Birthers to the rescue! I had nothing to write about today, but lo and behold something popped up at the Lysander Spooner Law School blog (not a real law school), an article about me, taking me to task for something I didn’t write. The Spooner article is essentially an ad hominem argument that goes something like “Mike Zullo is right and I am wrong about Obama’s documents because Zullo is virtuous and I am not.”
Anyhow, let’s count the mistakes1 in the article:
- The article appears to be in response to the article published here titled, “Is Mike Zullo running a scam on the birthers?” The article suggests: “Kevin Davidson has gone to the internet to suggest that Mike Zullo is running a scam on ‘birthers.’” The problem is that the article mentioned is not mine. It was written by Jim. I will note that while the Spooner article mentions me by name 8 times, it fails to mention its own author once, appearing only under the title “administrator.” The blog belongs to Ken Olsen2, a birther and legal crackpot. I actually am certain that Zullo is running a scam; I just don’t know what kind of a scam it is—whether it is a financial scam or a information scam.
- Olsen describes me as a “retired civil servant.” That’s not really accurate. I did work for Greenville County, South Carolina, for 6 years right after I got out of college, but I was in private industry for 30 years after that until I retired.
- Olsen says: “Mike Zullo has politely requested unrestricted access to the source documents that can demonstrate whether the Cold Case Posse’s conclusion that the LFBC PDF is a fake is right or wrong.” Such a request is not in the public record; indeed Zullo in answer to a question stated specifically that he had not contacted the Hawaii Department of Health, and I am not aware of him ever saying that he had contacted the White House either. So exactly when and to whom did Zullo make this polite request? Perhaps Zullo’s request was rhetorical. [Update: There is an account of a visit by Zullo to Hawaii, where he visited the Department of Health and asked to look at the records, and was told that the law didn’t permit it.]
- Olsen says, “Zullo has successfully found an independent, highly-qualified expert who substantiates the conclusions of the Cold Case Posse.” The report to which Olsen alludes has not been published and so nothing can be said about whether the writer is an expert in the content of the report.
- Olsen says, “Kevin Davidson claims to be interested in ‘obama’ conspiracies, yet ignores many of the most compelling theories regarding ‘obama,”…. That is somewhat true. Some of the sleaziest smears are mainly avoided on this web site. This is the Larry Sinclair/Jack Cashill material. However, there is nothing “compelling” about them and there’s nothing in the way of evidence to examine or debunk. Olsen is banned here for trying to hijack threads by posting some of this stuff. It isn’t true, however, that I have completely ignored this topic, see for example: articles tagged Larry Sinclair and articles tagged Jack Cashill.
- Olsen says: “Mike Zullo is quiet and persistent, and presents the problematic facts as they have been found.” Holding press conferences, publishing videos and making regular appearances on radio is not being “quiet.” Zullo is a major publicity hound. In fact Zullo has consistently refused to discuss the problematic facts in his own claims, like the fake vital records manual, and others. He won’t debate and he blew off a subpoena to appear in court.
- Olsen says: “Kevin Davidson hides from the facts, and claims to be scientific as he advocates disregarding the simple scientific approach of examining the best evidence.” How am I “disregarding examining the best evidence?” Birthers in general seem to believe that anti-birthers’ primary motivation is to help Obama keep his records sealed, and to oppose their release. This isn’t true. I work with the evidence I have available and I try to correct the record about why other evidence is not available. I don’t advocate for or against the President releasing material the birthers would like to see. I note that the literature on conspiracy theories says that evidence rarely settles anything.
Olsen says: “Mike Zullo is modest, and will admit he is wrong if the evidence proves it.” That statement is painfully ironic. Name one instance when Zullo ever admitted he was wrong. If he’s never admitted he is wrong, then how does Olsen know he would. In fact Zullo has not only been proven wrong, but a liar. See details here: “Indicting Sheriff Joe and the Cold Case Posse,” “Cold Case Posse video fraud: it gets worse” and “Cold Case Posse: backed into a corner.”- Olsen concludes: “Mike Zullo is a good faith seeker of the Truth; Kevin Davidson is a self-regarding, pseudo-scientific hypocrite.” I’ll let history be the judge of that.
Mr. Olsen is not invited to defend his article here.
1Olsen does get a couple of things right. I do like to hear myself talk, and I do have a problem reconciling my sometimes-derisive language and my religious convictions, but even Jesus got angry at the hucksters of his time. I should hasten to add that by birther standards, Olsen’s article does not display a remarkable number of mistakes.
2Olsen is somewhat of a pest leaving comments and emails calling me a coward for not getting into “his issues” and not letting him hijack the threads here and degrade the level of discourse to character assassination and smear. He also tries to get by the ban on this blog using fake names. His approach, as a fan of Jack Cashill, is really not much conspiracy theory, but an attempt to twist facts to make them look bad. Reading such material and having to respond to it is a dirty and smelly job, and I have largely ignored Olsen, and in fact I wouldn’t have known about the article here if someone hadn’t tipped me. But to my surprise, I find that Olsen seems rather fixated on me, publishing articles (none of which I have or will read) such as:
- Davidson is “obama’s” Plaything
- Dr. Con needs credit
- Kevin Davidson Wins Piltdown Man of the Year!
- Dr. Conspiracy: Succor for “obama”
- Dr. Con vs. Dr. Cashill
- Dr. Con Fusion
- Dr. Conspiracy
- obamaconspiracy.org
- Dr. Con of the Cross before The Truthfiction
- Dr. Conspiracy: Image Faked
- davidsonConspiracy.org
As a smear artist, Ken Olsen is really not very good.
Doc, if I were you I wouldn’t feel guilty about using the occasional derisive language. Even Jesus did it:
Names Jesus Called the Scribes and Pharisees
1. Ye blind guides (Matt. 23:16).
2. Ye fools (Matt. 23:17).
3. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees…for ye are like whited supulchres…full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness (Matt. 23:27).
4. Ye serpents (Matt. 23:33).
5. Ye generation of vipers (Matt. 23:33).
6. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (Luke 11:44).
I’m sorry Doc, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. If they disliked that article, wait until the next one I’m thinking about!!! hehehe
Ken’s blog is the most poorly organized blog I have ever seen.
I just don’t know what kind of a scam it is . . .
It’s obvious that George Soros employs Zullo as “flypaper for Birthers.”
Birthers are like Scientologists going after their defectors – the OSA (the Scientology secret police, basically) say: “Always attack – never defend”.
whoosh, that guy’s blog is crazy, not even gonna tweet it, lol.
It looks like Olson’s written a new post about me too. Wherein he suggests that I made a “wildly inaccurate assertion” when I said that Wayne Allyn Root’s descent into ‘foreign exchange student’ conspiracism was paralleled by the absence of any new evidence to support such conspiracism.
As a rebuttal, Olson points to the Obama bio from his literary agent that said he was born in Kenya. Apparently, Olson thinks this makes me wrong, despite the fact that Obama’s birthplace has absolutely nothing to do with any of Root’s claims about Obama having Indonesian citizenship or getting into Columbia as a foreign student. Also, despite the fact that it was written about ten years after Obama attended Columbia.
Amusingly, though, Olson followed a classic Birther tradition of independently finding evidence that undermines his own claims. He shares this link, to a comment from one Pern Beckman, who openly claims to have been friends with Obama when he was at Columbia:
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2013/01/10/john-brennan-the-cia-zibgnew-brezinski-columbia-university-and-obama/#comment-288092
Beckman (who’s mentioned in Maraniss’ book about Obama) also pops up in this comment thread to an Obama conspiracy post:
http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/comments/1220/
From Doc’s article: 5. Olson says, “Kevin Davidson claims to be interested in ‘obama’ conspiracies, yet ignores many of the most compelling theories regarding ‘obama,”…. That is somewhat true. Some of the sleaziest smears are mainly avoided on this web site. This is the Larry Sinclair/Jack Cashill material. However, there is nothing “compelling” about them and there’s nothing in the way of evidence to examine or debunk. Olson is banned here for trying to hijack threads by posting some of this stuff.
I firmly believe that anyone “accusing” someone of being homosexual should be shunned and made fun of. Make them wear their bigotry for all to laugh at.
There is nothing wrong with being gay, so defending someone against the “charge” of being gay is wrong. Imagine defending yourself or someone else against the charge of having brown eyes. You either do or don’t have brown eyes, but either way, there’s nothing wrong with brown eyes. The defense gives the accuser undeserved power he would otherwise not have.
I also think that it is worth noting each and every time this is brought up that some of the people accusing the president of wrongdoing have long felony rap sheets, absolutely no evidence, and that birthers, in their bigotry, prefer sweet-talking felons to the elected President because the felons tell them things they like to hear.
Whoa, just saw this over at TFB.
Postby Dolly Fri Aug 02, 2013 3:21 pm
This sounded like he was reading it.
He said Lt. Zullo only 1 time, in the beginning. The rest of the clip it was Mike Zullo or just Zullo.
http://www.thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=9326&p=532576#p532554
I didn’t think any birther would actually READ the article. 😮
@Ken Olson: Read this, and weep – Obama born in Kenya? No
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/03/obama-born-in-kenya-no.html
Zullo is a used car salesman.
Gay concentration camp inmates:
http://www.gayexplained.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/2011.04-PinkTriangle.jpg
What me trouble? I wouldn’t have published your article if I thought it was improper.
My apologies for misspelling Mr. OlsEn’s name. It was unintentional, and now fixed.
Turn up your sarcasm meter. Interesting the descriptions I’ve hear about the Gallup’s program today. Almost like they read the article and went “oops”. When’s the last time anyone has seen Zullo? Wonder if they’re getting sh*t from the tea party members now?
Yep Carl sounded pretty distraught rambling quickly like his scheme is being exposed. He’s clinging on to dear life. He brought up Stockman how stockman’s flight was “delayed” and now all of a sudden Stockman is “swamped” but dont worry zullo will call him and get him back on board.
“We won’t debate and he blew off a subpoena to appear in court.”
slight correction, I think you meant “He won’t debate”
Really, is August recess a busy time for Congressmen? I would think they’d have more time available for the greatest usurpation in history!
You missed the one where that Olsen nutball calls you a not-see flack: the dr. gerbils of the not-see party whatever that means!!!
I think it means this: http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/Blog_Godwins_Law.jpg
Well, the FogBow quotation seems to have Gallup saying: “Now, we cannot promise you that these Congressmen and VIPs will do what they say they will do or what they are intimating they will do or what they are saying they are planning to do.”
and “We can also promise you that if the worst case scenario occurs and Obama serves out his term without a Congressional investigation or challenge ever occurring, then Mike Zullo and I are planning to release all the criminal investigation information to the world in any and every format that we will have available to us at the time.”
What I think Gallup actually meant to say was: “Now, we cannot promise you that these Congressmen and VIPs are either Congressmen or VIPs or that they will do what we assumed they said they will do or what we would like to think they are intimating they will do or what we are intimating that they are saying they are planning to like, go and in fact, by your leave, do.”
and
“We can also promise you that if the worst case scenario occurs and Obama serves out his term without a Congressional investigation or challenge ever occurring, then Mike Zullo and I are planning to release all of our personal bodily fluids, with little or no warning.”
Ha!
Why would Dr. conspiracy even bother wasting his time on that guy? I just seen the post at lysander whatever school that Dr. Con refers to and it’s got like 10 hits!!!
The train of their insults pulled by the locomotive of their lunacy fueled by the coal of their bigotry slides on the greased rails of our indifference and stops at the station of our contempt.
I understand that it has been a death sentence in the past and that there are places where being gay can still be a very dangerous way to be.
Now, we have a chance to hold people to a different standard and I think we should always do so.
I do not tolerate homophobia and correct or ignore those who insist on clinging to their idiocy. It’s important to stand up and say that there is nothing wrong with being gay.
Slow news day. See also my article on Ted Nugent.
Well, some of the Chicago bath house allegations involved murder too, but your point is well taken.
I don’t understand something. The Olsen guy brings up theories that Dr conspiracy says are sleazy and smelly. Aren’t all conspiracy theories dark and nasty? I mean, would a conspiracy that obama secretly collects flowers or butterfiles be of interest to anyone?
Just asking.