Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball program and self-declared enemy of the birthers asked the question: “Why has the president himself not demanded they put out the original documents?”
Matthews describes the birther movement as a “manufactured controversy” but expresses concern for the 23% of Americans, as reported in a New York Times poll last April, who “do not know” if Barack Obama was born in the United States.
I, on the other hand, am not concerned about that 23% which is far below the percentage that don’t even know who the Vice President is (31% in a 2007 Pew Research Center poll). Given all the information available, further information will not make any difference in that crowd.
View the video:
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As for the hard core birthers, in a related story, birther queen Orly Taitz, DDS, Esq. has challenged Governor Abercrombie to a televised national debate on President Obama’s birth certificate. Taitz has stated that since Obama’s friend is now governor of Hawaii, no documentation from Hawaii would convince her.
Trying to convince birthers is a fools errand.
Orly Taitz has done us all a great service. There’s no use trying to talk to birthers anymore, now that no evidence will be accepted.
Abercombie should’ve let it go. He’s friends of Obama’s parents, therefore a conspiracy catchall.
recently a neighbor took in their granddaughter, the girl could no longer take the birther rantings of her birther father. I imagine this is common in birtherdom. Hating Obama causes brain damage.
I’m well aware that little happens between Christmas and New Years, barring a tsunami or other natural disaster. Rather than attempting to manufacture “news”, we would all be better served if the cable “news” crowd showed cute cats playing the piano or dogs surfing. At least those have no useful information but are pleasant and appealing, as opposed to Chris Matthews, who has no useful information, but is jarring and obnoxious.
There is actually some recent anecdotal “evidence” of this posted by birthers themselves.
I Have seen a number of posts recently from parents, grandparents and children describing estrangement from their families as well as how “horribly” they are “bullied” not to mention the (non) jssue.
Alas the tenor seems to reinforce a self-righteous martyr complex and not provide reflection as to the actual root of the problem.
“my final thoughts on the ltc terry lakin court martial” @ 8:45:
… which is followed by quite the meltdown. the cold hard reality that was the lakin trial went upside the birfers’ dense skulls pretty hard. no obama, no birth certificate, a guilty plea, a lengthy, painful allocution by the accused rejecting birfism, real punishment, no throngs of supporters or admirers and no military uprising all proved to be too much for a poor birfer to take.
and not least of all, that just about every detail was predicted, months in advance, by the hated obot crowd …
On the “related video” link someone called Dave Weigel (“MSNBC Contributor”, whatever that means) is put up on screen to give viewers the benefit of his insight and wisdom.
Inexplicably, almost the first thing he does is say that Obama’s already publiicsed COLB contains information like the “island” and the “hospital” !!!!
Who needs birthers when the sane side digs up “experts” like this? These screw loose birthers don’t need the further encouragement that this kind of careless, amateurish journalism can give them.
I’m surprised by that description (not that I saw the actual video you are trying to describe) because Dave Weigel *does* know better, as he’s been reporting on the birthers and keeping fairly decent tabs on them for the past 2 years.
So, he is well versed in what info is and isn’t out there. He must have mis-spoke about the hospital (the island of OAHU is listed on the COLB) as he knows darn well the hospital is not listed on the COLB.
He might have been referring to the other sources info and statements out there that have been considered evidence that do identify the hospital.
Given that there is no link provided for the so-called Dave Weigel video, I think a more rational explanation is that “Judge Mental” is either lying or else misunderstood whatever he saw in whatever video he references. If in fact there was a gotcha moment in the video… then why not provide the link?
This sounds good to me as long as MSNBC is prohibited from showing ‘Lockdown’… I agree that one of the big problems with today’s 24-hour news cycle is the false equivalency of coverage – anything short of a 9/11 or Christmas Tsunami level event is given much more coverage than is warranted – filling the excess space with pictures of kittens would be a big improvement.
Actually the link was provided. Read Judge Mental’s comment carefully; he refers to the “related story” hyperlink in my main article. And indeed, Weigel says that the name of the hospital is on the COLB. Anyone who is familiar with the birther argument should know better than that.
I am continually frustrated by stupid factual mistakes made by the mainstream media. They are 95% right, but that’s not good enough for a major news outlet that is supposed to be reliable.
weigel closes with a comment i haven’t heard put forth til now: that abercrombie’s really trying to anticipate birfer demands before the 2012 campaign season arrives. this to me makes more sense than a personal crusade (though it of course doesn’t preclude it).
Yes, this is especially disappointing because it plays into the birther’s straw man narrative that they are the few who really understand things and that if all of their opponents actually knew what the Constitution really meant then they would immediately convert to birtherism. Birthers seem to love nothing better than pointing to what someone in the mainstream media said and parsing it as if it were a statement made to God under penalty of death.
Gov. Abercrombie is facing a $71 million deficit this year and $700 million deficit in the years to come.
The governor, a Democrat and former congressman, said he has initiated conversations with the state’s attorney general and the chief of its Health Department about how he can release more explicit documentation of Mr. Obama’s birth on Aug. 4, 1961. He said he has done so of his own accord, without consulting the White House
Is Abbie throwing down to get a little help from the Feds?
You betcha!
sources please abby.
Abercrombie isn’t the first Hawaii governor to verify that Obama was born in Hawaii; in fact, the first one was a Republican who wanted McCane to win the election, is Jewish and doesn’t like Obama’s stance on Israel, could have handed Jim DeMint his “Obama’s Waterloo” on a silver platter, is friends with Sarah Palin, and gave Palin’s nominating speech at the Republican convention.
(I know. I spell it that way for a reason).
Abby Crumble must have slept through Civics class. The President doesn’t appropriate money, Congress does.
lol. Yes, it’s not rocket civics is it, Scientist?
I agree with both what you & Dr. C said.
We have seen many birthers admit their idiotic obsession has caused estrangement from their families. I suspect there are 2 more for every one who admits it.
An exceprt from an editorial by “Verbalobe” reprinted at BadFiction from the Fogbow original.
I don’t understand why a poll like this should matter. If 99 percent of Americans thought Obama was not born in the U.S., it wouldn’t change the fact that he was.
No matter how many people might think otherwise 2+2 still equals 4.
This subject is no different.
The results of the polls say more about the 23 percent who answered the question that way than they say about Obama.
The poll is a good measure of the effectiveness of propaganda.
The subject of “Why Americans have gone insane?” has finally begun to percolate through the mainstream European media and is now being discussed seriously, without any blinding insight, mostly a lot of groping for answers.
I do worry about your country. I lived in America and I really love your country, but historically, popular discontent has always benefited the one of the two extremes: communists or fascists.
I don’t like the fact that your our own religious Taliban and a sizable uneducated underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, are all eager to blame the collapse of your economy on Obama, the Democrats, gays and immigrants. And you have a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the masses.
This is not a good recipe for a peaceful transition into the 21st century. Well, time will tell.
Happy New Year to all here!
Expelliarmus…..in view of the respect which you have stockpiled by previous admirable postings I’m going to extend in my reply to you a little more courtesy than the above somewhat careless and condescending submission would actually merit on a stand alone basis.
I spend quite a lot of time pointing out to various people the absurdity of the birthers’ arguments. I don’t usually expect to also have to point to instances when so called experts on “our” side woffle about the name of the hospital being shown on the already released COLB which is as factually weak a contention as many of the assorted nonsensical birther ‘facts’.
That’s why I brought the subject up. Such elementary errors are meat and drink to the crazies and just gives them another excuse to place doubt in the competence of those reviewing their madcap theories.
There is what ought to be a fairly obvious reason that the words “related video” were in inverted commas in my post. These are the same two words which Dr Conspiracy used in the full version of his article to create the existing link directly to the video I was referring to. There seemed absolutely no point in me linking to the same video for which there is an existing link within the article which is the subject of the thread and which I think it’s reasonable to expect people to have actually read before replying to me. Rest assured that lying or inventing non-existent videos aren’t likley to ever figure in my posting.
Under the circumstances your assessment of what is a “more rational explanation” is at the very least, unfounded.
Previously I have really enjoyed your contributions on here as you usually have a very clear eye and give measured contributions. However on this occasion you do appear to have failed to adequately read either the article or my post before jumping to a conclusion which couldn’t be more wrong if you’d subcontracted a half-wit birther to do it for you and you then compounded if by throwing in speculation as to both my rationality and motives.
I look forward to a return to your usual more erudite and circumspect self.
I’m sorry if I offended you. Prior to your post, “aargh” posted a link to a you tube video re the Lakin trial. There was a 2nd post by “aargh” and then your post referencing the “related video” link. I thought you were referring to one of the links on YouTube (there are always a set of related links to other videos, but this is a dynamic presentation — what is shown at one time is not the same as another).
You now explain that by “related video” you meant to refer to the MSNBC report that was labeled “related story” in the original post. I would not have any reason to understand that is what you were referring to, especially as I generally read comments via RSS feed, and the comment feed from this site is separate from the main post feed.
Now that I have heard the segment you seem to be referring to, I can listen to it and draw my own conclusions. It seems like Weigel misspoke about the “hospital”, but it was not the first thing he said — and he was accurate about the reference to “island” and “county” – despite the implication of your post. that the reference to “island” was somehow (The COLB specifies the island of Oahu — you wrote, “Inexplicably, almost the first thing he does is say that Obama’s already publiicsed COLB contains information like the “island…..” which can be fairly interpreted to mean that you are claiming that it doesn’t.)
Again, I’m sorry if I offended you…but I don’t see how I could have possibly found the video you were referring to from your post, and I am always suspicious when someone claims that there is a tape or video that contains X info without linking to the actual source. (Kind of like all the birthers who claim that Obama;s grandmother says on tape that he was born in Mombasa – when you listen to the actual tape, you hear nothing of the sort).
I live here and am terrified. I also will not live anywhere but New England. It’s not perfect by any means, but at least I don’t have to worry about being pulled over and ticketed for having an Obama bumpersticker on my car.
LOL. Being Scottish and living in the Middle East. I’m far too thick skinned to get “offended”. However being pointed to as a potential liar and/or birther is not exactly designed to inspire an outpouring of any normal person’s goodwill, hence the firing from the hip in reply.
No problem. Misunderstanding now clarified. Water under the bridge, onward and upward and all that. Forget it.
I certainly didn’t intend to imply that there was anything wrong with what Weigel said about the island. I assumed, reasonably in my opinion, that I was posting to a forum in which I could expect just about everyone to already know that the island is shown on the COLB and that the Hospital isn’t.
That goes to the very essence of the point I was raising after all, ie that Weigel was making such a profoundly elementary mistake about something that is already so well known to those of us who draw breath in the saner quadrants of the eligibility debating community.
Mentioning the fuller phrasology that he used when making the hospital faux pas was simply to provide context and to enable those who might have missed that bit of the video the first time they watched it to go back and locate the hospital comment for themselves.
I of course had no knowledge of whether anyone may have elected to not bother watching the linked video in the article in the first place and thus, not surprisingly, my original post obviously wasn’t worded to cater for the contingency of how someone who hadn’t already watched the linked MSNBC video would interpret my comments.