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You are here: Home / Bring on the meteor

Bring on the meteor

by DougJ|  April 27, 20114:16 pm| 101 Comments

This post is in: The Decadent Left In Its Enclaves On The Coasts, We Are All Mayans Now

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You know the drill:

1. Wingers make up crazy rumor.

2. Democrat ignores it.

3. Cries to address the rumor build, some from Very Serious People “reasonable people can have doubts about whether Democrat is a space alien, asking these questions is what journalists do!”.

4. Democrat releases documents to debunk rumor. The response: why didn’t he do it sooner? He’s lowering himself by addressing the rumor! He’s just doing this to distract people! Soon, it will be “his mother’s maiden name isn’t spelled correctly”! The kerning is irregular! This document raises more questions than it answers!

Newt Gingrich actually blamed Obama this morning for the delay in the release, and hinted that we should still harbor doubts about Obama’s citizenship. “Why did it take so long?” Gingrich asked. “The whole thing is strange.”

This was all a stunt of its own. Yesterday he was playing games on gas taxes and today it’s the birth certificate. What’s next — juggling knives?

We are well and truly fucked as a society. I continue to believe that brown people will save this country from the insanity of the white majority but I’m feeling less confident today than usual.

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Reader Interactions

101Comments

  1. 1.

    pablo

    April 27, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    If anybody thinks “Teh Donald” is wrong, you have to realize he now has further proof!

  2. 2.

    Montysano

    April 27, 2011 at 4:21 pm

    I think (or let’s say that I would prefer to think) that Obama is playing these morons. Today’s release of his birf cert didn’t settle anything; he had to know that this would be the case. So now there’s a whole new explosion of Teh Crazy.

    So what do mainstream birthers like Trump do? Keep riding the crazy train, or try to jump off?

  3. 3.

    MeDrewNotYou

    April 27, 2011 at 4:21 pm

    Brown people are as dumb as everyone else. It was a nice country while it lasted, though! Just think. The Godfather, The Simpsons, light bulbs. We had a good run and have given future civilizations a few goodies. What did the Romans ever do for us?

  4. 4.

    Scott

    April 27, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    Yeah, here’s the thing. The people who are still going crazy about “OMG PREZ BLACKITY CAN NO BE CITUZUN” were already out of their fucking gourds. The fact that crazy motherfuckers are going crazy doesn’t mean the rest of the country is dooooomed. Yes, we’ve got a long ways going forward, because it’s going to take a long time to build enough insane asylums to house the 27-percenters and enough dungeons to house the national news media. But the fact that crazy motherfuckers exist doesn’t mean the rest of us are also crazy motherfuckers…

  5. 5.

    New Yorker

    April 27, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    I continue to believe that brown people will save this country from the insanity of the white majority but I’m feeling less confident today than usual.

    I’m with you in spirit, but I still want to dispute that the “white majority” represents anything monolithic. I’m a white 31-year-old Ivy League educated atheist liberal from New York. I have fuck-all in common with some 80-year-old retired cop from Selma who recalls using the fire hose and dogs on MLK with fondness.

    It’s not the “white majority” that’s the problem, Doug. It’s the rural, evangelical, elderly white minority that’s throwing this temper tantrum, and the reason they’re throwing it is because they are confronting the reality that they are a minority, and they simply can’t handle it.

  6. 6.

    garage mahal

    April 27, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    At the Daily Dish:

    “Why Did Obama Wait So Long? Ctd” 3:20pm

    Ctd. Jesus H Christ. He ALREADY released a birth certificate a long time ago!

    This country is so fucked if the media cannot debunk something as simple as this.

  7. 7.

    PurpleGirl

    April 27, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    @MeDrewNotYou: What did the Romans ever do for us?

    They gave us the arch?

    ETA: And Roman numerals? Togas?

  8. 8.

    Bubblegum Tate

    April 27, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    The kerning is irregular

    Well, I just naturally assumed that Kerners Are Go on this one. Also, I assume some wingnut blogger–probably Confederate Yankee, possibly Jim Hoft–will re-enact Obama’s birth in their sandbox (using those black Barbie dolls, of course) in order to prove conclusively that Obama couldn’t have been born in Hawaii.

  9. 9.

    Napoleon

    April 27, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    I actually think Obama did what he did to put the fact that the Republican party dances to the tune of a lunatic fringe front and center.

    What did the Romans ever do for us?

    Left us the alphabet.

  10. 10.

    roshan

    April 27, 2011 at 4:29 pm

    Yesterday he was playing games on gas taxes

    What does Milbank mean by this? Can’t someone just bitch slap him instead of explaining?

  11. 11.

    Ghanima Atreides

    April 27, 2011 at 4:29 pm

    @MeDrewNotYou:

    Brown people are as dumb as everyone else.

    yes, but fortunately they mostly will not vote for racists.
    That is what will save us.

    What did the Romans ever do for us?

    baths.

  12. 12.

    jl

    April 27, 2011 at 4:29 pm

    This nation of sheeples is so easily fooled.

    What the WH released today was not the vault copy of the long form birth certificate, it was a mere copy of the vault copy of the long form birth certificate.

    Or, should that be ‘certificate of live birth’?

    Anyway, after careful analysis, something will be found amiss, and then there will be this Very Serious question for the WH: why did the wait so long, and then produce something that did not convince absolutely every person on earth, and elsewhere, no matter how insane? Huh? Good question.

  13. 13.

    PS

    April 27, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    Obama’s statement was clearly directed mostly at the media. None of those he was aiming at seem to be intelligent enough to have noticed, let alone to have understood what he was saying. Mega Media Fail.

  14. 14.

    Stefan

    April 27, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    I’m with you in spirit, but I still want to dispute that the “white majority” represents anything monolithic. I’m a white 31-year-old Ivy League educated atheist liberal from New York.

    Landsman! Where are you right now? Downtown? If so I’ll buy you a drink, kindred spirit!

  15. 15.

    MeDrewNotYou

    April 27, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    @PurpleGirl: McDonald’s owns the arch and all colorful variants thereof. C’mon, have you ever seen the place?

    @Napoleon: I begrudgingly accept that one. I see it used sometimes. Way better than Chinese too.

  16. 16.

    Stefan

    April 27, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    What did the Romans ever do for us?

    Aqueducts.

  17. 17.

    slag

    April 27, 2011 at 4:33 pm

    @MeDrewNotYou:

    The Godfather, The Simpsons, light bulbs.

    Arrested Development, The Big Lebowski, Joss Whedon, Michelle Obama, Spock, Charles and Ray Eames, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

  18. 18.

    roshan

    April 27, 2011 at 4:33 pm

    Perlstein wrote an excellent article on why the media can’t debunk this shit. Take a look:

    On November 3, 1969, Richard Nixon gave a speech claiming he had a plan to wind down the war. The commentators went on the air immediately afterward and told the truth as they saw it: that he had said nothing new. Ten days later, the White House announced that Vice President Spiro Agnew was about to give a speech that it expected all three networks to cover—live.
    __
    The speech was an excoriation of those very networks and their Stern White Men [29]—”this little group of men who not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to every presidential address, but more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting, and interpreting the great issues of our nation…. The American people would rightly not tolerate this kind of concentration of power in government. Is it not fair and relevant to question its concentration in the hands of a tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government?” Those in the habit of exposing the sins of the powerful were no longer independent arbiters—they were liberals. Such was the bias, Agnew argued, of “commentators and producers [who] live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, DC, or New York City,” who “bask in their own provincialism, their own parochialism.”
    __
    Foreshadowing Reagan’s framing of reform-minded truth-telling as a brand of elitist meddling, Agnew singled out for opprobrium the kind of reporting that “made ‘hunger’ and ‘black lung’ disease national issues overnight” (quotation marks his). TV reporting from Vietnam had done “what no other medium could have done in terms of dramatizing the horrors of war”—and that, too, was evidence of liberal bias.

  19. 19.

    danimal

    April 27, 2011 at 4:33 pm

    @roshan:

    What does Milbank mean by this? Can’t someone just bitch slap him instead of explaining?

    A sucker punch will do as well.

    Jackass.

  20. 20.

    jrg

    April 27, 2011 at 4:34 pm

    When we keep discussing stuff like this, more people are going to believe birther B.S., because they assume birthers are not insane, and are arguing in good faith, so there must be something to the “controversy”. That’s how low-information centrists operate.

    That’s why it’s important to note that morons are, in fact, morons… It might hurt Billy-Bob McSisterfucker’s hillbilly fee-fees, but that does not matter. He doesn’t give a shit what’s true and what’s not, he just hates him some darkies.

    So screw it: call him a moron over and over again. Point out all the times he’s been wrong in the past. At some point, low-information centrists might scratch their heads and say “maybe Billy-Bob McSisterfucker really is a moron”.

  21. 21.

    PurpleGirl

    April 27, 2011 at 4:34 pm

    @MeDrewNotYou: But you didn’t comment on Roman numerals or togas.

  22. 22.

    Marmot

    April 27, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    We are well and truly fucked as a society.

    Why are there so many of us liberals who like to wallow in that? It doesn’t matter what happens, there’s always some crybaby like MeDrewYouNot at #3 who’s goin’ on about society’s downfall.

    Pick yourself, dust yourself off and get back in the fight already. We’ve got morons to keep out of power.

  23. 23.

    Hans Solo

    April 27, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    @New Yorker: I agree totally. My parents are white, live in the same state I do and are nothing like me intellectually or politically. They get their news from hate radio and preach ignorance, racism and stupidity. It is so very hard to hear such garbage coming out of the mouths of people who claim blood relations to me. I, and my sisters, have taken to avoiding talking to them as much as possible, especially about politics. It is just too painful.

    The siblings and I all hope to find out we were adopted. I’m kidding… mostly.

  24. 24.

    Ghanima Atreides

    April 27, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    The thing is…..this sort of wingnuttery is going to continue, and keep ramping up until the election.
    And the media will continue to promote it for market share….
    What is going to happen when Obama gets re-elected?
    Will the birthers all explode with rage and vanish like Rumpelstiltskin when the queen guessed his name?
    Will they form militias and move to Couer d’Alene?
    Will they emigrate to Canada?

  25. 25.

    MeDrewNotYou

    April 27, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides: I haven’t taken a bath since my parents stopped making me. By the respectful distance bypassers give me, I think I’ve awed them with my individuality.
    (Dammit! It started with mistermix and now this? When FSM tries to tell me something, I’ll listen. I’m picking up Dune again tonight.)

  26. 26.

    jl

    April 27, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    Maybe we could use the term ‘pink(1) plurality’ for the the retrograde among the ‘white majority’?

    (1) not pink in that sense (supposed gay color) in that sense (Pink Panthers), or that sense (The Pink Panther) , or the other sense (Code Pink), not that there is anything wrong with those.

    OK, check that.

    How about white goofballs?

  27. 27.

    Brian R.

    April 27, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    The best part is, in a week, the right wing websites will be demanding that Obama release his long-form birth certificate.

    They ignored the release of the original document. Why should they acknowledge this one?

  28. 28.

    Earl Butz

    April 27, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    I continue to believe that brown people will save this country from the insanity of the white majority but I’m feeling less confident today than usual.

    You need to spend some actual time with “brown people”. You’ll be disabused of that notion right quick.

    yes, but fortunately they mostly will not vote for racists.

    @Ghanima Atreides: Ever seen how well blacks and Mexicans get along? Christ almighty, sister, you’ve got a lot to learn. I’d rather be in Hell itself than be a black man in Mexico.

  29. 29.

    Svensker

    April 27, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    @Stefan:

    No, that was Jethro Tull, silly. Cheez, the education these days.

  30. 30.

    aimai

    April 27, 2011 at 4:37 pm

    This is the exact same fucking argument I had with my republican (lite) sister in law when we were arguing about the racism of the tea party and the then prominent accusation that Obama was a secret muslim. Her explicit argument was that it was the fault of the Democrats and of Obama that they weren’t able to sucessfully push back on the rumors. “Why did you let my friends think and say stupid things” seemed to be a good argument, to her.

    Here’s the thing–I really think at some level this is down to the basic nature of authoritarians. They really hate Obama personally but they know they are supposed to respect the office because they have been raised to follow the leader’s orders. This causes immense cognitive dissonance for them and they have to spend a ton of time finding reasons that Obama doesn’t really get to “own” the office.

    But the real issue is this: on some level they are still expecting a big daddy to tell them what to do and think. Their biggest rage at Obama is that without a white republican president they don’t agree on who gets to tell them what to think. Even the ones who hated Bush loved Cheney, and even the ones who disliked Bush and Cheney had authority figures within the same white/male/republican camp to turn to. But with Obama at the top of the tree they are left feeling defenseless and scared. And they hold him responsible for leaving them feeling that way. Like the kid who gets angry at daddy for not preventing him from breaking his own toys. Or who smashes a lamp and turns on mommy shouting “look what you made me do.”

    Susan of Texas writes about the basic psychological makeup of these people all the time and puts it down to faulty toilet training and authoritarian child rearing and sometimes I think she’s one hundred percent right.

    aimai

  31. 31.

    Ghanima Atreides

    April 27, 2011 at 4:37 pm

    @MeDrewNotYou: haha, mistermix is copying me! i demand props.
    If you dont bathe you would make a good Fremen.
    ;)

  32. 32.

    El Tiburon

    April 27, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    Acclaimed Historian Douglas Brinkley Calls For NBC To Dump Trump, Corporate Sponsors To Pull Ads

    Looks like it is up to us to pressure, boycott and otherwise get at the root of this problem. If we can all collectively get our shit together, I think we can do some damage (see: Beck)

  33. 33.

    Ghanima Atreides

    April 27, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    @Earl Butz: my point exactly. Blacks and browns get along a hella lot better together than either of them do with old white racist fucks.
    ;)

  34. 34.

    El Tiburon

    April 27, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    This link should have been in preceding comment

  35. 35.

    MeDrewNotYou

    April 27, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    @PurpleGirl: Roman numerals are awful. I pick up a magazine with ‘XXX’ on it and it turns out to be a book on the conveniences of zinc. And togas just look bad on everyone.

  36. 36.

    Cerberus

    April 27, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    @garage mahal: Our media is owned wholesale and trained in far more useful skills than ability to perform the job of investigation, reporting, and so on. Those skills mainly have to do with looking vaguely attractive, having great hair, and being able to present any falsehood no matter how egregious without scrunching your face into a wince of pain and absolute shame.

    I think we can all agree that such skills are far more important to nurture than a functional source of information.

    @MeDrewNotYou:

    What we have is the South Africa problem. The Other is not staying down as easy as it used to and so the bigoted minority are pulling in all the stops to consolidate as much power as it possibly can. If we can make it, this hopefully will be the end of it, eventually (our society can’t take any more decades of disparity between the liberalism we socially support and the state of our “political reality”).

    Unfortunately, I’m rather worried about our nation’s reflexive centrism. We have a strong culture of privileging a perceived middle as better, more objective, innately superior in every way. As such, there are social benefits to being “above left and right” and seeing “value” in the “two sides” of teabagger and moderate Democrat.

    Until we can get the 25-40% to stop giving the 27% undue credit and deference because “hey, I heard there might almost exist a liberal parallel on the other side which is just as bad, and besides hippies suck”, there is going to be pain. Sure, the demographics will likely save us, but it’s a bad tendency which makes fixing the dramatic problems we face incredibly hard to do in any efficient manner.

    We need, desperately, laws so liberal it makes Broder curl up in a ball and cry, because for 30 years, our political laws have not kept up with social evolution on how minority groups and everything else have been viewed and there is a lot of damage that’s gone unfixed, needing even more dramatic responses today.

    And as long as reflexive centrism is seen as a moral good in and of itself, it’s going to be hard to get that, even when demographics knock the conservatives out of power.

  37. 37.

    geg6

    April 27, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    Nigger, nigger, nigger.

    Uppity, uppity, uppity.

    That’s what this is all about and I’m about deathly sick of it. I wish they’d just say it and get it out there like they want to soooooooo bad.

  38. 38.

    batgirl

    April 27, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    There is a book coming out by the wingnut Jerome Corsi May 17 titled “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” I work in a library. I am clearly not wasting the few precious library dollars on buying this book. I’ve been trying to think of a nice way to tell the folks that request we purchase it that it isn’t happening. I was thinking of going with “You’re an idiot,” but I actually like my job (and the paycheck). I was also thinking of saying I’m not buying this book for the same reason I’m not buying a book saying the Holocaust never happened — because IT ISN”T TRUE.

  39. 39.

    Mandramas

    April 27, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    @Ghanima Atreides: Yeah, Mistermix is adopting a father figure naming convention regarding you, Ghanima.

  40. 40.

    TooManyJens

    April 27, 2011 at 4:42 pm

    I continue to believe that brown people will save this country from the insanity of the white majority

    Not that we deserve it, frankly.

  41. 41.

    Chris

    April 27, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    I continue to believe that brown people will save this country from the insanity of the white majority but I’m feeling less confident today than usual.

    Well, I wouldn’t phrase it exactly like that. But I would hope that immigration fattens the ranks of people who haven’t bought into the psychotic Randian ideology, and continues to do so until said people are enough of a minority they can well and truly be ignored. Americans of the younger generation growing up to be lifelong Dems works too.

  42. 42.

    montana

    April 27, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    Dana fucking Milbank…the clown who descended to unknown depths in those skits with Chris what’s-his-name…the other WashPo guy who is always on the tv machine…is lecturing Obama on how he lowered himself? Prick.

  43. 43.

    tomvox1

    April 27, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    Can I just say that Jennifer Rubin is a wretched lying harridan and if I ever meet her I’d like to punch her in the throat and that I hope Fred Hiatt gets a savage case of kidney stones for hiring that witch.

    Not particularly germane but I feel better at least…

  44. 44.

    PurpleGirl

    April 27, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    @MeDrewNotYou: Thanks for the laugh.

  45. 45.

    The Dangerman

    April 27, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    What’s next — juggling knives?

    I’d pay good money to see him toss knives like El Rando Grando (if you aren’t into baseball, this was Randy Johnson, once infamous for his wildness as a pitcher) towards some of these columnists.

  46. 46.

    New Yorker

    April 27, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    @Stefan:

    Actually I am downtown. I work there for Richard Cohen’s corporate masters: Kaplan, Inc.

  47. 47.

    Chris

    April 27, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    @New Yorker:

    It’s not the “white majority” that’s the problem, Doug. It’s the rural, evangelical, elderly white minority that’s throwing this temper tantrum, and the reason they’re throwing it is because they are confronting the reality that they are a minority, and they simply can’t handle it.

    I approve of this sentiment, though I will point out that there are also people who aren’t rural, evangelical, old or white who nevertheless joyfully join on the 27%er bullshit. Much less, merficully so. But yeah, the main problem is conservatives. Simplest way to put it.

  48. 48.

    Jim

    April 27, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    Comrade DougJ never fails to call it like it is.

    I agree with John though, methinks The Donald will be the first to drop the *N* bomb. Then finally the raw truth will reveal itself.

  49. 49.

    MonkeyBoy

    April 27, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    I continue to believe that brown people will save this country from the insanity of the white majority

    I assure you that brown people can be just as crazy and dysfunctional as white. However they can sometimes point to real examples of oppression while for whites it is entirely delusional anticipation.

    Expecting browns to know better is like thinking Jews in Israel could not possibly engage in racial oppression.

  50. 50.

    Zifnab

    April 27, 2011 at 4:48 pm

    I’ve been trying to think of a nice way to tell the folks that request we purchase it that it isn’t happening.

    Have you considered just printing out and laminating printed copies of the birth certificate and distributing them as needed?

  51. 51.

    aimai

    April 27, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    @batgirl:

    Tell them its backordered. And then tell them someone stole it.

    aimai

  52. 52.

    MeDrewNotYou

    April 27, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    @Cerberus: Forgive me for not getting to in-depth, I’m about to run out the door.

    I’m mostly expressing my pessimism towards humanity as a whole. Even when the old racists die off, I just see a new racism/bigotry rising up to take its place. And instead of rich old whites running the show, at best we’ll get a Martinez or two as CEOs (But this one’s a lot more iffy. Money is good at perpetuating itself and keeping away outsiders.). It will still be the rich lording it over the poor, and barring something pretty radical, I just can’t see that changing.

  53. 53.

    freelancer

    April 27, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    I’m sorry, Cole. I can’t help but see the react to this as nothing but good news. 70-80% of Americans don’t even pay attention to politics. This news will reach them and they’ll be like, “Well Duh!”.

    And the few times that low info voters I’ve talked to have even hinted faux concern about birtherism aka “Maybe there’s something too it, it’s been around so long.”, it’s easily countered by bringing up Clinton’s ambition for the White House, and how it would have come out in the Democratic Primary and finished him off. “Or am I wrong, and Hillary Clinton did not in fact, really really really want to be President?”

    That usually shuts them up and gets them to see that the GOP bringing up the birther thing over and over and over again and delegitimizing the president as a bunch of fillings-in-their-teeth conspiracy theorists.

    So this is good news, one of those moments where the apolitical kind of have a moment of intangible consensus. Like you couldn’t pinpoint it, but here was a moment where the whole country just decided, basically, “Yeah, okay, so we went to War for no reason, but we’re there now” and then a few months later the country kind of said, “You know what? Wars aren’t as cool as Republicans make them sound. This war sucks!”

    Most people are sane, but apathetic; and take stuff in almost subliminally. This should be sinking in and most Americans have been internalizing this crap for years. This is a good thing.

  54. 54.

    aimai

    April 27, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    @batgirl:
    Better idea, tell everyone who asks for it that the Library has a policy of asking all American Authors for their birth certificates–long form–and that Mr. Corsi hasn’t complied.

    aimai

  55. 55.

    PurpleGirl

    April 27, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    @aimai: That’s a good idea, Aimai.

  56. 56.

    Marmot

    April 27, 2011 at 4:52 pm

    @aimai:

    Here’s the thing—I really think at some level this is down to the basic nature of authoritarians. They really hate Obama personally but they know they are supposed to respect the office because they have been raised to follow the leader’s orders. This causes immense cognitive dissonance for them and they have to spend a ton of time finding reasons that Obama doesn’t really get to “own” the office.

    A thousand times this. These were all the adults I knew until I was about 15, and they always seemed off. They don’t know anything, they don’t try to figure anything out, and if a big figure within the respected power structure tells ’em something’s true, it’s true.

    I favor mocking them publicly, turning them against each other, and feeding them disinformation. They can’t ever be trusted to do the right thing anyway.

  57. 57.

    Ash Can

    April 27, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    I suspect that Milbank knows exactly what the deal was with Obama’s conference, and just figures that the best defense is a good offense (although the concept of “good” evidently eludes him in this case).

  58. 58.

    rikryah

    April 27, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    this was absolutely NOT ABOUT A BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

    plain and simple.

  59. 59.

    Martin

    April 27, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    @batgirl: Spoken loudly: “I’m sorry, but be don’t carry pornography in the library.”

  60. 60.

    Chris

    April 27, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    @MonkeyBoy:

    Expecting browns to know better is like thinking Jews in Israel could not possibly engage in racial oppression.

    Harry Truman weighed in on this way back when:

    Had ten minutes conversation with Henry Morgenthau about Jewish ship in Palistine. Told him I would talk to Gen[eral] Marshall about it. He’d no business, whatever to call me. The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed. When the country went backward — and Republican in the election of 1946, this incident loomed large on the DP [Displaced Person] program. The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as DP as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I’ve found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes. Look at the Congress[ional] attitude on DP — and they all come from DPs.

  61. 61.

    geg6

    April 27, 2011 at 4:56 pm

    @roshan:

    Oh, he came out and thanked Boehner for being an adult and saying, over the weekend, that we had to look at ending oil company subsidies, which would (according to some points of view) be a sort of tax increase on the oil companies. Obama’s statement led to a bunch of Congressional and Senate Dems to come out and say what a good idea Boehner had. Which led to Boehner backing up at light speed and saying he didn’t say what he clearly said.

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_04/029120.php

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_04/029130.php

  62. 62.

    JCJ

    April 27, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    Why does all of this make me remember the “new sheriff” scene from Blazing Saddles

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvZdVK913I

  63. 63.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    April 27, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    @batgirl:

    I am clearly not wasting the few precious library dollars on buying this book.

    I take it that you don’t have an open bin (like my local library does) where anybody can donate their own books to the library, one that is frequently stuffed with wingnutty material because the donors are convinced that what the community really needs is for their fellow citizens TO OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE! ELEVENTY-ONE! WOLVERINES!

    I pity the folks that have to pick through that pile looking for something of value to keep for the benefit of the library. It must be like being a junkheap picker in China only with better air-conditioning.

  64. 64.

    Frank Chow

    April 27, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    I do hope it’s the Yellow People that saves this country from itself. That’s my hopey changey side speaking of course.

  65. 65.

    gex

    April 27, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    @MeDrewNotYou: If you use Tina Fey’s work as any kind of measuring stick, I think we might yet have hope.

  66. 66.

    General Stuck

    April 27, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    I continue to believe that brown people will save this country from the insanity of the white majority but I’m feeling less confident today than usual.

    I also believe this, but would include minorities in general. The reason that brown, or hispanic people will, or can save this country are two fold. First, they are by far the fastest growing minority voting group in this country, and secondly, while blacks vote around 90 percent dem, Hispanics vote as near back as Bush, only around 60 percent dem, give or take in a particular election.

    I don’t know of any hard data verifying my personal impression, but I would guess that after deducting general wingnuttery and maybe Cuban National type GOP voter, you have around 20 to 30 percent of the remaining circa 40 percent Hispanic GOP voters as mostly single issue anti abortion devout catholic voters the GOP has been able to count on. But that is eroding and there is a threshold point to where tea tard Gooper racism and general xenophobia toward brown folk in general and specifically with immigration issues, will turn those conservative christian Hispanic voters over to dem ones. To some significant degree, or voters that just stay home and don’t vote. It will end GOP electoral viability as it has been natinnwide.

    I Can’t even stand visiting places anymore that have majority white folk like I am. The vibes of hate, resentment and nativism just bum me out so much, I just stick close to the border in a circa 50/50 mix of white, like me, and brown plus other minorities here.

    Shame that it is that way, but it is in this country, in many places, and getting worse. The white supremacy thing.

  67. 67.

    batgirl

    April 27, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    @Zifnab: @aimai: @Martin: I like how you all think.

  68. 68.

    Darkrose

    April 27, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    @JCJ:

    Why does all of this make me remember the “new sheriff” scene from Blazing Saddles

    Because the real issue with the birthers is that the President is near?

  69. 69.

    cyd

    April 27, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    So apart from aqueducts, Roman numerals, togas, alphabets, baths, and the arch, what have the Romans ever done for us?

  70. 70.

    gex

    April 27, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    @jl: How about crackers. There are white people and there are crackers. The 27ers could be called the Saltines, and mercifully we could stop insulting white people as a whole. (Think Chris Rock’s black folks versus n-words vibe).

  71. 71.

    Dave C

    April 27, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    This is just pissing me off to no end. We are well and truly fucked.

  72. 72.

    gex

    April 27, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    @batgirl: Huh. Surprising. I thought those folks would rather see libraries shut down, seeing as how they are a waste of taxpayer monies and all…

  73. 73.

    Marmot

    April 27, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    @cyd: Uh, the legal system!

  74. 74.

    gex

    April 27, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    @Frank Chow: Can I count on your support in 2016? I am a computer science/math major, of Asian descent. Not just left-center but full on liberal. And very, very yellow. My certificate of live birth even says “yellow” in the race field.

  75. 75.

    ABL

    April 27, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    @New Yorker: Agreed. It’s a white minority of balls-out crazy assholes. My mom is one of the good whiteys, like you. ;-)

  76. 76.

    slag

    April 27, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    @batgirl: Just kindly explain to them that libraries only shelve soshulist books. For obvious reasons.

  77. 77.

    batgirl

    April 27, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    I take it that you don’t have an open bin (like my local library does) where anybody can donate their own books to the library,

    Oh, we do. It is how our library has built up a very heavily circulated erotica collection. We have an older lady who discreetly drops off the donations in our drop box at night when we are closed.

  78. 78.

    bemused

    April 27, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    The cesspool has no bottom.

  79. 79.

    Frank Chow

    April 27, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    @gex: I need to see your voting record on Yellow/VeryTannedandAwesome issues. Then you’ll have my support!

  80. 80.

    Earl Butz

    April 27, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    Expecting browns to know better is like thinking Jews in Israel could not possibly engage in racial oppression.

    @MonkeyBoy: Boy, you said this a lot better than I did above. Thanks.

  81. 81.

    Earl Butz

    April 27, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    So apart from aqueducts, Roman numerals, togas, alphabets, baths, and the arch, what have the Romans ever done for us?

    @cyd: First organized fire departments. Public restroom facilities. Plumbing. Mosaic art. Hierarchical military structure (one could argue whether this is a very good or very bad thing, I suppose).

    The biggie: concrete.

  82. 82.

    bemused

    April 27, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    @batgirl:

    I gotta a hunch that telling those old Fox watchers you won’t buy the book because it isn’t true won’t go over any better than telling them they are idiots.

  83. 83.

    goblue72

    April 27, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    If thinking that its more important for the Preznit to able to prove he was actually born in this here America than work on foolish soshulist stuff like taxing oil companies or protecting Medicare scooters, then call this huckleberry a pie.

  84. 84.

    daverave

    April 27, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    @montana:

    Newshole…

  85. 85.

    daverave

    April 27, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    @danimal:

    Newshole.

  86. 86.

    goblue72

    April 27, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    @New Yorker: 55.6% of McCain voters in 2008 were white. That’s not a minority of whites – that’s a majority of whites.

  87. 87.

    AkaDad

    April 27, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    What did the Romans ever do for us?

    They gave us toga parties!

    Edit: I should read threads before I post. Purple Girl beat me to it.

  88. 88.

    Tonal Crow

    April 27, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    The longer birtherism goes on, and the more strident GOPers get about it, the better Democrats’ 2012 prospects become. There are plenty of crazies in America, but very nearly all of them already vote GOP, and birtherism is too stupid to transform sane people into crazies. But it probably will convince some swing voters to swing away from the GOP to avoid this particular crazy taint. So I say: bring on the birtherism!

  89. 89.

    Elia Isquire

    April 27, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    Let’s not let anything Jennifer Rubin writes affect our moods in any way, please? I mean…this is Jennifer Rubin we’re talking about. If we’re going to ascribe her the dignity in our minds of not paying rent, then we’re going to have to start fuming over every Freeper. What I’m trying to say is that she’s a worthless and normatively abhorrent hack; Erick Erickson with a more expensive diploma.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    April 27, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    @batgirl:

    I’ve been trying to think of a nice way to tell the folks that request we purchase it that it isn’t happening.

    You could hand them a copy of the birth certificate that was released today — since that answers Corsi’s question, there’s no need to buy the book.

  91. 91.

    OzoneR

    April 27, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    @New Yorker:

    I’m a white 31-year-old Ivy League educated atheist liberal from New York.

    I’m a 31-year-old white liberal from the Midwest with a masters degree and I think the faster the brown people can take control of the country, the better we all are.

  92. 92.

    MrCee

    April 27, 2011 at 6:30 pm

    Doug,
    Thanks for the hope that we brown folk could do the job but this is just a mess that’s too big for us to do the usual clean up job. There’s just too many of the ignorant and tribal white folks working hard to make sure we can’t have a stake in this country like other ethnic groups were able to nurture.
    Now that they are getting older there’s even less of a chance that they will be charitable as they cling (yes I said it) to the hundreds of years of cultural training “that no matter what, at least you’re not one of Them”.

    Now that they are seeing many of “Them” attempting to move up in society or even be President the lie that they and their forefathers have supported is freaking them out.
    It hurts them to realize that maybe they really aren’t that special.

    Even though I never ran anything as important as the President has, many a day I read or watch opponents twist logic, reality etc in order to absolve themselves of accountability and feel like you could substitute President with my job title.

    I’m just gonna teach my kids other languages and hope they’ll let me live in whatever country they decide to settle in.
    American Democracy was a pretty good experiment.

  93. 93.

    Viva BrisVegas

    April 27, 2011 at 6:50 pm

    @Montysano:

    So what do mainstream birthers like Trump do? Keep riding the crazy train, or try to jump off?

    Trump has already changed trains, he’s now on the Affirmative Action Express.

    In case you hadn’t noticed it is an article of faith on the right that Obama is dumb as a rock and therefore could not have achieved his academic credentials on his own merit.

    This is what the teleprompter idiocy has been all about.

    They will be moving onto his school records now, and I mean ALL his school records.

    This won’t end until there is a white man in the White House again.

  94. 94.

    AxelFoley

    April 27, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    What did the Romans ever do for us?

    Orgies?

  95. 95.

    Tonal Crow

    April 27, 2011 at 8:43 pm

    @Cerberus:

    Our media is owned wholesale and trained in far more useful skills than ability to perform the job of investigation, reporting, and so on. Those skills mainly have to do with looking vaguely attractive, having great hair, and being able to present any falsehood no matter how egregious without scrunching your face into a wince of pain and absolute shame.

    Don Henley nailed this poetically long ago:

    We got the bubble-headed bleach-blonde comes on at 5,
    She can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye,
    It’s int’resting when people die,
    Give us dirty laundry.
    …
    We can do the innuendo,
    We can dance and sing,
    When it’s said and done,
    We haven’t told you a thing.
    We all know that crap is king,
    Give us dirty laundry.

  96. 96.

    Jim, Once

    April 27, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    I Can’t even stand visiting places anymore that have majority white folk like I am. The vibes of hate, resentment and nativism just bum me out so much, I just stick close to the border in a circa 50/50 mix of white, like me, and brown plus other minorities here.

    This. Wish I could find a place like that … I live in possibly one of the whitest Midwestern states in existence. My beautiful granddaughter recently moved here (she’s 17 years old) from the South, and told me she’s probably gonna return ASAP – she just can’t stand the blatant, offensive racism she hears and sees every day from classmates. It broke my heart when she told me that.

  97. 97.

    Jim, Once

    April 27, 2011 at 9:10 pm

    @Tonal Crow: Re ‘Dirty Laundry’ – Best. Song. Ever.

  98. 98.

    Ghanima Atreides

    April 27, 2011 at 11:57 pm

    @Mandramas:

    Yeah, Mistermix is adopting a father figure naming convention regarding you, Ghanima.

    umm….isnt that sort of pervy?

  99. 99.

    Chris

    April 28, 2011 at 8:24 am

    @MrCee:

    It hurts them to realize that maybe they really aren’t that special.

    Bingo.

    And that’s why they get so severely butthurt over “American Exceptionalism;” to them, it literally means recognizing Americans as the new Israel, the new Chosen People personally selected by God to guide the human race. “Americans,” of course, means people like them.

  100. 100.

    Paul in KY

    April 28, 2011 at 8:55 am

    @cyd: They gave us concrete as well.

    Edit: I see Earl Butz beat me to it. Dammit!

  101. 101.

    Older

    May 2, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    “The kerning is irregular!”

    I actually did see someone complaining that the “P” in “PM” was in a different font from the “M”. Not knowing, I suppose, that some forms have the “M” printed on so the person filling it out need supply only an “A” or a “P” as required.

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