Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

This blog will pay for itself.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

We still have time to mess this up!

This fight is for everything.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Everybody saw this coming.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Not all heroes wear capes.

You are here: Home / Born identity

Born identity

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Don’t look now, but the number one best-seller at Amazon is Jerome Corsi’s birther manifesto, which promises to reveal Barack Obama’s true identity.

Yet another poll shows that only about a third of Republicans believe Obama was born in the United States.

Sooner or later some form of serious person is going to express some sympathy for birthers. My money is still on Charles Lane.

Reader Interactions

192Comments

  1. 1.

    Califlander

    Sooner or later some form of serious person is going to express some sympathy for birthers. My money is still on Charles Lane.

    Who says Charles Lane is a serious person?

  2. 2.

    cathyx

    Yet another poll shows that only about a third of Republicans believe Obama was born in the United States.

    And what percent believed Sadaam Hussein had anything to do with the events of 9/11?

  4. 4.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I was thinking of going with Brooks to steal HG-W’s thunder, but instead, I shall take Chunk Bobo.

  6. 6.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    Again, my faith in the political process further dwindles, when I see climate science at its most marginalized ever in this country, and yet birtherism has become so super-mainstream, it’s going to decide the nomination for one of our major parties.

    How the fuck do you have a health political discourse when you have one side about to fucking push someone to the presidency that doesn’t even think the current president is really American?

  7. 7.

    Woodrowfan

    It’s difficult to have rational politics when one political party has gone insane.

  8. 8.

    Kidhill

    What if that number creeps down to 27%? Would that mean Republicans have gone so far down the rabbit hole that they’ve reached the inverse of the Crazification Factor?

  12. 12.

    Tsulagi

    You know, when even Crazy Eyes Bachmann says she’s good with Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship, that should tell them something about where on the Loon Scale they’re perched.

  14. 14.

    Kiril

    I have some sympathy for them. I haven’t talked to a birther per se, but I have talked to people on the crazier end of wingnuttery and it always starts with me trying to have some fact-based conversation, but after a while I see it’s no use. And as the resentment and paranoia comes bubbling out of them, I don’t even want to correct them. I just sit there, thinking, “How do you fucking live? How can you get through the day with all this crap in your head?”

    So I do have some sympathy. A little, tiny bit.

  16. 16.

    Sasha

    And yet, wingnuts will continue to insist that birtherism is a fringe belief that is mostly in vogue among the left wing.

  17. 17.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    @Kiril:

    You’d think they’d be living pretty well, considering they pretty much run the fucking country at this point. But I forgot, somewhere, right now, someone brown is actually enjoying life as a recognized American Citizen, and that’s a bridge too far for many of these folks.

  18. 18.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Comrade DougJ: definitely Bobo. He was dipping a toe in the water with his Trump celebration.
    unless…..is Charles Lane a Black Man?
    nope. relly they need a Black Man to do it first.
    If they can’t find one it will be Bobo.

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    How the fuck do you have a health political discourse when you have one side about to fucking push someone to the presidency that doesn’t even think the current president is really American?

    First, you purge the wingnuts.

    With Fire. From Orbit.

    Its the only way to be sure.

  21. 21.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Kiril: It’s a drug. And the amount it takes to get you off, and the amount that will kill you outright start to approach each other…

  22. 22.

    Bulworth

    @Tsulagi: I can’t wait till the 2012 Republican Convention to see all the conventioneers sporting Where’s The Birth Certificate stickers on their fat, rosy cheeks.

    And our Serious Media will only criticize Obama’s acceptance speech for being insufficiently bipartisan.

  24. 24.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

     

    some sympathy for birthers

    I believe we’ve coined the phrase “birther curious” to describe this.

    only about a third of Republicans believe Obama was born in the United States.

    Regarding the other 2/3rds who are birthers, it seems to me that either (A) they don’t believe it very strongly, or (B) they don’t give a shit about the Constitution they claim to revere so highly, or (C ) they’re a bunch of wussies, because last time I checked there doesn’t seem to be any massive campaign of civil diobedience to do something about this supposed outrage. All talk, no action. Somebody wake me up when the Republicans are laying down in front of tanks in the name of birtherism, because right now it doesn’t seem to be a movement that anybody is willing to put their ass on the line for.

  25. 25.

    jacy

    @Kiril:

    I just sit there, thinking, “How do you fucking live? How can you get through the day with all this crap in your head?”

    I find myself wondering how they tie their shoes or walk up stairs or manage to feed themselves without putting their own eyes out with their plastic sporks.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    @cleek:

    From your typing fingers to ….

    Born in the USA. Awesome.

    Plus: remind Bruce fans of a certain age which party is working against unions and teachers and the working man.

  27. 27.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Yet another poll shows that only about a third of Republicans believe Obama was born in the United States.

    To be fair, a significant portion of that third doesn’t know Hawaii is the 50th state.

  28. 28.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: the same thing is happening with islamophobia.
    Several respectable sites are mainstreaming islamophobia now.
    This is the template.

    It is WRONG to believe that, but (wink wink) completely understandable that you do.

    I wonder what the correlation between birther and islamophobe is?

  30. 30.

    aimai

    I think, to a certain extent, all the right wing pundits have expressed “sympathy for the birthers” and will continue to do so. Its the same “sympathy” they use when they say “Who can blame them for believing that Obama is a Muslim…” and “Obama hasn’t pushed back hard enough…” That’s actually quite a prevalent line on the far right–the people who claim “not to believe he’s really a muslim” but who can’t bring themselves to admit the guys at least as good a christian as any public christian in the US. This is something my on again off again Republican sister in law said to me, and what she says is always just the tip of the iceberg for the respectable propaganda arm of the Republican party.

    aimai

  31. 31.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    right now it doesn’t seem to be a movement that anybody is willing to put their ass on the line for.

    right now 27% of birthers are single issue voters.
    And we are only at the knee of the wingnut crazy curve.
    In the run up to November 2012 when the slope goes vertical we are going to see amazing and horrifying things.

    The Wingularity is Near.

  33. 33.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    Sound like they go pretty well hand in hand. You know, considering how many of these people are birthers on the basis of Obama being a scary Kenyan Islamosecular fascist ready to implement Sharia.

    Birtherism basically spawned straight out of rampant islamophobia.

  35. 35.

    TomG

    This must be one of the reasons Gary Johnson is not considered to have much of a chance – he isn’t buying into this birther nonsense.

  36. 36.

    MattF

    IMO, Corsi is one of the relatively few people who have earned the description ‘evil.’ He’s just a worthless piece of shit.

  37. 37.

    Yevgraf (fka Michael)

    If it weren’t for the laziness of stoned young bucks eating t-bone steaks and the incompetence of libtards on implementation, surely we’d have gotten the FEMA reeducation camps for white Christian conservatives by now, as Obama, Ayers, Farrakhan and Cloward-Piven envisioned.

    I know this because true Christian conservatives promised me it would happen.

  38. 38.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    I’m honestly slowly becoming convinced that 2012 is going to be a lost cause simply because so many fucking people see Hippies and Sharia everywhere that they’re going to vote in the batshittiest right-wing nut they can, simply because the whole job and economic anxiety will end up fed through that filter of ‘BUT THEY’RE FUCKING HIPPIES!’ or ‘CREEEPING SHARRRIIIAAAA!!’ And we will fucking lose because the country would rather be bat shit fucking crazy rather than fix things simply to spite the hippies and the brown folk.

  39. 39.

    MikeJ

    @cleek: Holy shit! That’s why Obama had U2’s City of Blinding Lights played at rallies. He’s Irish! It’s right there in his name too.

  40. 40.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Dunno. im not actually a whitman fan. I just remembered that awful hagiography of Palin and A Woman Waits for Me.
    i get queasy every time i think of it.

  41. 41.

    goblue72

    Many times I’ve asked my non-white fiance if she’ll protect me when all the brown folk finally achieve full demographic superiority, and then rise up and get rid of all the Caucasians.

  42. 42.

    Roger Moore

    @aimai:

    the people who claim “not to believe he’s really a muslim” but who can’t bring themselves to admit the guys at least as good a christian as any public christian in the US.

    Of course Obama isn’t a good Christian. He doesn’t go to a suburban evangelical megachurch, or believe in prosperity doctrine, or kiss the ring of Ralph Reed. What kind of Christian can he be?

  45. 45.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @aimai: i’d be more worried about the JAFI vote, if they can slur Obama as some sort of crypto-muslim. Birthers are prolly less than a third of the electorate.
    But 70% of Murrikans opposed the “terror mosque”.

  47. 47.

    Shoemaker-Levy 9

    A Serious Person is not necessary. The Serious media are going apeshit right now on the “controversy”. Just saw a promo for an upcoming Anderson Cooper opus on the “controversy”. Trump gets in the Serious news every day talking about the “controversy”. Even if George Stephanopoulos and Cooper and others tell us that it’s a nutty conspiracy theory, every time they cover the “controversy” some mildly engaged person somewhere thinks it’s even a question. I find this as morbidly amusing as Doug does, but at the same time I realize it’s a sad commentary on our body politic.

  48. 48.

    Yevgraf (fka Michael)

    I figure that the amount of daylight in lifestyle and beliefs polling data between birfers, those who thought Alf Landon was going to be a papal puppet and those who thought JFK would be taking his orders from Rome by teletype is so thin that you couldn’t slide a sheet of onionskin through it.

  50. 50.

    Montysano

    @Davis X. Machina:

    It’s a drug. And the amount it takes to get you off, and the amount that will kill you outright start to approach each other…

    Precisely. And it’s a drug that I believe causes actual, measurable brain damage.

    I was out just now running a few errands and caught a few minutes of Rush. He described Obama as a “ghetto thug”. Actual words.

    They want to say “ni66er” so badly. They’re so close, but it’s still just a hair out of reach.

  55. 55.

    goblue72

    @The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I’m not too worried about that. The 1/3 of the voting public that is swing voter/independent/don’t like paying attention to anything for longer than 2 minutes have shown a real lack of interest in freebasing off racism, unlike the average Republican voter. Its why when you poll GOP voters, they all buy the birther stuff, but the polls of independents tend to closely match those of Democrats on the birther issue. Basically, only hardcore Republicans buy that crap.

    On the other hand, these same swing voters do occassionally take a casual toke or two off the pipe, especially when combined with shouts of “Look, over there, a TERRORIST!”, or pocketbook appeals combining young bucks, T-bones, and tax cuts.

  57. 57.

    bemused

    Thanks to the commenter here, sorry I can’t remember which one, who recommended reading “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)” which explains why people “justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts”. I thought of tea party folks and other assorted ultra conservatives who only listen to Fox, Rush, etc when I read this:

    “Given that everyone has some blind spots, our greatest hope of self-correction lies in making sure we are not operating in a hall of mirrors, in which all we see are distorted reflections of our own desires and convictions.”

    Sort of OT, but a friend called and said former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is going to announce today he is running for president. Sure enough, there is already a Gary Johnson 2012 website up. I just checked him out a bit but he looks like he fits the typical tough on spending, cut Medicare/Medicaid republican. Same old.

  58. 58.

    Zifnab

    @aimai:

    That’s actually quite a prevalent line on the far right—the people who claim “not to believe he’s really a muslim” but who can’t bring themselves to admit the guys at least as good a christian as any public christian in the US.

    This.

    It’s just lapel pin redux.

    “How can we know you’re not really an America-hating anti-American America-sucks Michael Moore Al Gore Everybody Do the Dinosaur Democrat? I’m just asking!”

  59. 59.

    Sasha

    Yet another poll shows that only about a third of Republicans believe Obama was born in the United States.

    And I’d be willing to bet real money that a third of them, when asked, hedge their answer by adding qualifiers like “I believe”, “I think”, etc.

  60. 60.

    OzoneR

    I can’t possibly understand why Obama would have a problem changing the way the American public thinks. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that a third of the country don’t even believe an obvious fact and they more attention that the President calling out climate change deniers or drafting an executive order on campaign finance.

  61. 61.

    Mike in NC

    The Donald, billionaire birfer, in an OpEd today in USA Today:

    My ability as a leader has already been proven. If I should run, and if elected, I will create jobs, balance the budget, negotiate strongly with foreign countries, inspire my fellow Americans and make the United States respected again.

    Nothing about leaping tall buildings in a single bound or catching bullets in his teeth?

  62. 62.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    But being an islamophobe is both patriotic and “reasonable”.

    I like to believe such a thing can be overcome with a Norman Learesque television comedy about a lovable but wacky muslim family just trying to keep their head above water, making a wave when they can, starring Aasif Mandvi.

  63. 63.

    superking

    Someone will certainly express some birther sympathy at some point, but it will be indirect. Like “what would be so bad about requiring presidential candidates to provide their birth certificates?” Or “Why don’t we require presidential candidates to prove they were born in the US?”

    This second one could easily come from anyone at Slate.

  64. 64.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    @goblue72:

    Well, yeah, that’s my problem. What people can’t be motivated by the scary swarthy brown folks tend to instead be motivated by Hippie Punching instead, since, you know, that shows how ‘serious’ and ‘grown up’ you are, especially to those serious centrist folks who absolutely know that Al Gore and Michael Moore are the exact equivalents of Breitbart and Beck.

  67. 67.

    OzoneR

    @superking:

    Someone will certainly express some birther sympathy at some point, but it will be indirect. Like “what would be so bad about requiring presidential candidates to provide their birth certificates?” Or “Why don’t we require presidential candidates to prove they were born in the US?”

    I wonder how the left will blame Obama for that?

  72. 72.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Just Some Fuckhead: why the fuck would you think that? Did the Jeffersons and the Cosbys and the other thousand or so black sitcom families on terebi eliminate racism in America yet?

    Haven’t you seen people here hating on me because i reverted?

  74. 74.

    catclub

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: I would expect that Thomas Sowell is already there.

    Not sure where he rates on the serious/wingnut scale.
    I would argue he is no more crazy than John Bolton.

    ETA: I am about 30 posts late on Sowell.

  76. 76.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    which promises to reveal Barack Obama’s true identity.

    I’ll do it for free: He’s black, though only half.

  77. 77.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Paul in KY: im stickin with Bobo. i think that Whitman hagiography was a lead-in.
    And Mastertroll DougJ has Charles Lane.

    Anyone else?

  78. 78.

    aliasofwestgate

    @superking: The stupid thing is, the vetting committees that are required for any candidate already DO that. There’s no need to prove it to the public, because if they’re running, they’ve passed those requirements.

    It’s a really nasty little lie they have going with it. Which drives me a bit up the wall. Logic doesn’t come into it with these people. Just the ability to cloud over any real common sense thoughts of the way the process for a presidential nomination actually take place. I hate zombie lies.

  79. 79.

    Yevgraf (fka Michael)

    Another think – birferism is the new “gold fringed flag”, and the dumbasses are mainstreaming it.

  80. 80.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @catclub:

    I would expect that Thomas Sowell is already there.

    has he come out on it publically yet?
    i dont evah read him.
    ;)

  81. 81.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: The Cosby show didn’t eliminate racism. I think only the deaths of a lot of people born before 1960 will do that – not everyone, so those of you who are over 50 and not racist, I’m not talking about you. But, I do think it helped reduce the spread of the racism into younger generations.

  82. 82.

    rikyrah

    what they wanna say is…

    how could you let the NIGGER become President of the United States..

    but, they can’t.

    so, we have this birther bullshyt.

    they just don’t believe it…..that January 20, 2009 came and went and he put his hand on the Lincoln Bible and was sworn in as President.

    Birtherism is A DOGWHISTLE, plain and simple.

  83. 83.

    Paul in KY

    @bemused: He’s got that libertarian ‘lets legalize pot’ twist going, which probably won’t help him with your average Repub primary voter.

    As far as modern Republicans go, you could get alot worse (IMO).

  84. 84.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    ok, so far i got
    Paul and cat48 — Thomas Sowell
    Omnes — Douthat
    Jenjen and Mastertroll Doug — Charles Lane
    Hermione — Brooks
    Fuckhead– Will

  85. 85.

    Paul in KY

    @catclub: To me, he rates as pathetic, hack, self-hating, ‘mouth of racist scum’, dickhead.

    He does write a column of turgid lies, so I thought he might do for the purposes of the question up above.

  86. 86.

    Turgidson

    I’ll get concerned if Bill Kristol comes out saying definitively that Obama was born in the US.

    Because, you know, everything that guy says is wrong. I wouldn’t believe him if he told me the sky was blue.

  87. 87.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Mike in NC:

    Nothing about leaping tall buildings in a single bound or catching bullets in his teeth?

    I’d pay cash money to see The Donald catch bullets with his teeth.

  92. 92.

    catclub

    Born identity is pretty good for a thread title.

    I hope you considered ‘The born losers’
    and ‘Born free’

  96. 96.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    Nice!

    He’ll wrap it all up in a metaphor about the integration of baseball but leave open the suggestion that Obama is responsible for establishing his own legitimacy in the eyes of “traditionalists”.

  99. 99.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @jayjaybear:

    Or managing to lead himself into bankruptcy FOUR TIMES?

    Who better to lead America through bankruptcy and restructuring?

    ETA: (Culminating in a name change to the United States of Trump, which will double our value.)

  101. 101.

    gypsy howell

    @Mike in NC:

    He’s a billionaire. So why isn’t he creating jobs right now? I thought rich people created jobs. Where are the jobs, Mr Trump?

  102. 102.

    Yutsano

    @gocart mozart: So basically give him time, the birferism will develop in him naturally. Sweet. When your only option is to decide how insane you’re willing to go to win the nomination, I grab the popcorn.

  103. 103.

    Chris

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    well..its a good part subliminated racism.
    Being an overt racist is pretty much taboo in america today.
    But being an islamophobe is both patriotic and “reasonable”.

    Yeah…

    @Montysano:

    I was out just now running a few errands and caught a few minutes of Rush. He described Obama as a “ghetto thug”. Actual words.

    They want to say “ni66er” so badly. They’re so close, but it’s still just a hair out of reach.

    Yeah, I’ve heard it too… from PJM, in the format “this President and his street thug advisers.” And a dozen other formulations. The yearning for the N word is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

    It’s true, being overtly racist has become a taboo. At the same time, birtherism, Islamophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, American exceptionalism, and many more of those things are an overpowering narcotic for identity voters going through overt-racism-withdrawal. Which largely explains their persistence.

  104. 104.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @gypsy howell:

    He’s a billionaire. So why isn’t he creating jobs right now? I thought rich people created jobs. Where are the jobs, Mr Trump?

    It’s worse than not creating jobs. He’s actually firing people every week.

  105. 105.

    singfoom

    I think this all just begs for third party intervention. I’d be down for waiting until 2016 to really ramp up, but I think it’s worth it to start a new party.

    Call it The Empiricism party. Make fact-based observation and policies based on proveable hypotheses the key plank of the party.

    My Empiricist party spokesman would have this to say about the birther ‘nontreversy’.

    “There are no facts that support the idea that Obama is not a United States citizen. His Certificate of Live Birth has been produced by the State of Hawaii. Anyone continuing to assert that he is not an American citizen must have ulterior motives, because they are ignoring facts.”

    The end. Oh well, a boy can dream…

  106. 106.

    opie jeanne

    @freelancer: That was depressing. My favorite, if that is the right word, was the comment that we’re spending too much on education.

  111. 111.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Yutsano: im popping too.
    Guess who here is a Gary Johnson fanboi?

    I’m more of a Gary Johnson guy myself. I like Mitch Daniels, too, but I haven’t been paying close enough attention to his foreign policy to say for sure. I’d vote for Johnson over any other candidate out there.

  114. 114.

    gypsy howell

    By 2012, the percentage of people who do believe Obama was born in the US will be the same as the percentage of atheists in this country.

    On a related note, I was musing to myself today that in another hundred years, Ayn Randism will be a full-fledged religion. I feel like I’m living through the first centuries AD, when Christianity was getting started. Starts with a small cult, beliefs seem bizarre and untethered to reality to most people, devoted acolytes continue to “spread the good news,” there is a concerted effort to widely distribute the holy writ, the ideas begin to take hold among classes of people once considered ‘normal’ in society, laws constructed in accordance with the central tenets of the religion begin to be enacted much to the disbelief of those who still haven’t been converted… It’s happening, I tell ya!

    Maybe 2012 A.D. should be properly called 30 A.R.

  115. 115.

    El Cid

    I’m pretty sure that Obama was brought in to the US and was trained to be a Kenyonesian future President on the soundstage where they faked the Moon landing.

  118. 118.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Paul in KY: Johnson can’t win the nom tho. His fake hair is more far dreadful than Trumps double reverse combover.
    The terrible toupe sukks as a campaign slogan.

  119. 119.

    Paul in KY

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: Wallah! Why did I even go to the link, should have known it would be EDK. Gary is all reasonable (for a Republican) & wants to decriminalize weed (which I do agree with). That’s deep dialectic for an EDK type.

  120. 120.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @MikeJ: it isn’t personal. I loathe ALL freemarketeer glibertarians with the fire of a thousand suns.

    Did you see what i did to Kuznicki?

  121. 121.

    Paul in KY

    @gypsy howell: How would they ever do potluck dinners? No one would bring anything, since all other people are tools & parasites to be used & discarded (2nd Atlas, para 24, verses 13 & 14).

  123. 123.

    Bruce S

    Corsi proves, on the heels of Palin, Beck and Trump and of course the entire lineup of FOXtards, that there’s a pile of money to be made by moving full into PT Barnum mode. I can’t wait til May 17 when the thing is actually released and Corsi opens Al Capone’s vault for the rubes – I mean, reveals the truth about Obama’s birth.

  124. 124.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @gypsy howell: unfortunately all the proponents of Randianity are older than dirt and their kids won’t take up the crazy. It is going to be more like the Shakers.
    a tribe without reps cannot survive.

  125. 125.

    Paul in KY

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: I thought it was a ‘double thatch combover ™’. It is complicated, whatever it is. I hope his barber gets the big bucks (as that’s a hard haircut, no matter what you call it).

  126. 126.

    Stefan

    why the fuck would you think that? Did the Jeffersons and the Cosbys and the other thousand or so black sitcom families on terebi eliminate racism in America yet?

    Well, actually, in some sense, yeah. Not that they eliminated racism, but Cosby actually did quite a bit to advance the cause of African-Americans in the US. They were America’s Family in the 1980s, and suddenly black people didn’t seem so scary to the whites anymore.

  129. 129.

    bemused

    There are many reasons I can’t believe Trump will ever actually run. He’s not going to want to reveal his financial records after bragging that he’s worth billions and billions and billions.

    I just cannot imagine him ever going out on the campaign trail and mingling with the little people. Plus it can get pretty windy at outdoor events at times and that rat’s nest on his head will be flying every which way.

    If the media is going to spend this much time talking about Donald, one of them should at least ask him why he hasn’t gotten hair plugs already.

  132. 132.

    gypsy howell

    @bemused:

    of course. It’s a publicity stunt, intended solely for the purpose of raising his net worth, just like Sarah Palin. With the added feature of further poisoning the discourse.

  134. 134.

    cmorenc

    @Comrade DougJ:

    Sooner or later some form of serious person is going to express some sympathy for birthers. My money is still on Charles Lane.

    Hay, I feel lots of sympathy toward birthers. The same sort of sympathy I feel for impenetrably delusional inmates of a mental hospital.

    But even before we get to that criteria, I might fail the threshold qualification for being a “serious person” since I’m neither a villager nor the owner of any blog, let alone a well-connected blogger…or does being a citizen of Balloon Juice count for enough on that score?

  139. 139.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @bemused:

    one of them should at least ask him why he hasn’t gotten hair plugs already.

    no conservative candidate can get hair plugs because they endlessly mocked Joe Biden (Hair Plug Joey) for that in 2008.
    its unmanly or sumpin’.

  140. 140.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    update

    Paul and cat48—Thomas Sowell
    Omnes–Chunky Bobo
    Jenjen and Mastertroll Doug—Charles Lane
    Hermione—Bobo
    Fuckhead and opie — George Will

    i have to say, Chunky Bobo is a risky but possibly inspired choice.
    He has that NYT pulpit.

    Anyone for Reihan, Young Conor, mcmegan, or possibly…..Sully?
    I think Reihan might make a stab at it with his “playful intellectualism”.
    But NRO will crush that.

  141. 141.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    @opie jeanne:

    Someone who ascribes to the very strict reading of the 10th Amendment and believes that the Federal Government can’t do jack shit unless explicitly said they can in the Constitution. Essentially a reading of the 10th that would nullify everything from Medicare to Child Labor Laws and minimum wage.

  143. 143.

    Calouste

    @Woodrowfan:

    It’s difficult to have rational politics when you have a two party system and one political party has gone insane.

    Actually, I’m not sure if the last part of the sentence is even needed. In a two party system one party can always get a large slice of the pie by just opposing what the other party does, which by definition isn’t rational politics.

  144. 144.

    Citizen_X

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Hmm. Will’s an excellent choice.

    However, just because it would be such obvious pandering that it would make him even more pathetic, I’m going to go with Tucker Carlson.

  145. 145.

    dedc79

    For all its historical and present flaws, the media used to serve at least one valuable purpose. It filtered out many crazy ideas/theories/claims that didn’t deserve to see the light of day. Now we live in a world where (1) fox news just needs to find one person somewhere who believes something in order to justify its statement that “many people are claiming that X is Y….” and where (2) even when the media ignores an issue there’s some crazy somewhere on the internet like Drudge who will promote it anyway.

  146. 146.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Citizen_X: Inspired!

    Citizen X — tucker carlson
    Paul and cat48—Thomas Sowell
    Omnes— Chunky Bobo
    Jenjen and Mastertroll Doug—Charles Lane
    Hermione— Bobo
    Fuckhead and opie — George Will

  149. 149.

    bemused

    In everyday life, I just can’t treat guys with bad combovers or toupees seriously at all, not with poor judgement like that. I couldn’t go to a doctor or a tax preparer or vote for a guy that can delude himself that badly.

  150. 150.

    maus

    @Yutsano:

    Lee Atwater’s deathbed confession was all in vain.

    Have you seen Boogie Man? His deathbead confession was only more narcissism.

  152. 152.

    Nethead Jay

    @Yevgraf (fka Michael): I had to google the gold fringed flag reference. Yeeesh, that is so stupid it rivals even the most far-out birtherist idiocies. Unsurprisingly the first 2 results were the original post on what looks like a wingnut message board and a Ron Paul site. And the next 2 were to Snopes…

  153. 153.

    MonkeyBoy

    Why am I in moderation?

    I tried to post links to the Amazon tag pages for the book to help BJers vote up good tags but something is holding back my post.

  154. 154.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @gypsy howell: show me one conservative candidate with hairplugs then.
    ;)

    @bemused: but does Gary’s have to be so horrifically bad? Are there no good toupes out there?

  156. 156.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @MonkeyBoy: because your name is racist? unless (be still my beating heart) it is relly a reference to Dr. Emilio Lizardo’s epic line in Buckaroo Bonzai?

  157. 157.

    Jamie

    It’s really tricky running a democracy in a country in which 25-30% of the electorate is delusional

  158. 158.

    danimal

    Sooner or later some form of serious person is going to express some sympathy for birthers. My money is still on Charles Lane.

    I’ll take the long odds and go with Krauthammer. He’s managed to imply birtherism is stupid, but I can’t see any actual refutation. He can soberly announce that whatever crap Corsi concocts deserves scrutiny, yadda yadda.

  159. 159.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Just Some Fuckhead: yes.
    Citizen X—tucker carlson
    Paul and cat48—Thomas Sowell
    Omnes— Chunky Bobo
    Jenjen and Mastertroll Doug—Charles Lane
    Hermione— Bobo
    Opie Jean — George Will
    Fuckhead — Maureen Dowd
    danimal — Dr. Krauthammer

  160. 160.

    maus

    @Jamie:

    It’s really tricky running a democracy in a country in which 25-30% of the electorate is delusional

    Is there a country where 25-30% of the population *isn’t* delusional? I would assume most countries have that problem, the ones that are better off seem to handle them better than we do.

  162. 162.

    Jamie

    OK good point. maybe democracy is a great ideal, only not with Homo Sapiens as we exist now.

  163. 163.

    bemused

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    If there are good toupees out there, how would we know? If we know instantly it’s a rug or have a really strong suspicion it is, then it’s obviously a bad toupee.

    I have my doubts there is such a thing as a really great toupee but then again, no one I know well wears a toupee, so what do I know.

  170. 170.

    Brachiator

    @Chris:

    They want to say “ni66er” so badly. They’re so close, but it’s still just a hair out of reach.

    Oddly, this is true of some liberals as well, who seem to be fixated on a single word, as opposed to all the shit that is constantly slung at Obama. And there is always the vile residue of the PUMAs.

    It’s true, being overtly racist has become a taboo.

    I’m kinda missing how the clearly racist crap that Republican functionary Marilyn Davenport recently apologized for is not overtly racist. Or all the other insults that conservatives let slip almost every freaking day.

    Birtherism reeks of racial anxiety, but more open expressions of outright bigotry have been, sadly, increasing since Obama’s election.

  172. 172.

    kay

    I just find birtherism incredibly depressing.

    There’s an upside, though. It has completely cured me of television news. I just can’t listen to one person ask another person about Obama’s birth certificate anymore, for more than two years, now.

    I can’t even tell the birthers from the media personalities anymore. They’re all birthers, as far as I’m concerned.

  173. 173.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Brachiator:

    Or all the other insults that conservatives let slip almost every freaking day.

    but they can’t actually SAY ni66er can they?

  174. 174.

    opie jeanne

    @Just Some Fuckhead: I understand that; it’s kind of like imagining the very worst scenario as a superstitious way of making it not happen.

    I hope that made sense, I’m pretty sleepy right now.

  177. 177.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @maus:

    Is there a country where 25-30% of the population isn’t delusional? I would assume most countries have that problem, the ones that are better off seem to handle them better than we do.

    Other countries do a better job of fragmenting their authoritarian nutcases amongst various different political factions. I’m convinced that some of our current nuts on the right would have been various flavors of extreme left wingers back in the 60s and 70s. Then the USSR collapsed and it just wasn’t any fun any more, on the left. The US is like a top-heavy ferryboat where somebody with really bad intestinal problems farted on one side and so the passengers on the top deck all ran over to the opposite rail to get away from the smell and now the ship is capsizing.

  179. 179.

    opie jeanne

    @bemused: Is Romney’s hair really his own?

    I have seen some really bad toupees and a few pretty good ones that took me a while to recognize as such, but the good ones? I don’t know if you’re onto something with the “how would we know?” line.

    My grandfather lost his hair at age 18 and in his 20s he wore a toupee. My grandmother didn’t realize it until she’d been married to him for a couple of days, woke up early and saw him adjusting it in the mirror. Now, she was only 17 and may have been so star-struck in love that she didn’t notice, but I suspect it was a pretty good toupee. She expressed surprise that he was bald and he hadn’t told her. He said, “I was afraid you wouldn’t love me if you knew.”

  181. 181.

    bemused

    @opie jeanne:

    Romney? I have no idea. When I detest politicians, I try to avoid looking at or listening to them.

    Every time I hear his name, I think of the family dog in crate strapped to top of their car story. Who does things like that? Nobody I’d care to know or vote for.

  182. 182.

    Hungry Joe

    @bemused

    I don’t have the time/energy to check, but it seems like whenever Gail Collins mentions Romney, she finds a way to trot out The Dog Strapped to the Car’s Roof story. I mean, every time, in every column. Or close to it, anyway. Hilarious.

  183. 183.

    Elie

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    But then you could have the excesses of a Parliamentary system such as Israel’s. The fragmentation of the electorate and the political system actually enhances the power of the least representative factions. Two or three of the nutcase groups can band together to run things. Tell me, that’s better?

    Every political system has its exceptions and downsides. Importantly, there is no system that replaces the intelligent awareness and direction of an informed populace. Autopilot doesnt work no matter what political system is the context. Unfortunately, everyone wants good pollitical outcomes to be automatic rather than dearly won ball busting efforts with many setbacks.

  184. 184.

    Chris

    @Jamie:

    It’s really tricky running a democracy in a country in which 25-30% of the electorate is delusional

    What makes it really tricky is when so many of the other 70-75% ignore it and defer politely to the delusionals, often even joining them because their quaint-but-lovable shenanigans make for better government than those horrid little people on the left, pestering us with their dreary requests about rights and equality and human dignity.

  185. 185.

    TomG

    So let me get this straight – some of you dismiss Gary Johnson because he has a bad toupee? Really? That’s how you look for a president?
    I had to look up “Tenther”. Not sure that it is such a terrible thing. He’s okay with gay civil unions, he isn’t pro-life, he isn’t invoking God every other sentence…seems pretty sensible to me.
    You guys had better start digging up solid evidence that New Mexico was much worse off after his 2 terms than it was before he took office. Because that’s about the only thing (other than him believing in creationist nonsense) that would put me off of him.

  188. 188.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @TomG: no, dude, AMERICA will reject him because of his bad toupee.
    Not because he’s a creationist.
    AMERICA is against bad toupees, but PRO-creationism.

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
    Citizen X—Tucker Carlson
    Paul and cat48—Thomas Sowell
    Omnes— Chunky Bobo
    Jenjen and Mastertroll Doug—Charles Lane
    Hermione— Bobo
    Opie Jean and Hungry Joe — George Will
    Fuckhead—Maureen Dowd
    danimal—Dr. Krauthammer
    ThatLeftTurnInABQ — Howard Kurtz

  190. 190.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    uh oh.
    danimal pulls ahead.
    Trump convinces Dr. K he is running.

    Krauthammer added that they had “a few exchanges” on matters such as China, Iraq, and “the birther issue,” but that “the tone was no worse than Juan [Williams] and me on a normal day.” Krauthammer appeared impressed and said as much, adding that he found the call so sincere that “at the end I felt that I ought to tell him that my column, coming out tomorrow, is even worse that what I have been saying on television.”
    __
    Furthermore, Krauthammer now believes that Trump is “absolutely” running for President, otherwise he would not have attempted to make a calm case for his campaign, but “would have screamed and yelled and stomped” about it. “I give him credit the way he handled himself,” Krauthammer added, though he did not sound like he was ready to pull that lever just yet. That said, if Trump is serious about that presidential bid, ingenious political moves like this are a surefire way to make his case. If he knows and understands the power of the media, understands conservative circles to realize just how formidable an enemy Charles Krauthammer can be, and can make his case strongly enough where luminaries like Krauthammer suddenly find it difficult to laugh at him, Trump may legitimately give the rest of the field a run for its money.

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