Bill Clinton
I was struggling for a neutral headline–better to say, “Clinton ripped them a new one”.
In comments at the Yale University commencement, Clinton talked about people who surround themselves with information that agrees with them. They can chose their friends, their television channels and hang out on web sites surrounded by one-sided conversation.
Clinton pointed to the birthers as an example of one of those “bizarre consequences” said Politico.com. It is clear to this writer that a large percentage of people who buy into Obama denialism do so because they only hear one side of the story and are mislead to think it is a consensus view.
Here is an audio link to President Clinton’s address.
I’m not really sure why anyone would give two hoots about what Clinton has to say about anything; after he successfully embarrassed the United States with his philanderings, he deserves absolutely no respect.
The question is this:
How do you explain away the birthers who do read and understand both sides of the issue and still have enough intelligence to think for themselves and have an opinion that Obama is not a NBC?
While I think there are some that like to hear only what they believe and placate themselves with one side of the issue – there are far more that grasp the gravity of the situation and have moved way past placating themselves. There are many who do not believe Obama is a NBC who avail themselves of both sides – keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. I think you would be surprised at how many non-believers frequent democracy threatening blogs such as this one.
But if it makes you feel better to believe that the majority of birthers are idiots (as many on this blog go so far as to voice that opinion) – the better for the birthers. Under-estimating your opponent is not very wise.
Like who?
Well, I’m always happy to hear I’m helping someone.
But I’m curious — what plan do you and the other highly intelligent birthers, who I suppose number in the hundreds of thousands, have for doing something about this situation? And why do you suppose your intelligent position has not been adopted by one single solitary GOP member of Congress?
– I found a Kenya BC that’s right here! Maybe that’s what you are referring to.
[Personal attack in violation of site editorial policy deleted. Doc.]
LMAO! There is no such creature. [Personal attack in violation of site editorial policy deleted. Doc.]
That is like someone claiming that they understand both sides of the issue on whether or not the earth is round or flat. Ergo, if you actually have understanding of the issue, you would not be able to reach the ludicrous position.
[Personal attack in violation of site editorial policy deleted. Doc.]
[Personal attack in violation of site editorial policy deleted. Doc.]
They are. And please, underestimating??? LOL! Yeah, its kind of hard to underestimate a boastful group of hate-obsessed folks who are 0-70 in the courts, go around failing with their pretend presentments and fantasy grand juries, constantly come up with crazy claims and point to date after date of “birther events” that are ZOMG! “Any day now”…that always fail to materialize.
So yeah, good luck with that! The only thing I may have underestimated about the birthers is their ability to continuously achieve EPIC FAIL at levels worthy of the PUMAs! LMAO!
Dr. Conspiracy: Like who?
Names and links, please.
“How do you explain away the birthers…”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
scott brown: “How do you explain away the birthers who do read and understand both sides of the issue and still have enough intelligence to think for themselves and have an opinion that Obama is not a NBC?”
would you mind showing evidence that supports your position, not a whole bunch, just one will do. I know you have been asked this before, if your opinion is that strong why don’t you give us some evidence. (or are just blowing smoke)
.
Oh Scott, so many things to respond to…..
“I’m not really sure why anyone would give two hoots about what Clinton has to say about anything; after he successfully embarrassed the United States with his philanderings, he deserves absolutely no respect.”
I am tempted to feel that way sometimes about Richard Nixon. Though I think lieing about getting a BJ in the oval office doesn’t quote compare to covering up a crime instigated for poltical reasons. My point though is that just as Richard Nixon had accomplishments that shouldnt be ignored, glossing over the remarkable period of stability and economic prosperity we had while Clinton was President is just idiotic. The 8 years after Clinton was far more of an embarressment to the United States than any stupid philanderings in the oval office- 8 years that took the United States into two wars and the loss of thousands of American lives.
Sometimes I think conservatives forget that legally what Clinton did was lie, not that he had sex.
“How do you explain away the birthers who do read and understand both sides of the issue and still have enough intelligence to think for themselves and have an opinion that Obama is not a NBC?”
Really, I haven’t encountered one.
“frequent democracy threatening blogs such as this one.”
Everytime you use this phrase it undermines any credibility you might hope to have.
“But if it makes you feel better to believe that the majority of birthers are idiots ”
Actually I am conflicted about it. On the one hand, the majority of birthers are idiots, which means the chances of them actually accomplishing anything is pretty much nil, but on the other hand it makes me sad that there are so many hateful people who are willing be led down this road by politicial operatives and shucksters.
“how many non-believers frequent democracy threatening blogs such as this one.”
.
This statement is hyperbole and is totally false, can you explain why you made it. You have been asked a few times to explain this statement to no avail,? How does Dr. C. threaten democracy? How should we accept your refusal to explain this, should we treat it the same as your COLB story?
On what planet is this actually true? Trafalmadore?
You can’t possibly have missed the ginormous cheering crowds that greeted President Clinton everywhere he went on the planet, including, for God’s sake, Viet-Nam, which is a testimony to his popularity considering how you Americans napalmed their population only 30 years prior.
As for his “philanderings”, I grew up knowing that JFK had bonked Marilyn (and presumably many other women as well) and that in no way decreased the admiration we all felt towards him.
You birthers really live in your own weird little bubble disconnected from reality.
“Trafalmadore?”
My favorite planet, and my favorite nightclub.
When I went to college in Buffalo, I hung out there.
“gentlemen, he may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you; he really is an idiot.”
— groucho marx, eerily describing a birfer in 1933 (“duck soup”)
“Responding to rumors during the presidential campaign about Obama’s place of birth, Hawaii state officials posted his birth certificate online.
The move, however, did not stop lawsuits and other queries examining Obama’s birth, prompting Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, to recently sign into law legislation allowing state employees to ignore requests for proof of the president’s citizenship.”
– POLITICO
Somebody’s lying, Bill. Why is that?
Because if birthers didn’t lie, then no one would hit their paypal buttons!
There have been several books about why otherwise smart people believe stupid things. That we didn’t really land on the moon, that AIDS isn’t caused by HIV, that the government murdered Paul Wellstone, that the government blew up the WTC, that the mafia shot JFK, that there are aliens in Area 57.
Recent studies have shown that correcting someone like this, showing them the error of their ways, actually reinforces the original belief.
Of course, I’m not sure why I’m explaining this to someone who can make such a fact-free statement as:
Embarrassment and respect are things that can be measured objectively, Scott. We can look at the way the world looks at the United States and measure whether it is viewed more or less favorably. The Pew Global Attitudes Project tracks the world’s opinion of the United States. When Clinton left office, having successfully brokered peace in Northern Ireland, for example, the view of the United States was very high. It dropped to historically low levels under Bush and has almost completely rebounded under Obama. It is simply not true, in the reality-based community, that Clinton embarrassed the United States.
So, you tell me, Scott, how do self-professed smart people like yourself believe things that are factually and objectively false?
I personally think birthers just lie because for some reason, it is easier for them to say “He’s a kenyan” than it is to say “You know what – we lost an election fairly by numbers that can only be considered overwhelming.”
That’s just my opinion. Why do you think birthers lie, Walter?
First off, I’m not a big fan of Bill, either, but I have to give him his props for his time in office. Though he did and said some very dumb things, he was able to work with a hostile congress and get stuff done. And he has been a very effective former President.
Well, what are they reading, and do they really UNDERSTAND the issues?
If they’re reading actual facts and reasonable interpretations of the law, and are still Birthers, then they must be either willfully self-deluded or really super-contrary.
If they’re reading “facts,” rumors, hearsay, internet sludge, spam, and taking legal advice from people like Apuzo, Donofrio, and Berg, then they are misinformed, possibly somewhat intentionally.
I guess the question here is “which are you?”
Republicans spent eight years jumping up and down and squealing, while maniacally pointing at Bill Clinton’s gentalia.
This was to distract from the fact that Clinton ran the federal government like a clock for eight years, no thanks to the Republican Congess. They spent the Clinton years frantically investigating every aspect of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s lives and careers.
At one point, 18 congressional subcommittees were simultaneously holding hearings on Whitewater, when they knew for a fact there was nothing to find.
At the end, they shockingly discovered that President Clinton liked women, which nobody ever knew before. They impeached him for that because all the other many investigations found absolutely no wrongdoing.
When Bill Clinton says the birthers are crazy people who live in a bubble of fantasy, he knows what he’s talking about. These are the same people who hounded him relentlessly for eight years.
If you believe that Bill Clinton had a hit squad that killed 60 people, and that he was involved in drug running, and that he was an agent of the Soviet Union, and that he was plotting to suspend the Constitution–well, if you believe all that, odds are that you’re a birther.
And herein lies the problem. Unlike in science, in the law there are no empirically provable or falsifiable truths. If Scott said, “DNA is not the repository of genetic information”, I could say he is wrong and cite thousands of experiments that prove it. In the law, all we have are court rulings. Even if the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on some matter, those on the losing side could, and likely would, say they were wrong. And there is no experiment one can do to say either way.
But, in our society we agree to accept court rulings as being legally right, even if we disagree with them. The alternative is to have no laws at all. So what have courts said about Obama’s eligibility? The one that ruled definitively, the Indiana Court of Appeals said he was eligible. The Indiana Supreme Court upheld the ruling. No federal court has been moved, despite pleas, threats and intimidation from the birthers to rule otherwise. So at this moment in time, from the standpoint of the law, Scott Brown IS WRONG. His/her opinion is without legal merit unless and until he/she can get a real court to agree with him/her. And Scott, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.
What is it that leads Scott Brown to hover over this website, waiting until a new article is posted, so that she can leave her mental droppings but never respond to legitimate questions or objections?
Scott Brown, I object! Not to your opinions, nor to you presence on this website, but to your refusal to engage. You are a naughty, naughty girl. And normally, that would kind of turn me on, but this kind of naughty is not sexy, it’s pusillanimous. And here in Iowa, a pusillanimous woman is not good thing. Sure, Iowa gals might not be the most “attractive” women in the world; they might weigh too much, and they might not know anything about “makeup” or “fashion” but they are NOT COWARDS. So, Scott Brown, I hope you aren’t planning on moving to Iowa, because you would not like it!!!!!
Your friend,
Arthur
Scott Brown, wow? You mention “intelligent birthers”? What an oxymoron. The essential fact in being a birthers is for you to suspend common sense. You would have to believe in the largest conspiracy theory in the history of the US over the fact that Obama was born in HI and that the state of HI is telling the truth. Secondly Clinton embarassed the US? Unlike Bush, who entered the US in 2 nearly unmanagable wars, skyrocketing debt, and oversaw the largest terrorist attack in the US and worst natural disaster in the US. Amazing revisionist history Scotty….
Yes there are some that don’t believe that Obama is a NBC. Just like there are people that believe that there are aliens in Area 51 or that there is some magical COLB that is just like Obama’s but you are unable to get a US passport with it. We call these people delusional.
And as far as democracy threatening blogs. I guess you haven’t been over to the Post and Fail, WND, citizen wells, or Free Republic. These blogs are advocating armed insurrection and sedition. Yet you accuse Doc’s blog, which just points out the lies by the birthers and links them to the truth, as threatening democracy? However that sort of commentary is not a surprise, since you still haven’t addressed what state you were born in nor your COLB story. You can be summed up with the following quote “If someone shows you who they are, believe them”.
Simple, there is no such thing. There is only one side of the issue. Not a single piece of admissable evidence has been produced that contradicts the notion that President Obama was born in Hawaii. The entire body of legal scholarship has long since concluded that, “[t]hose born in the United States are uncontroversially natural born citizens.” Stephen E Sachs, “Why John McCan was a Citizen at Birth, 107 Mich. L. Rev. First Impressions 49, 49 (Sept. 2008). The only people trying to argue otherwise are a DUI attorney, a soon to be disbarred mail order attorney, and an attorney who has made more money as a professional poker player than as an attorney. There is not a single true constitutional scholar that even entertains the notion that anything more than birth on US soil is required for natural born citizenship. So where exactly is this “both sides of the issue” unless you are referring to the side supported by the law and facts, and the side based on conjecture, fantasy, and an intentional disregard for established law?
Rich we’re not going to get an answer just like the COLB story and the german birth story
The birthers… Because they’re crazy.
I don’t know arthur some of those Hawkeye girls are kinda cute
http://girls.gunaxin.com/hot-girls-iowa-hawkeyes/2196
Arthur- thank you for that post. Made my day.
I think what the major issue is that as long as people like Scott Brown are around believing in this nonsense, the birthers will continue to thirve. Birther sites are all about the money. That is why they all have paypal buttons. Just like the article I linked to yesterday from the Post and Fail, all they are about is donations. You have to admit the so called birther leaders have come up with the perfect scam. Use the inherent suspicion of Obama that certain people have and turn it into a business.
Below is an interesting article from ConWebWatch regarding the birther Queen, Orly. They post a copy of one of her comments on her site. It is very eye-opening regarding the money that WND and other sites make. Now if Orly or the others are spending that kind of money to market, you can imagine the amount they must be making through their donations….
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/blog/
“In a May 25 post on her blog (warning: her blog tends to get infected with malware, so click at your own risk), Taitz speculates about WND’s sudden embrace of the angle of allegedly multiple Social Security numbers used by Barack Obama — and spills some interesting details about how birthers make use of WND’s mailing list, and how WND profits from it:
I sought mass e-mailing through WND, however it can be done in 2 ways only: either by splitting donations in half, and I don’t have a set up for this. Pay pal told me that they can’t do it, they can’t split donation in half, or it can be done by paying their fee, which is high. WND charges $9,000 for one round of mass e-mails to 300,000 of their readers. Other conservative publications charge $12,000-$18,000 for one round of e-mails. For example, when Gary Kreep sends his monthly appeals for donation, he splits donations in half with WND or pays a fixed fee of $9,000 for one time use of their 300,000 e-mail addresses of their readers, who might donate. If he sends his mass e-mail through Newsmax, he pays $12,000-$18,000 to Newsmax every time he sends a mass e-mail. Same is with the Republican pack. It was just too expensive for me to push.
Recently I took out a full page ad in Wash times, which is a competitor of WND. They charged me $1,200 for the ad. It was much more affordable. Wash Times writer John Spokes has written a lengthy article about it on his own blog. When WND writer Jerome Corsi saw my pleadings and Wash Times ad and the article by John Spokes, he decided to copy it and write an article in WND and went on Jeff Kuhner show in DC and spoke about it. Too bad, that when he went to this Jeff Kuhner show, he didn’t mention that the material came from my pleadings. O, well, that’s life.”
Agreed. And so true….
If this really is a quote from Politico it is, at best, inaccurate. Lying implies an intent to deceive. The inaccuracy is that HI did not post the BC. That was done by Obama’s Campaign. The statement shows the sorry state of what passes for journalism in this day & age. Little attention to detail & accuracy.
You’re forgetting President Bush gutting various regulatory agencies contributing to things like the financial collapse, the upper big branch mine explosion and the little problem with the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico not to mention staining the honor of our country with war crimes (we’ve executed people for doing less than what the Bush administration has done). Truly the Bush administration just keeps on giving… new piles of shit we need to clean up.
very true and very good point.
I often wonder just how long the “money train” aspect of this can last. Just like there are still Bircher’s out there fearing commies under their bed every night and worrying that the fluoride in their water is a form of “mind-control”, I suppose their will be birthers rocking back & forth muttering “any day now” until their dying breath, even long after Obama’s term in office completes.
But in terms of the profit-fleecing by those driving this movement….I think that well will start to run dry eventually, or at least get to a point of minimal return to where its not worth them putting as much effort into driving the scam.
After all, despite to birther’s fantasies about the size of their movement, they represent a truly tiny portion of the population and although a few might have some decent money, I don’t think a lot of them are rich enough to keep donating sufficiently for a long period of time.
Thanks everyone for the thumbs up. I’m trying to abide by Dr. C.’s request to refrain from personal insult but, oh, that Scott Thomas can really make me sizzle!
Bob Ross, the girls in the link you provided might wear Iowa uniforms, but I bet they’re transfers from Florida. Real Iowa girls are husky things with prodigous muffin tops, and can be found at tractor pulls, arm wrestling contests, or monster truck rallies.
It’s been my experience that there are very few confirmed birthers who read or understand both sides of the issue. The usual reaction, when they are referred to a source contrary to their position, is to dismiss those sources as being “liberal,’ “pro-Obama,” or in the case of conflicting court opinion, simply “wrong,” and therefore not even worthy of consideration.
Anti-birthers, such as Doc C., on the other hand, spend considerable time reading the arguments and sources used by birthers — simply because he couldn’t attempt to debunk those arguments without understanding them, and attempting to keep an open mind in the process.
There is also a large percentage of birthers who have historically been distrustful of government and the legal system, long before Obama came upon the scene. They consider themselves “Constitutionalists” but they lack the legal training and discipline of mind to be able to separate their own pre-conceived ideas from what the laws and legal opinions actually say. They invariably cherry pick and quote out of context to prove their points. Lately, they’ve taken to calling any judge who rules against a birther a “traitor” or “bought off” by the administration. Real Constitutional lawyers, on the other hand, often find themselves arguing cases for causes they don’t personally agree with, but their training enables them to follow the law and argue successfully for their clients.
I have not seen any evidence that any birther attorney or pro se plaintiff is not a deeply committed anti-Obama partisan (or opportunist) who refuse to even consider the opposing arguments, or the rules that apply to everyone who interacts with the courts. Their court filings often disregard the rules of legal procedure, and are often insulting, argumentative, and laced with wild unproven allegations, with no reliable evidence to support their arguments and wild accusations.
As far as this being an “democracy-threatening” blog, I can’t think of anything more insulting to democracy than the free-speech suppression practiced on almost every birther blog or discussion board by banning, launching repeated ad-hominem attacks or labeling as “Obots” anyone, including fellow conservatives, who respectfully disagrees or challenges their opinions.
Well said Jay Bea! Your entire post was excellent and well stated on all points! Thanks for contributing.
This would be a key reason why they will always lose. Even if they had potential standing and possibly usable evidence they would likely still be unsuccessful. There refusal to listen to the other side and only understand the other side as a collection of labels (Obot, Liberal, Marxist, Democracy Threatening… etc), limits ability to react to their enemy and understand what they adversary may do.
Instead, they go to for the quick “win,” throwing everything they have at the other side. We see this with the trolls on this blog. They try to quickly fight and “win” the issue. There is no strategy, there is no planning and there is no listening. This is played out time and time again in Orly’s filings.