Birtherism

The Original birthers Were Progressives-Conspiracies from the Left

Published by Papa Giorgio

I thought this short post from BigGovernment was worth the read. I have been wanting to post embed Medved dealing with another birther call, but I have been busy getting my reinstall of windows back to operating status.

The recent Wonkettroversy over the shameful blog post attacking Trig Palin, a defenseless handicapped 3 year-old child, has made me realize something completely tangential to the story.

Susannah Fleetwood posted the following excerpt at Hot Air, from the post by the likely soon to be unemployable as a writer, Jack Stuef:

…the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.)

It hadn’t occurred to me before, but it’s the tiny minority of Progressive Democrats who are knuckle-dragging, mouth-frothing, and terminally deranged with hatred for Sarah Palin, who were the original birthers!

The Obama birthers are knock-offs of the original birther movement.

Of course, Trig – the 3 year old retarded punching bag of Jack Stuef and his readers/fans – can probably produce a birth certificate. For some odd reason, His Presidency won’t.

For the record, again, I believe that His Presidency is a natural born American citizen. Why? because without evidence to the contrary, the conspiracy I am expected to believe is just too grand. Too many people would have to be keeping the secret. Good luck with that.

I do however think that there is something that His Presidency doesn’t want the American people to see. That or he is just an opaque man who is disingenuous when he talks about openness and transparency. He could end the divisiveness of this issue in a nanosecond, by simply producing the document, but for some cynical reason he prefers not to.

Not exactly the position of a unifier. But I digress.

 

Birtherism and Blogspot Mishaps

Published by Papa Giorgio

I was in a conversation with Eric Dondero, who has an excellent site and is well worth frequenting. However, he is a birther. This is not a political evil in the grand scheme of things. A few of my “cyber friends” are, and I will challenge them as well. Apparently, Blogspot is not allowing the posts to be posted. So any misgivings I felt happened did not and I apologize. However, to make sure the post that isn’t being posted at LR is read by all who wish to read it, here it is:

Me:

Eric, With all due respect, and I mean that, it wasn’t Obama’s grandmother. It is “facts like this” that sully this discussion basically led by Philip J. Berg, a 9/11 truther. A couple of things, this was the wife of one of Obama’s fathers wives (he had a few wives). This is explained in this discussion already linked: Another Birther About Obama-If Obama Impeached… Then What — Biden President

Also, there is a mistranslation involved in this all too often used “fact”.

I’m posting on the appearance, though, because of something Liddy said during it: “You’ve got a deposition, which is a sworn statement, from the step-grandmother, who says, ‘I was present and saw him born in Mombasa, Kenya.'” Liddy got this particular myth a little garbled, but it’s a favorite of the Birthers’. I’ve covered it before, but it’s worth posting on now, I think, because cable news is just getting back to this story (there was some coverage late last year, when the Supreme Court declined to hear one of the Birther lawsuits) and hosts like Matthews don’t know all the crazy twists of the conspiracy theory well enough to knock them down. What Liddy was referring to is actually an affidavit filed by a street preacher named Ron McRae, who conducted an interview with Sarah Obama, the second wife of President Obama’s grandfather, through a translator. (Sarah Obama is not the president’s biological grandmother, but he calls her “Granny Sarah.”) In that interview, Sarah Obama does in fact say at one point that she was there for her grandson’s birth. But that was a mistake, a confusion in translation. As soon as a jubilant McRae began to press her for further details about her grandson being born in Kenya, the family realized the mistake and corrected him. And corrected him. And corrected him. (The audio is available for download here.) No matter, though, because people who believe in a conspiracy theory simply hear what they want to hear. So some Birther sites have posted transcripts and YouTube clips that end abruptly with the mistranslation and don’t include the corrections. McRae, for his part, included the full translation in his affidavit — he thinks it’s all just part of the conspiracy. (Salon)

(The rest of my post which was expunged via Blogspots quirkiness [which is legend as of late] follows)

Many birthers, such as Pennsylvania attorney Phil Berg, allege that Obama was born in Kenya and that his Kenyan grandmother is on tape saying that she was present at his birth there. Yet the tape circulated on the Internet doesn’t actually say that — and the full tape actually contradicts it. On the tape, the woman thought to be Sarah Obama is prodded by a Berg ally who’s a self-described bishop from the U.S. to affirm that Obama was born in Kenya. “Was she present when he was born in Kenya?” Bishop Ron McRae asks in the taped phone call. “She says yes she was. She was present when Obama was born,” says the voice of translator. The tape ends abruptly. Despite Berg’s assertions, the response didn’t actually confirm a birth in Kenya. Moreover, a longer version of the tape shows the elder Obama decidedly denying a Kenyan birth immediately after the first tape was cut off. “I would like to go by the place, the hospital where he was born. Can you tell me where he was born? Was he born in Mombasa?” McRae is heard asking. “Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America,” the translator says after talking to the woman. “I thought he was born in Kenya,” McRae asks again. “He was born in America, not in Mombasa,” says the response. Another response later says, “Obama in Hawaii. Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii.” (Source)

I realize I am quoting a source not always enjoyed by us conservatives, but truth is not a monopoly of one side.

It is this same sort of shoddy thinking that once kept me involved in the conspiratorial view of history. I use to visit Ezola Fosters book shop/office here in southern California, and voted for her and Buchanan when they ran as Indi’s. I know the current very personally of the major sources of support for such persons (yes, Ron Paul as well) as I was intimately involved in the John Birch society for many years (which I explain partially in the beginning of the longest chapter from my book, beginning of page 4 under “Pros and Cons”).

This same thinking — e.g., “before officials shut her up from talking to the media” — use to permeate my worldview. Thousands of people must have been in on this conspiracy. Hospitals, nurses, doctors, flight attendants, family members, airlines, newspapers where birth announcements were printed, etc., etc. Now government officials are keeping all the above silent.

Eric, here is a question. Considering the translation error, and the fact that this grandmother was one of the polygamous wives of Obama’s father, and this is pushed by Democrat and 9/11 truther Berg the most forcefully, does this weigh on you using this “grandmother card” as forcefully as you just did? In other words, considering this new information (her saying something completely different), would you consider revising your position.

Take note as well that there is no real source for the polygamous brother (from one of Obama’s polygamous father’s wives) and his sister said he was born in Kenya come only from “affidavits” from Berg (remember, he is a 9/11 truther), no other source can be found for their beliefs (source). Are you willing to look into this claim and back it up with evidential arguments that would support you claim in a forceful manner like you would in quoting stats and figures to convince someone that Obama-Care is set to bankrupt our nation?

Curious.

See the comment section

A Third of the “Birthers” Approve of Obama Anyway (e.g., are Democrats)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Mind you, this “birth-certificate debacle” was begun by a democrat, and, as some of you know, I am not a follower of this conspiracy theory.

More than a year and half after Barack Obama was elected commander in chief, the governor of Hawaii is now publicly voicing the alleged exact location of Obama’s birth, saying “the president was, in fact, born at Kapi’olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii.”

The disclosure is believed to be the first time a state government official has declared the precise place where Obama was born, despite numerous other published claims, including some for a different hospital in Honolulu.

The remark came Sunday night when Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, was interviewed on New York’s WABC Radio by host Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. (The subject was addressed at the 77-minute mark.)

“It’s been an odd situation,” Lingle said, referring to the continuing controversy over the disputed natural-born citizenship of Obama. “This issue kept coming up so much in the campaign, and again I think it’s one of those issues that is simply a distraction from the more critical issues that are facing the country.

“So I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records of the Department of Health, and we issued a news release at that time saying that the president was, in fact, born at Kapi’olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that’s just a fact and yet people continue to call up and e-mail and want to make it an issue and I think it’s again a horrible distraction for the country by those people who continue this.”