We really are going to be playing all the greatest hits from 2008 all over again:
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colorado) is backpedaling after 9NEWS was first to report on an audio recording of his comments at a recent fundraiser where he raised the issue of President Barack Obama’s birthplace and said the president, “in his heart, he’s not an American.”
At a May 12 fundraiser at the Elbert County Fairgrounds, Coffman wrapped up a 12-minute speech to donors with an unprompted discussion of President Obama’s citizenship and national identification.
“I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that,” Coffman said. “But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”
After a short pause, which Elbert County Republican Chairman Scott Wills recalled as “deafening silence,” Coffman was met with applause, tentative at first.
Who will be the first this election cycle to bring up Ayers?
(via)
rlrr
“But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American.”
Someone needs to followup with the question”: “Why do you think he’s not an American?”
Patricia Kayden
According to the NY Times, they plan to bring up Rev Wright, so I don’t think Ayers is far behind.
fasteddie9318
How would anybody notice this? They’ve never stopped bringing up Ayers.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@rlrr:
The cherry-picked audience of True Believers won’t. And if any Villagers happen to be around, they won’t either for fear of scaring somebody on the right.
And if someone did, we’d get the usual litany of Mooooslimness, ate dog as a child, birth certificate was a forgery, etc., etc.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@rlrr: It was a GOP fundraiser. That question would never be asked.
Boots Day
As well as the question, “Why do you think he might not have been born in this country? Because there’s zero evidence he was born anywhere else.”
Mike Coffman, as it happens, is my congressman. Not for much longer, I hope. His ignorance is literally breathtaking.
fuzz
@Patricia Kayden:
I saw that too, you have to love how we spent the entire election talking about his pastor and then seamlessly transitioned into how he’s a Muslim.
jibeaux
Or maybe, where do you think his heart IS from?
Teddy's Person
Holy cow, they do be desperate. Running on a bankrupt platform can do that to a person.
rlrr
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
It wouldn’t be too late for an actual journalist to ask a follow up…
Rob in CT
fasteddie beat me to it. They stopped bringing up Ayers?
I learned about the existence of Bill Ayers from wingnuts on blogs. Within the past year.
rlrr
@Boots Day:
I feel you pain. Todd Akin is my congressman. He won’t be much longer, unfortunately he’ll likely become my senator…
Forum Transmitted Disease
Yes, we will. The reason is simple: they can’t actually bring up his record, because that makes him look pretty damn good.
So, it’ll be Ayers, Weathermen, gun-grabbers, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, Wright, birth certificate, states rights, New Black Panthers, ACORN, and the ever-tightening dance around the GOP holy grail, “ni**er”.
Gonna be a pretty boring election.
pragmatism
coffman has the ability to know what is in a man’s heart but can’t read a certification from the state where the usurper was born. how nice for him.
Jeff Spender
These people never had the opportunity to use a fully developed pre-frontal cortex, have they?
Tonal Crow
Please, oh please Republicans, don’t throw us in the birther patch! We’ll die fer sure!
amk
@rlrr: egg.sack.lee.The msm idjits always have these rethug morons on teh teevee. Just pop the question. If you have the guts, that is.
fasteddie9318
@rlrr:
I think Rep. Coffman would respond with a sincere and heartfelt answer, perhaps something like this:
“Well, I don’t want to leave you in the dark with a muddy answer, but something about him is just a shade off. Perhaps if we delved deep into the shadowy recesses of his mind, somewhere in that jungle we could find the, oh, the bunny of the truth amidst all the racoons of falsehood. I do know that when we look over this vast nation, full of homes, and lawns, full of horses and the jockeys who ride them, there may be black days ahead under this President. But no, I can’t give you a specific reason why I think that.”
Rob in CT
@Rob in CT:
Ack, I screwed that up. Ayers I remember from the ’08 election. It’s Alinsky I learnt about recently from ranting wingnuts.
Raven
“As a Marine. . . ” big motherfucking deal. Eat the apple and fuck the corps.
Steve in DC
They don’t accept liberals as American, they are European socialists! They’ll never accept a liberal as American and thus a legit public office holder. And neither will their base. They can just say “the most liberal liberal that ever liberal’d” and that’s enough to drag them out to the voting booth.
different-church-lady
ROCKY: But that trick never works!
BULLWINKLE: Nothing up my sleeve… PRESTO!
redshirt
I’m waiting for REZKO!
rlrr
Maybe Romney can tell us again that Obama is unfit for office because he spent too much time atttending Harvard.
jwb
@Jeff Spender: A developed pre-frontal cortex is a detriment to advancement in the GOP. Even if you have one, you have to pretend like you don’t to succeed.
mathguy
@Boots Day: Condolences-I don’t think we have anyone that stupid even in Nebraska.
Napoleon
@Tonal Crow:
Funny!
IMO all the over the top stuff that is back in the last few days is the best thing that can happen for the Dems, both short and long term. I am convinced that eventually the Rep/Conservative brand will be so tarnished with the crazy it will take a generation or two to remove the stain.
Villago Delenda Est
OK, first half indicates that you’re too stupid to breathe on your own.
Second half indicates that you’re the kind of shit we put to fucking death 67 years ago in Central Europe.
Steve
That “deafening silence” prior to the applause lasted for about one second.
different-church-lady
@Jeff Spender: Not to insult autistics, but… you know…
@Rob in CT:
Yes, you have to give the bed-vetters some credit: at least they moved the crazy-ball down the field a bit when compared to the rest of their team.
rageahol
would it be racist to tell these fucksticks to “go back to mississippi”?
Davis X. Machina
”Hey, Dred Scott is still good law, isn’t it?
Teddy's Person
When did America become the land of the wack-a-loon conspiracy nuts? They’ve always been around but kept to the shadows. I guess the internet allows them to more efficiently find each other and create a self-sustaining paranoia paradise. But now, they’re crawling out of cyberspace and electing the crazy.
SatanicPanic
They’re going to have to start distributing decoder rings so people can understand all this stuff.
Davis X. Machina
Ah, the Sign of the Ranting Wingnuts. It’s a pub in Diagon Alley, I believe…
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
Specifically, it’s located on Knockturn Alley, right next door to Borgin & Burkes. Bellatrix LeStrange is a known barfly there.
Also, too, that Umbridge woman.
Nemesis
Luntz prefers gently finessed birfer talking points. Take note Rep Coffman.
Surreal American
It can only mean one thing: Someone found the “Whitey Tape”
jwb
@Napoleon: The problem is that the GOP currently has a floor of about 45%, which is too high to give them the kind of whomping necessary to send them into the wilderness. Until we start making inroads into the 40% of voters who self-identify as conservative—that compares to 20% liberal—it’s going to be tough going especially given the money advantage and the media ownership.
Liz
FYI this asshat did explain what he meant
http://www.9news.com/news/article/268305/339/Coffman-Obama-in-his-heart-not-an-American
Davis X. Machina
@jwb: You have to harness the millions and millions of disaffected non-voters who don’t turn out because neither party will nominate anyone remotely left enough to pull them off the bench and into the game.
A simple declaration that property is theft, and a call to expropriate the expropriators, and the rest is just technique.
Piece of cake.
Jeff Spender
Either the Marines have some grade-A brainwashing, or this guy is the assclowniest of the assclowns.
LAC
Is it the thin air in Colorado or a carbon monoxide leak that causes people like this to get into elected office?
Villago Delenda Est
@Liz:
This stupid motherfucker just reenergized the “dumbfuck jarhead” stereotype.
I certainly hope that that “core set of principles” he’s referring to have nothing at all to do with Jeebus, but I’m betting my hopes will be dashed. To put it mildly.
cathyx
I don’t think that the birth certificate issue will go very far at all this time around. Obama has already shown it and he’s been president for 4 years now. They will have to come up with a new controversy if they want to make headway.
Frankensteinbeck
@Teddy’s Person:
Some of it’s FOX’s pushing all kinds of fear-mongering as legitimate news. I think the real issue is that to the Angry Old People group that makes up the GOP’s primary voting core (and a very large number of its politicians and sugar daddies, take note), we’re living in an impossible dystopian nightmare world already. Gays can serve openly in the military. A BLACK MAN IS PRESIDENT. For people old enough to remember segregation, what’s currently real is way more alien and unlikely than the Kenyan Islamofascist Conspiracy crap being thrown on top of it.
Jay C
@Liz:
IOW, “We’re Americans, so our shit don’t stink!”
ETA: And its unspoken corollary: “And anyone who don’t think so don’t deserve to be President”!!
ETAA: FYWP
James E Powell
@Davis X. Machina:
You have to harness the millions and millions of disaffected non-voters who don’t turn out because neither party will nominate anyone remotely left enough to pull them off the bench and into the game.
I have serious doubts that running someone who is remotely left would energize any significant number of non-voters. Are non-voters disengaged because they don’t find a candidate who they feel like supporting? Or are they non-voters because they are the kind of people who just don’t give a damn or who don’t participate in anything?
RSA
Coffman joins Bill Frist in his mastery of remote diagnostic skills.
Napoleon
@jwb:
Although I agree with you that the GOP currently has a floor of 45% and that 40% self identify as conservatives, I don’t think we need to make any, or at least not much, in the way of inroads to the 40% to start handing them whompings (and this comes with a big cavet below). Even with a 45% floor so long as they are so poisoned with being radicals that that floor also becomes the ceiling they are in a world of hurt, and that gets a lot worse if you move that number down to 40%, which would be coming close to irrelevent.
The cavet is that the Senate needs to get rid of all or the vast majority of their undemocratic rules (i.e., if a determined majority can not approve a nomination or law without a defection from the minority becuase of the rule).
Rafer Janders
@Teddy’s Person:
About the time of the Jamestown colony, I’d say.
But seriously, read Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Twas ever thus.
gene108
The Rev. Wright ad blitz and anything else done by SuperPAC’s and other right-wing organizations servers only one purpose: To get the wing-nuts into peak-froth by the first Tuesday in November.
If more of their guys vote than our guys: THEY WIN. PERIOD.
It doesn’t matter that 75% of Americans agree with liberals on something like raising taxes on the rich, because at most only 50% of the country votes in a Presidential election year.
Figure 46% of the the voter turn out broke Republican in 2008’s Presidential election, which was a Democratic WAVE ELECTION, i.e. 23% of the country voted for McCain and Palin.
All these goons have to do is get 26% of the country to the polls, who normally vote Republican and you have a Republican President, majorities in both houses of Congress, etc.
Jeff Spender
@James E Powell:
I’m willing to bet they’re the kind who don’t even know that our federal government has three branches, can’t tell you how many people signed the Declaration of Independence, and would be surprised to find out that we have a right to protest things.
Davis X. Machina
@James E Powell: We actually know the answer to that. But this is the internet, and I have a theory.
(link to Excel spreadsheet….)
Chris
He’s an American, just not what they mean by that word.
Someone here pointed out this distinction not too long ago. Conservatives love, worship and fetishize “America,” the platonic ideal form of a country that they think stopped existing fifty/eighty/one-hundred-and-fifty years ago and in reality never existed anywhere but in their heads. But they absolutely loathe America, the three hundred million living, breathing, (boring) regular old human beings that make up this country in the uninspiring dimension known as “the real world.”
Think like Crassus in the movie “Spartacus.”
Roger Moore
@Teddy’s Person:
1698, or possibly a bit before. SATSQ.
rlrr
@Chris:
Conservative: Someone who loves America, but hates Americans.
Trakker
This makes me grin all over. Talk about desperation!
It’s becoming increasingly hard to find something scary about “No Drama Obama.” Jeremiah Wright? Old news. William Ayres? Who? Born elsewhere! Yawn. He’s a socialist/communist/fascist!!? Hmm, you’ve been saying that for three years, and anyway he killed Osama.
Meanwhile Obama has a ton of video of Romney’s pandering statements to the GOP’s extremist base. Now that’s scary!
Chris
The myth of national superiority is as alive and well here as among the dozen nations of asshats in Europe who triggered World War One. The belief that your nation is superior to everyone else’s is perhaps the single least exceptional and most common delusion throughout the planet Earth.
different-church-lady
@Teddy’s Person:
The moment Palin gave her first national speech. The gates were thrown open.
NotMax
Memo to the not-so-veiled bigots:
Do the words “Get over it.” ring a bell?
Bokonon
Nicer triple play there, Coffman. Not only are you trying to changing the subject AND waving your former service as a Marine in our face, but you are ALSO blowing a right-wing dogwhistle in the process – as a matter of personal belief, of course. And as a former Marine! How can we possibly doubt your sincerity?
That “core set of principles” talk is code wording for the whole “Christian Nation” idea.
Coffman is my congressman, and he does this same dance all the time. He likes to pose as a reasonable man and a business-friendly, moderate conservative, but he actually runs to the hard right (and aggressively ignores those of his constituents whose views differ from the GOP party line). And when Coffman gets called on it, he inevitably goes on the attack, and blames the President for being “divisive” or “irresponsible” or “reckless” … forcing poor ol’ Mike to do things like question the President’s patriotism and citizenship, and imply that the President is committing treason. What else is a reasonable man to do?
Corbin Dallas Multipass
It’s a feature, not a bug.
scav
I know we’re seeing a lot of retreads of childhood favorite comics at the movies recently, but really. . Stump speeches using the format of late night ads for K-Tel Records: “All Your favorites from the [1860s, 1880s, 1930s, 1950s]!”
I have this strange compulsion to walk up to that Marine and announce “As a Married Individual, I firmly believe mine is unique and that all other spouses are Inferior Sluts!” and see how that flies. Minor problem being my unmarried status.
jwb
@Napoleon: I agree that if 45% could be turned into a ceiling that would do the trick. It would be hard to keep that 40% together if you were reliably losing election after election. For one thing, the money would by necessity start flowing in the other direction. Which of course raises other problems.
elmo
@fasteddie9318:
::golf clap::
Steve in DC
@jwb
It’s not that. Most people prefer liberal positions on economic items. Unemployment insurance, taxing the rich, funding our infrastructure, medicare. These things win. They just don’t like liberal messengers for these things.
Take OWS, most people agree with them on the bailouts, the banks, and income inequality. Sadly OWS was mostly drum circles, hippies, demands from WASP kids to have all their college loans be forgiven, a ton of trying to make gay rights part of the cause, anarchists/feminists/environmentalists ranting away, and let’s not forget demands for veganism in law and other inane crap.
That sort of shit sends people running for the hills. There is always a feeling that any sort of liberal solution that people agree with is a stalking horse for a whole bunch of liberal social engineering for fringe groups on the left. The media plays into this by focusing on those groups, but if they just stayed home or were marginalized by the larger left the problem wouldn’t be there.
This is a problem that needs to be fixed. Concentrate just on economics and don’t let every other goal of a specific group get tagged onto it as well.
I know people like to whine about Democratic hippy punching, but they do it because people honestly hate hippies. And it sends the message that the freaks will be kept in line.
Brachiator
@Davis X. Machina:
I think that there are a lot of reasons that there are millions of non-voters, but I don’t think that waiting for a lefty liberator is necessarily high on the list.
@Surreal American:
Yep. Here it is.
Davis X. Machina
@Brachiator: I think you’re right, and you think you’re right, and the Census people think you’re right, but against the Internet, what chance do we have? (Link is to XLS spreasheet…)
jl
@gene108:
I heard a news report this morning that the Rev Wright retread attack idea was cancelled after Romney campaign said that they would explicitly disavow it.
I guess that it a good thing. The GOP’s got nothing and they know it.
I don’t see how tired old retread attacks are going to help to GOP much, except in teabagger wingnut GOTV. But that might be counterproductive if the rest of the voters get pissed off over hearing not only BS, but effing retread repeat BS from the last election. The Democrats could use it to make their accurate case that the GOP only has more of the same old thing.
I think the ‘not really vetted’ line paired with Ayers and Wright will only work with crazy wingnuts and racists. Everyone else will think ‘excuse me, we have effing four years of the dude’s job, you want to vet the guy, why not talk about that?”
But if the recovery continues, and as more of the good Obama policy items such as ACA kick in, that line of attack for the GOP will be very weak, since the Democrats can make the case that the GOP has put their policy cards on the table.
For example, Romney will be challenged over and over on whether he agrees with Congressional GOP Ryan plan love, or not.
Brachiator
@jl:
I look forward to Mitt disavowing his disavowal.
But no matter what Romney himself does, there’s always a superpac willing to be as obnoxious as necessary.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@jl: Damn straight they would; Romney’s people probably shit their pants in terror on hearing this “great idea”.
Anything that could even tangentially bring up Romney’s religion is going to be avoided by his campaign like a can full of ebola virus.
David Hunt
@Jeff Spender:
Ack! Yo made me feel embarrassed. usually when someone talks aobut hwo a depressing number of Americans don’t know “X,” I’m simultaneously smug and depressed that so few people know “X.” This time I’m just depressed, because I didn’t know how many people signed the Declaration. You’ve turned me into a dumb guy!
Stuck in the Funhouse
We need to liberal message with these people. We need to hold them close and wingnut whisper them that gosh darnit, they are special, and are okay, Maybe a little confused but decent white people that want to be in charge to grind black folk into dust, and just need some good old liberal religion to set them on the path to loving the Kenyan moooslim terrorist, and a vote for Obama is a vote for Allah, that is just another furrin name for baby jeevus. Leave em a rainbow with the pot of gold, democrats fo ever.
Guarangodamnteed! ain’t that right Ricky Bobby?
Hill Dweller
@jl: Romney brought up Rev. Wright during the Republican primary. His ‘rejection’ rings hollow.
gene108
@jl:
But crazy-ass-wing-nut is the demographic the national GOP is pandering to without much in the way of exceptions.
Who really cares about crashing the government down around them, by not raising the debt ceiling? Wing-nuts
Who really cares about making sure there are not taxes increases on the 1%? Wing-nuts (I think the captains of industry, who are also fighting against this have become wing-nuts by default, no matter what their politics on social issues are).
Ever since Newt Gingrich in 1994, the whole GOP strategy has been to make sure their base stays interested and shows up at the polls.
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what “uncoordinated” attacks SuperPAC’s make on behalf of Romney and the GOP in this election and if any of them do anything that will backfire on the Republicans.
Citizen_X
Let me get this straight: “As a Marine,” you believe that the President of the United States is anti-American. Oh, excuse me, “in his heart,” whatever the fuck that means. Put on a uniform and try talking that trash. See how far you get, chump.
Say, you know who else was a Marine? Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
redshirt
OT, saw a hilarious bumper sticker at lunch. Nice, new very red Saab with Mass plates with a “Don’t turn America into Massachusetts” sticker – vote Newt in the MA GOP primary!
I love it, at some levels – ironic, hipster levels, of course. But the other bumper sticker kinda showed it wasn’t ironic – “Peace begins in the Womb”. Huh?
Tony J
@jwb:
According to a bunch of wingnuts I listen in on sometimes, they’re convinced that they’re reclaiming their Party from the metro-sexual, culturally-liberal Elites who have chained Conservatism to the rock of Corporatism for decades. Once they succeed, the Elites will return to their natural home in the Democrat(ic) Party, and leave the Republican Party as the natural political vehicle for a patriotic, small-government, anti-corporate populism that will guarantee them electoral majorities for the forseeable future.
I’m paraphrasing, not making it up. This is what they believe Teabagging is all about.
Not being insane, YMMV.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Oh it’s much much worse than that.
Here is the 54 page republican manifesto of scorched earth strategy. The people aren’t just wrong, they are evil and dangerous.
But let’s not mention white privilege, or white entitlement so we can sweeten them into loving us and Obama, that simply disagree about policy. Fuch that shit.
lacp
This is good news for the Mittenator!
GregB
Since the wingnuts want to discuss fathers.
It turns out that George Romney palled around with radicals.
George meets Saul.
Chyron HR
Wake me when we reach 1980, ’cause I’m going all-in on Microsoft stock.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Oh well, I see Zandar has already posted it. Story of my life, always the bride’s maid, never the bride.
burnspbesq
@mathguy:
Not so fast, there, Bunky. Y’all elected your football coach to Congress. Not even South Carolina has done that.
catclub
@David Hunt: I noticed that too.
I thought throwing in a ringer like that is fun.
“people can barely add two and two, or find roots of the Riemann Zeta function.”
mdblanche
@Davis X. Machina: Is this the Democratic Base I keep hearing so much about?
jwb
@Tony J: Truly and honestly, I hope the teabaggers are successful in their mission of ridding the GOP of its corporate overlords.
eohippus
“Brooks Imperial” Of COURSE he would have a fervent supporter named Brooks Imperial. The other fan club members are named Trends Authoritarian, Shoots Bigguns and Pinky Fucksmen.
catclub
@jwb: If, after that, they worked on the democrats and _their_ corporate overlords, all would be well.
Fezzik
I’m sincerely interested in how Coffman does this time around. He used to be in a completely safe district, but with this year’s redistricting, huge swaths of Aurora (Denver suburb) are now in his district, with very high numbers of blacks and Latinos. If the Dems can get significant enough turnout, this could be interesting.
jwb
@catclub: That would be our problem.
PurpleGirl
@redshirt: “Peace begins in the Womb”. Huh?
While I haven’t actually heard or seen that line before, I’d say it’s an anti-abortion slogan. Peace would involve no violence against another, i.e., no violence (abortion) against the unborn. Peace as leaving the developing being to continue without interruption (violence).
bemused
@Liz:
IOW, Obama should wear a flag shirt and tie every day and shout “We’re #1”, “USA” and “tax cuts” in public appearances multiple times. It’s the only way to prove that Obama (and all the rest of us Dems) are authentically, sufficiently American.
FlipYrWhig
@Tony J: I don’t understand how a development that results in fewer voters for your party — because the “elites” left — gives you a more dominant electoral majority.
David Koch
this is kabuki theater.
They leak this junk so romney can come out and denounce it so he can look good (with atleast the Village), and at the very least, change the subject from the grueling attacks on Bain.
I mean, romeny already brought up rev wright during the primaries, so for him to say he’s above this is false.
Another Halocene Human
Speaking of Ayers, he was interviewed for a PBS on the 1968 DNC riots that is up on Youtube in four parts. He just struck me as a sniveling weasel. And a Rob Liefeld lookalike. Actually, has anyone ever seen the two of them together at one time?
shortstop
@Surreal American:
They think they did. Expect to hear a lot about this. (I know it’s old, but it’s enjoying a resurgence of late.)
redshirt
@bemused: Awesome idea. Soon enough the Wingnuts would stop wearing flag sweatshirts, listening to Lee Greenwood, and start moving en masse to Canada.
CW in LA
@Liz: He means, “Ve ist der Master Race!”
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
I don’t know if Mike Coffman was born on earth. But I know that in his heart, he’s not an earthling.
pattonbt
Wheres the Whitey Tape?!
Keith G
This is a word press filter test
Last week the news was how Romney’s message got derailed, now Booker makes Obama look like a punk.
Keith G
This is a word press filter test
Last week the news was how Romney’s message got derailed
Keith G
now Booker makes Obama look like a punk.