lily, dead shit or no dead shit.

  93. 93.

    Steve V

    July 29, 2009 at 9:07 pm

    It looks like there’s still confusion as to the “original,” “long form” certificate from 1961 exists. What Sullivan just can’t comprehend is that it doesn’t matter whether it exists or not! I hope it does exist, just because I think old documents are cool, but it has no bearing whatsoever on whether Obama has presented sufficient proof of his birth in the United States. The COLB is completely, perfectly legally sufficient for this purpose. It isn’t a forgery. It answers the question. The inquiry is satisfied, and has been satisfied since last summer when Markos posted it (not that Obama even needed to do that — he’s the only presidential candidate I can think of who even publicly presented his birth certificate). What the f**k came over Sullivan today? It’s like reading his Bell Curve posts all over again.

  94. 94.

    Steve V

    July 29, 2009 at 9:08 pm

    Whoops, “as to WHETHER the ‘original’ …” exists. Typo. :(

  95. 95.

    mai naem

    July 29, 2009 at 9:08 pm

    Anybody asked Andrew for his birth certificate? What about Lou Dobbs? Glenn Beck? Rushbo? Hannity?

    My dad lost my birth original birth certificate when he lost his briefcase with all our “important papers” in it during one of our moves. None of us have our original birth certificates/ childhood vaccination records etc. All we have are copies. The Brits don’t provide originals anymore so unless Sully has the single original one, all he’s got is copies. And I am willing to bet a lot of these birthers are in the same boat. They don’t have their own original birth certificates.

  96. 96.

    BC

    July 29, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    I think there are people so pig-shit stupid about how the world works that they have no ability to really judge what is reality and what is fantasy. Let’s look at this birth certificate issue:
    1. When you are born, there is a record made of your birth that is filed with the appropriate executive branch in the state of your birth. You do not get the original of this record of your birth – like I said, this is sent to the Dept of Vital Statistics or whatever department a state has given authority in this area. You may get a certified copy of this record with a seal, etc., when you request it and pay the fee. This is the only legal birth certificate available for American citizens since we don’t use baptismal certificates or other types of proof of birth.
    2. When my children were born in California, I was given the option of purchasing certified copies of the birth certificate once the state had recorded their births and were able to produce said birth certificate. Again, I never received the original certificates (although I did get a hospital-issued certificate that was signed by the doctor, had a footprint of the baby, and had a seal, but was never a legal birth certificate).
    3. From what I could understand, that crazy woman with the ziploc bag and American flag had a copy of this hopsital-produced certificate, which has no legal validity. If Obama’s mother received one from the hospital when he was born, she very well could have lost it. But no harm, it was never a legal document anyway.
    4. Maybe if we can’t see Ronald Reagan’s death certificate, that would mean he isn’t dead after all.

  97. 97.

    Jacob Davies

    July 29, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    I’m guessing that the paper records do still exist with the Hawaii registrar because there would be no reason to destroy them in moving to an electronic system. You’d want them as a backup. (I’d hope that they print copies of current registrations and put them in a filing cabinet somewhere, because electronic records still aren’t as tamper-proof and survivable as a paper document, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.)

    And destroying records (vs. keeping them in long-term storage) is one of those things that I can’t see any self-preserving bureaucrat signing off on. You can’t get in trouble if you put the paper records in a warehouse; you can get in trouble if you screwed up in the data entry process and lost someone’s birth record in the transition.

    But of course a requested copy is going to come from the electronic system and be freshly-printed. Even my contemporary 1977 birth certificate is a retyped – rather than photocopied – version of the original. I have no idea if a single-page “original certificate” was ever made; I know what they recorded, but I don’t know how they formatted it, and it could’ve been an entry in a ledger for all I know.

    But the point is, this is a conspiracy theory and they are immune to fact. You cannot satisfy them by bringing out more and more-detailed evidence. You can only inoculate people from falling prey to the fallacy, and doing that requires only the evidence required to convince any sane person: a copy of the original birth certificate that is exactly what is accepted as proof of birth by all US authorities, and is all that is available to anyone but the registrar themselves, contemporary evidence from newspapers recording his birth, and verification from state officials that the information on the copy of the birth certificate is accurate.

  98. 98.

    demimondian

    July 29, 2009 at 9:14 pm

    @Jacob Davies:

    electronic records still aren’t as tamper-proof and survivable as a paper document

    Dude — that’s nonsense, both technically and legally.

    It’s technical nonsense because an HMAC-signed electronic document is *harder* to forge than a paper document. It’s legal nonsense because electronic signatures became the equivalent of paper ones thirteen years ago now.

  99. 99.

    David

    July 29, 2009 at 9:14 pm

    Hey Birthers, in the normal world that IS a birth certificate. BTW, I haven’t forgotten that you’re the reason we had Bush for eight years.

  100. 100.

    EL

    July 29, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Sullivan has put up another post that basically says ‘I posted without knowing everything… never mind.’

  101. 101.

    hal

    July 29, 2009 at 9:18 pm

    Sullivan’s tone and attitude toward Obama certainly seem to have done, if not quite a complete 180, at least a turn back towards a more conservative, hardline stand. I’m surprised by his take on the birth certificate, especially after he spent so much time on Palin watch. You would think his bullshit detector would be a fine tuned instrument by now.

  102. 102.

    kay

    July 29, 2009 at 9:19 pm

    @BC:

    “2. When my children were born in California, I was given the option of purchasing certified copies of the birth certificate once the state had recorded their births and were able to produce said birth certificate. Again, I never received the original certificates (although I did get a hospital-issued certificate that was signed by the doctor, had a footprint of the baby, and had a seal, but was never a legal birth certificate).”

    Me too, and it had a gold border, like a diploma, but I knew it was a keepsake, and put it in a book.
    Imagine the confusion, for some people. Really. It makes my head hurt. Now you know why government employees are so cranky.

  103. 103.

    RedKitten

    July 29, 2009 at 9:24 pm

    She forfeited her citizenship when she fornicated with a non-white foreigner. Also.

    Fixed. Does anybody honestly think that we’d have this kerfuffle if Obama’s daddy had been a lily-white Brit or Scandinavian?

  104. 104.

    Origuy

    July 29, 2009 at 9:25 pm

    I’m guessing that the paper records do still exist with the Hawaii registrar because there would be no reason to destroy them in moving to an electronic system.
    You know how much land is going for on Oahu?

  105. 105.

    mantis

    July 29, 2009 at 9:26 pm

    @Jacob Davies:

    The Hawaii DOH said earlier this week they still have all the originals. Jon Klein of CNN didn’t know what he was talking about, my guess due to a misreading of a Star Tribune report where they explained that the state went paperless in 2001. He’s the only one who has claimed they were destroyed.

  106. 106.

    Ana Gama

    July 29, 2009 at 9:36 pm

    My bet is the original paper documents were destroyed by Hawaii….after scanning them into pdf or some such format.

  107. 107.

    evie

    July 29, 2009 at 9:39 pm

    Yeah, and if he continues, I’m going to take him off my RSS. His Palin birther craziness is bad enough, but Obama is on my team. It’s not OK for him to be promoting this bs.

    And the way he pretends this is about “good journalism” is a disgrace on its face.

  108. 108.

    kay

    July 29, 2009 at 9:54 pm

    @evie:

    He raised doubts about Palin’s son to prove a point about her dishonesty, and he’s raising doubts about Obama’s claim to the office to prove a point about his lack of transparency.
    This is the politics of the personal, and it’s deeply mean-spirited and small. Sullivan learned a lot from Republicans.

  109. 109.

    Demo Woman

    July 29, 2009 at 9:58 pm

    @BC: Thank you for that comment.

    although I did get a hospital-issued certificate that was signed by the doctor, had a footprint of the baby, and had a seal, but was never a legal birth certificate).

    The so called long birth certificate is not certified or notarized and not a legal document.
    I still think that Orly is working with Putin. She did come from the Soviet Union and I never personally saw her birth certificate.

  110. 110.

    robertdsc

    July 29, 2009 at 9:58 pm

    Sullivan has put up another post that basically says ‘I posted without knowing everything… never mind.’

    That’s his problem. He never learns and just shoots his mouth off. When he’s caught out, he retracts. Get a goddamned clue, Andrew.

  111. 111.

    Comrade Kevin

    July 29, 2009 at 10:01 pm

    @demkat620:

    Um, again where was Sully during the 90’s? This is exactly the same shit they buried Clinton under.

    Holding one of the shovels?

  112. 112.

    kay

    July 29, 2009 at 10:02 pm

    @robertdsc:

    You’re letting him off too easy. He’s claiming Palin had an obligation to post her medical records to put rumors to rest. But he spread the rumors, and he’s the only one who pursued that story.
    He’s going to do it again because he’s pretending he’s doing something else. He probably should think about why he’s doing these things, and stop kidding himself.

  113. 113.

    pattonbt

    July 29, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    Sullivan is just looking for another “legitimate” hook to hang his necessary disappointment with Obama on. Obama hasnt solved the worlds problems as Sullivan wants or in the time Sullivan wants so he is reverting back to himself – the ‘libruls R bad’ dogma.

    Sullivan was never “pro” Obama. He was a depressed, hurt and disillusioned R and knew it was time to jump on the ‘Kill Bush and Republicans’ bandwagon if he wanted to maintain his perch. He wanted to absolve himself of any possible sense of responsibility he may have had for cheerleading the last 10 years. But it was never more than an inch deep.

    A leapord doesnt change its spots. The D hate machine just needed some time to let the anti-R heat cool so it would become relatively safe again to get their ‘Hate Librul’ groove on again.

    So the birther stuff just gives Sullivan, in his own mind, another reason to say ‘Obama Sux! Libruls Suk! Gubmint Sux! Healthcare Sux!’.

    The good thing about this birther stuff is it separates the sane from the insane. R’s please keep up the birther stuff! Please keep loudly searching for ‘the truth”.

  114. 114.

    Scott

    July 29, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    @Trinity:
    I don’t know what kind of drugs he got while on vacation but he’s now a “Birfer”. This aint snark, he’s a for real birfer pushing the story and keeping it alive. As a furriner, wtf does he care? Yer right, I’m pissed. I expected better of him than this shit.

    S

  115. 115.

    Scott

    July 29, 2009 at 10:17 pm

    @Demo Woman:
    Does she have a green card?

  116. 116.

    Nellcote

    July 29, 2009 at 10:29 pm

    @Steve V:

    >What the f**k came over Sullivan today? It’s like reading his Bell Curve posts all over again.

    I believe you’ve answered your own question.

  117. 117.

    Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill

    July 29, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    As my brother just put it RE: Sully:

    “Damn, he done fell for the banana in the tailpipe AGAIN. Go tell Mr. tea and crumpets to chill.”

  118. 118.

    Ash Can

    July 29, 2009 at 10:44 pm

    @Demo Woman:

    She did come from the Soviet Union

    Considering all the chemical spills, environmental hazards, food quality issues, Chernobyl, god-knows-what in the drinking water, etc. over there, that could actually explain a whole lot about her mental situation.

  119. 119.

    CalD

    July 29, 2009 at 10:46 pm

    I kinda had a hunch that Sullivan might revert completely back to form once the Bush was out of office. He’s always struck me as a little too self-satisfied to ever really change.

  120. 120.

    Anne Laurie

    July 29, 2009 at 10:47 pm

    He raised doubts about Palin’s son to prove a point about her dishonesty, and he’s raising doubts about Obama’s claim to the office to prove a point about his lack of transparency.
    This is the politics of the personal, and it’s deeply mean-spirited and small. Sullivan learned a lot from Republicans.

    And he learned it from Rove, not Atwater, because he’s picking all the wrong fights and getting his priorities arse-backwards. It’d make some kind of sense to argue that Palin was lying about her water breaking in Texas, or about her reasons for flying cross-country if she was in active labor. It’d make sense to argue that Obama has been less than transparent about any number of things, from his administrative choices to his favorite brand of beer, which many people suspect ain’t Bud Lite. But choosing to insist that “we” need to see Palin’s medical records or Obama’s birth certificate just makes Sullivan look… demented.

  121. 121.

    jcricket

    July 29, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    That’s his problem. He never learns and just shoots his mouth off. When he’s caught out, he retracts. Get a goddamned clue, Andrew.

    Na. Ganna. Happen.

    It’s his MO. It’s his bread and butter. It’s his pork sausage. His bareback ride.

    Sorry, what were we talking about again?

  122. 122.

    Hammy

    July 29, 2009 at 11:00 pm

    Sure. And if Obama were to release this “original” one-of-a-kind document for inspection by Sully and the birfers, this is what would happen once they got it in their greasy, pudgy hands.

  123. 123.

    Ben Richards

    July 29, 2009 at 11:01 pm

    @General Winfield Stuck: You raise an interesting side point. All of the Hawaiian officials have names like that.

    If the birth place was Iowa and the officials in question looked like stand-ins for American Gothic, this would be much less of a story. For a lot of people, Hawaiian is not REALLY part of the US.

    Can you imagine when these idiots find out that people from Puerto Rico, Guam and Saipan are full US citizens????

  124. 124.

    Jody

    July 29, 2009 at 11:14 pm

    Sullivan’s a dope. Always has been. Always will be.

    Now that there isn’t a weapons-grade moron squatting in the White House you can expect plenty more idiotic concern trolling coming from his direction. Bank on it.

  125. 125.

    CT

    July 29, 2009 at 11:16 pm

    I got out of the habit of checking his site during his recent absence. I’ve checked back a couple times since, and there always seems to be some crap like this birfer nonsense. The kindest interpretation is that this is all cover for his sick obsession with Trig Palin. The unkinder interpretation has been thoroughly covered by other posters.

  126. 126.

    ice9

    July 29, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    new proof:

    http://storyarc.squarespace.com/obama-birth-announcement/

    So we need to start over.

    ice

  127. 127.

    El Cid

    July 29, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    I have never been given a vault copy original long form of the Bible. Until that happens I will not recognize the questionable copies in use by major religions today.

  128. 128.

    Nashville_fan

    July 29, 2009 at 11:49 pm

    First, I want to THANK YOU ALL for making my sh!tty day a WHOLE LOT BETTER!

    This is the first email I sent Andrew Sullivan after his FIRST crazy Birther post:

    Subject: WTF are you talking about on this birther nonsense Andrew?

    President Barack Obama has been an American citizen his ENTIRE life.

    Now because some whack jobs make an accusation that is CLEARLY untrue, it is HIS responsibility to prove the obvious?

    WHY?

    Where is George Bush’s birth certificate?

    How about Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Nixon?

    Why is it that the first BLACK President has to wear a flag pin and carry his birth certificate in his wallet?

    And most importantly of all, why in the HELL is the “media” in this country so incredibly craven, hypocritcal, and just plain useless.

    I mean, Andrew, can you prove that you were “born” gay and that you can’t be “reprogrammed”?

    Should you waste time trying?

    I mean, when do we quite letting the loons run the asylum just because they yell the loudest?

    This is the email I sent after he DOUBLED DOWN on his foolishness:

    Subject: Letting fruitcakes set the agenda is not “transparency”‏

    Are you telling me that President Obama has to respond to every fruit cake document request to be “transparent”?

    Name another President that has presented THEIR birth certificate.

    If somebody accuses President Obama of having AIDS, should he publish a weekly blood test to be transparent?

    If somebody accuses President Obama of being a Muslim, does he have to show proof that he was baptized as a Christian?

    Where does it end Andrew?

    Are you really saying that the President should look away from all the other problems this country is facing to PROVE something that is NOT in dispute just because?

    WTF does that accomplish?

    That’s not transparency, that’s a waste of time, and a disrespectful, racist waste of time at that.

    You should be ashamed.

  129. 129.

    asiangrrlMN

    July 30, 2009 at 12:23 am

    Fuck Sully. I gave him the benefit of the doubt earlier, but just fuck him and his hateful racism. As I said, I saw Orly Taintz on Colbert, and she said that the only way Obama would be legit is if Obama’s father was dug up and made a retro-citizen.

    Fucking bitch. Fuck all the birfers and Sully for his Trig fascination. Fuck them all.

  130. 130.

    asiangrrlMN

    July 30, 2009 at 12:26 am

    @El Cid: Heh. I just read your remark at #128. Thanks for the laugh. I sorely needed it.

  131. 131.

    rikyrah

    July 30, 2009 at 12:28 am

    someone told me to run over and read this thread and the responses, and they are correct.

    if you put a gun to my head, I COULD NOT produce my original birth certificate.

    but, give me an hour and I can drive to a county government outpost and get a certified copy for fifteen bucks. it was good enough to convince the U.S. Government to provide me with a passport.

    Obama has a passport.

    Therefore whatever proof of birth certificate he provided at the time of application should be good enough for Sully and the rest of those nuts.

  132. 132.

    Jacob Davies

    July 30, 2009 at 12:35 am

    demimondian:

    Dude—that’s nonsense, both technically and legally. It’s technical nonsense because an HMAC-signed electronic document is harder to forge than a paper document.

    I’d rather talk about this without describing our differing opinions as “nonsense”, can we do that? I work on electronics records systems myself and I know of no system that uses individually-cryptographically-signed documents in the way you’re talking about. I have tried to figure out ways to implement that kind of thing, but it’s a really hard problem. There are systems with storage-level encryption, but those provide no long-term integrity protection. Of course transport-level encryption like HTTPS is common, but that obviously provides no long-term integrity either. If you know of any official or corporate records system that uses HMAC signatures I would be genuinely interested in hearing about them and about how it works. So anyway, the theoretical security of an HMAC-signed document isn’t relevant if real-world records systems do not actually use those methods, is it?

    Most records systems that I know about run on commercial SQL databases protected by standard user security. In general on those kinds of systems superusers have the ability to change any record, often without any kind of audit trail. (Obviously systems do vary a lot so it’s hard to make general statements.) Those systems have no real long-term integrity protection at all, unfortunately.

    HMAC-signed documents are very, very secure against tampering as long as the signing key is secure – which is why systems that use HMAC signatures are not commonly used, because it’s very hard to permanently protect signing keys. In order to make practical use of document signing you need to distribute the signing keys to all of the individuals who need to sign documents, because if you keep them in a central location you run the risk of an insider stealing them and the passphrases. But if you widely distribute the signing keys you increase the risk of an outsider stealing the keys and passphrases. D’oh. In theory putting the keys on tamperproof devices could help, but I don’t know of any such system in use for document signing in a public-records situation.

    Key loss is a big problem because once the key is stolen all documents signed with that key become suspect – that is the downside of putting a lot of trust in the signatures as the sole means of integrity protection. If you have the key you can forge any document from the period the key was valid. Now, you can switch out to a new key every so often and destroy the old private key, but that’s a very difficult thing to ensure. It’s easier to preserve data than verifiably destroy it. So, if a key survives then at any time in the future you can undetectably forge and sign a new document as if it were contemporaneous with other documents signed at the time. Also, d’oh. Key revocation does not help.

    The systems that do use digital signatures (mainly website certificate signing authorities) right now are those where key disclosure and the concomitant ability to forge signatures is less dangerous because key revocation is effective – nobody cares much whether the website certificate some site was using last year is now untrustable, because that site will be using a replacement certificate now, and certificate forging doesn’t help you decrypt or forge past communications.

    Paper documents aren’t unforgeable but there are lots of effective ways of physically testing them that don’t apply to purely digital records.

    It’s legal nonsense because electronic signatures became the equivalent of paper ones thirteen years ago now.

    ? Not sure what this has to do with survivability and tamper-resistance.

    None of this casts any doubt on Obama’s certificate since only fucking crazy people could believe in that conspiracy. It’s just to say that there are good reasons to think that they would have kept the paper records, and quite likely the registrar has dug them up and checked them against the electronic record, but in any case there is no reason to mistrust the electronic record in this case because, uh, we are not crazy, I think.

  133. 133.

    tc125231

    July 30, 2009 at 12:36 am

    @Mnemosyne: My hero!

  134. 134.

    tc125231

    July 30, 2009 at 12:38 am

    @Comrade Dread: No doubt about it. They need to be prevented from breeding.

    ….lotsa luck with THAT. It’s about all they know HOW to do.

  135. 135.

    pattonbt

    July 30, 2009 at 12:51 am

    @rikyrah:

    Not to be pedantic, but thats not actually correct. Naturalized citizens can get US passports yet they are still not eligible for POTUS. So the fact that Obama has a passport is not necessarily proof he meets the citizenship requirements per the Constitution.

    In actuality, there are bunch of weird ways to read what is a ‘natural born citizen’, unfortunately for the birthers that any sane reading / interpretation of the requirements destroys their argument re Obama. No matter how you slice it, Obama meets the requirements and has proved such.

    I mean, to be honest I have some questions (general stuff, not re Obama). I am a ‘natural born citizen’ but live in Aus, married to an aussie. If my kids are born in Aus (but I get them US citizenship through the local embassy) would they be eligible for POTUS?

  136. 136.

    Zuzu's Petals

    July 30, 2009 at 12:57 am

    Note to Sully:

    No federal official, INCLUDING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED GODDAMNED STATES, can “instruct” state employees to break state law.

    What an idiot.

  137. 137.

    Zuzu's Petals

    July 30, 2009 at 1:00 am

    @pattonbt:

    I don’t think he’s saying the fact that Obama has a passport proves he is a natural-born citizen, but that the proof he provided to get the passport is adequate to prove where he was born…and in this case prove that he is a natural-born citizen.

  138. 138.

    mslarry

    July 30, 2009 at 1:04 am

    this is so ridiculous

  139. 139.

    Mister Papercut

    July 30, 2009 at 1:11 am

    Fun fact: I just located my birth certificate (Certification of Birth Abroad, to be precise) after lo these many years. Not only does it not specify either the much birther-bleated-about hospital or delivering doctor, it doesn’t even name my parents.

    This can only mean one thing: my whole life is a lie, and despite what my document says, I almost certainly had to have been born in Kenya.

    Hell, maybe not even Kenya — I’ll go with Benin, or perhaps Togo. In any case, my dreams of becoming president one day are now like so much dust on the wind… :(

    Oh, waitaminit… I’m not brown. *smacks head* I forgot, this issue would never fucking come up.

  140. 140.

    Zuzu's Petals

    July 30, 2009 at 1:16 am

    @EL:

    Oh good God. He’s FINALLY “been made aware” of the fact that FactCheck saw the “original” (and posted pictures of it) nearly a year ago? A fact that has been picked up repeatedly by every left, right, and in-between site in the months since?

    Are you kidding me?

    So now, and only now, is he willing to let the matter rest. Though he can’t understand how there’s one “original” in Chicago at the Obama hdqtrs and one in Hawaii.

    I hate to be the one to explain this one to him.

    What a dope.

  141. 141.

    El Cid

    July 30, 2009 at 1:39 am

    @asiangrrlMN: U R welcome.

  142. 142.

    pattonbt

    July 30, 2009 at 2:03 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals:

    Ooops. My bad. Thought the implication was passport = natural born citizen.

  143. 143.

    Wile E. Quixote

    July 30, 2009 at 2:24 am

    @pattonbt

    I mean, to be honest I have some questions (general stuff, not re Obama). I am a ‘natural born citizen’ but live in Aus, married to an aussie. If my kids are born in Aus (but I get them US citizenship through the local embassy) would they be eligible for POTUS?

    If they’re white Republicans then according to the birfers they’re eligible.

  144. 144.

    Blue Raven

    July 30, 2009 at 3:30 am

    @pattonbt:

    I mean, to be honest I have some questions (general stuff, not re Obama). I am a ‘natural born citizen’ but live in Aus, married to an aussie. If my kids are born in Aus (but I get them US citizenship through the local embassy) would they be eligible for POTUS?

    Yes. One US-citizen parent is enough, which is why Mrs. Obama the Elder’s location when giving birth to Barack is meaningless.

  145. 145.

    oh really

    July 30, 2009 at 4:21 am

    “And I would think it’s clear enough I’m not part of the Birther crowd. I’m trying to defuse them.” — Andrew Sullivan

    Yeah, Sullivan and Dobbs, both trying to fight the Birthers by demanding full disclosure and transparency — both of which have already been employed by Obama on this issue.

    What an ass.

  146. 146.

    bargal20

    July 30, 2009 at 5:14 am

    Buzz Aldrin knows how to respond to these whackjobs…

  147. 147.

    Dream On

    July 30, 2009 at 5:15 am

    Know Confusion.

  148. 148.

    Dream On

    July 30, 2009 at 5:24 am

    A long time ago (maybe 3 months ago) I entered an argument with a regular here about whether jokes that would morph into “birther” Mythology were funny. I thought they were – and that only stupid people would engage in such trash conspiracy. A fellow here disagreed with me.

    He was right – and I was wrong. This shit is starting to go a little dangerously far. Idiot jokes like “Obama is a Chinese Muslim” ain’t funny no more.

  149. 149.

    yaco

    July 30, 2009 at 6:30 am

    I’m going to gain weight with all these cookies I’ve been eating. Any luck with the site?

  150. 150.

    rikyrah

    July 30, 2009 at 7:05 am

    this is my question:

    did any of these mofos utter a word about John McCain – who was BORN IN PANAMA?

  151. 151.

    dmsilev

    July 30, 2009 at 7:06 am

    @pattonbt:

    In actuality, there are bunch of weird ways to read what is a ‘natural born citizen’, unfortunately for the birthers that any sane reading / interpretation of the requirements destroys their argument re Obama. No matter how you slice it, Obama meets the requirements and has proved such.

    I fully expect to see a birther arguing that unless Obama can prove that he is “of woman born” and not “from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d”, that doesn’t count as naturally born, so therefore we need to see the hospital records (vault copies, of course) to prove that he wasn’t born via C-section.

    -dms

  152. 152.

    bob h

    July 30, 2009 at 7:40 am

    How about going back to the United Kingdom forever?

  153. 153.

    Tan

    July 30, 2009 at 7:51 am

    You would think the “Investigate 9/11” T-shirts would clue people up on the fact the evidence isn’t the issue. The need for it to be deemed illegitimate is.

  154. 154.

    southpaw

    July 30, 2009 at 8:33 am

    Hawai’i Revised Statutes 338-18:

    §338-18 Disclosure of records. (a) To protect the integrity of vital statistics records, to ensure their proper use, and to ensure the efficient and proper administration of the vital statistics system, it shall be unlawful for any person to permit inspection of, or to disclose information contained in vital statistics records, or to copy or issue a copy of all or part of any such record, except as authorized by this part or by rules adopted by the department of health.

    (b) The department shall not permit inspection of public health statistics records, or issue a certified copy of any such record or part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant has a direct and tangible interest in the record. The following persons shall be considered to have a direct and tangible interest in a public health statistics record:

    (1) The registrant;

    (2) The spouse of the registrant;

    (3) A parent of the registrant;

    (4) A descendant of the registrant;

    (5) A person having a common ancestor with the registrant;

    (6) A legal guardian of the registrant;

    (7) A person or agency acting on behalf of the registrant;

    (8) A personal representative of the registrant’s estate;

    (9) A person whose right to inspect or obtain a certified copy of the record is established by an order of a court of competent jurisdiction;

    (10) Adoptive parents who have filed a petition for adoption and who need to determine the death of one or more of the prospective adopted child’s natural or legal parents;

    (11) A person who needs to determine the marital status of a former spouse in order to determine the payment of alimony;

    (12) A person who needs to determine the death of a nonrelated co-owner of property purchased under a joint tenancy agreement; and

    (13) A person who needs a death certificate for the determination of payments under a credit insurance policy.

    (c) The department may permit the use [of] the data contained in public health statistical records for research purposes only, but no identifying use thereof shall be made.

    (d) Index data consisting of name and sex of the registrant, type of vital event, and such other data as the director may authorize shall be made available to the public.

    (e) The department may permit persons working on genealogy projects access to microfilm or other copies of vital records of events that occurred more than seventy-five years prior to the current year.

    (f) Subject to this section, the department may direct its local agents to make a return upon filing of birth, death, and fetal death certificates with them, of certain data shown to federal, state, territorial, county, or municipal agencies. Payment by these agencies for these services may be made as the department shall direct.

    (g) The department shall not issue a verification in lieu of a certified copy of any such record, or any part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant requesting a verification is:

    (1) A person who has a direct and tangible interest in the record but requests a verification in lieu of a certified copy;

    (2) A governmental agency or organization who for a legitimate government purpose maintains and needs to update official lists of persons in the ordinary course of the agency’s or organization’s activities;

    (3) A governmental, private, social, or educational agency or organization who seeks confirmation of a certified copy of any such record submitted in support of or information provided about a vital event relating to any such record and contained in an official application made in the ordinary course of the agency’s or organization’s activities by an individual seeking employment with, entrance to, or the services or products of the agency or organization;

    (4) A private or government attorney who seeks to confirm information about a vital event relating to any such record which was acquired during the course of or for purposes of legal proceedings; or

    (5) An individual employed, endorsed, or sponsored by a governmental, private, social, or educational agency or organization who seeks to confirm information about a vital event relating to any such record in preparation of reports or publications by the agency or organization for research or educational purposes. [L 1949, c 327, §22; RL 1955, §57-21; am L Sp 1959 2d, c 1, §19; am L 1967, c 30, §2; HRS §338-18; am L 1977, c 118, §1; am L 1991, c 190, §1; am L 1997, c 305, §5; am L 2001, c 246, §2]

  155. 155.

    southpaw

    July 30, 2009 at 8:35 am

    Obviously, it’s simply an oversight that the above statute doesn’t include:

    (14) Crazy assholes who can’t abide a black president and the glib pundits who enable them

  156. 156.

    RememberNovember

    July 30, 2009 at 8:41 am

    Sounds like he needs a nice young twink to alleviate his anxieties.

  157. 157.

    RememberNovember

    July 30, 2009 at 8:42 am

    And isn’t he British? He needs to stfu.

  158. 158.

    Deborah

    July 30, 2009 at 8:54 am

    THANK YOU.

    I like Andrew, really. But on Trig, and on this, he is just nuts. (I don’t give a damn if Palin lied about giving birth to cover up for her teenage daughter, because it really is a family matter unrelated to her ability to manage domestic policy on the state or national level. And if Bristol hadn’t been pregnant with Whosit, I’d consider that story a LOT more likely than “pregnant with special needs child, Palin crosses nation in last month, then water breaks, so crosses nation again (dripping), foregoes major hospital to drive out to small suburban hospital, where child is born to family doctor. Not-seen-for-6-months teenager comes to visit.”)

    The birth certificate should be released and flown around the nation. Or perhaps handed over to Lou Dobbs for some special alone time. There is NOTHING you can do with the copy in Hawaii that will convince anyone of anything.

  159. 159.

    IndieTarheel

    July 30, 2009 at 9:09 am

    @freelancer:

    Flag Lapel Pin Barbie

    Hadn’t seen that one before…I’m not a reader of Sullivan’s, but unless his prior work was about 180 degrees round from what he’s doing now, I don’t see the point in being bothered with him. He appears to be firmly grounded in Orthodox Wingnut.

  160. 160.

    hoipolloi

    July 30, 2009 at 9:20 am

    One of the many ironies in this nonesense is that the Obama campaign already complied with the prescriptions of the “show us the certificate” birther law now floating around Congress.

    As John points out, the fetish of the “original” is an illusion. If Andrew flies to Honolulu, looks at the thing and then blogs it–how is that going to convince birther-one as to its authenticity? The authenticity of the original is a fetish — no one who believes in the fetish will ever have the experience they imagine the “real” birth certificate has to provide them in order to be the authentic original.

    At this point, why aren’t they convince that Obama himself does not exist and therefore their concern about his illegal presidency is moot?

  161. 161.

    slippytoad

    July 30, 2009 at 9:49 am

    Stick a fork in Sullivan. He’s Done. From here on out, anyone who quotes Andrew Sullivan and expects me to take them seriously, I’m going to laugh HARD in their face. What a jackoff.

  162. 162.

    IndieTarheel

    July 30, 2009 at 10:11 am

    @Rick Taylor:

    Does it need to be carbon dated? Chemically tested?

    They’re looking for a Shroud of Turin-like image of St. Ronnie.

  163. 163.

    Phoenix Woman

    July 30, 2009 at 11:41 am

    Thank you, John.

    That is all.

  164. 164.

    Original Lee

    July 30, 2009 at 12:45 pm

    @kay: Exactly. If he appears to be evenhanded, then he gets to pat himself on the back about how unbiased he is.

    Mr. Sullivan, you may have your cookie now. Please go talk about something else for a while.

  165. 165.

    D-Chance.

    July 30, 2009 at 1:44 pm

    Sully should give it up. There will always be loonies who believe that: a) Bigfoot is real, b) crop circles are really made by UFOs, c) Bush stole the 2000 elections, and d) Obama isn’t a US citizen. They’re all kooks who should be dismissed out-of-hand as the foolish crackpots they truly are.

  166. 166.

    Deborah

    July 30, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    “One US-citizen parent is enough, which is why Mrs. Obama the Elder’s location when giving birth to Barack is meaningless.”

    But what if Mrs. Obama the elder was NOT Ann Stanley Durham, blond Kansan-then-Hawaiian?!! What if the original was abducted by aliens, and the one who gave birth to The One was secretly from Phobos, and wearing a prosthetic mask?!! If his mother was REALLY a tentacled alien from Mars AND Obama was born in Kenya then his natural-born status really is in doubt!

    Yes, Andrew, I’m sure if the copy on-file in Hawaii were only to be released into the wild these doubts would be defused.

  167. 167.

    Darkrose

    July 30, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Cookie comment.

  168. 168.

    Jay in Oregon

    July 30, 2009 at 4:00 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Huh? McCain is white. I don’t see where the problem is.

    /wingnut

  169. 169.

    Jack

    July 31, 2009 at 12:13 am

    The time lines, places, actions, motives, when analyzed, support, and are consistent with, what is the answer to the Obama birth puzzle:

    Obama’s grandmother is his mother and his mother is his sister.

    Think about it. Review all the facts and claims.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Anti-Birther Andrew Sullivan Tires Of The Birther “Message”; Pleads For President Barack Hussein Obama To Just Furnish His Original Birth Certificate | THE GUN TOTING LIBERAL™ says:
    July 29, 2009 at 9:51 pm

    […] Other Bloggers Weigh In On The Andrew Sullivan Piece: Paul Campos of Lawyers, Guns and Money brings up the point that these conspiracy therorists would find a conspiracy behind their request being granted anyway, so just leave it alone; John Cole of Balloon Juice thinks it’s time for our good friend, Andy to take a two-week vacation… […]

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