Jack Kelly is a writer for the Pittsburgh Press, and not a very good one. Yesterday he published one of those misinformation-laden smear pieces against Barack Obama that we more often see on tabloid internet sites and blogs. This one appeared at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, titled “Barack Obama’s past as murky as his word.”
I sent the author this letter and posted it as a reply to the article:
I was referred to your article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette titled “Barack Obama’s past as murky as his word” in which you say:
“Genuine documents confirm Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, said document expert Nick Chase. But the “long form” birth certificate the White House posted on the Internet April 27, 2011, is an obvious forgery, he said. Other document experts agree.”As written, the last sentence is yours, and it is false. No document expert has ever said that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery. Some birther crackpots with no background in document analysis have made easily debunked objections to the certificate, but no one qualified. On the other hand, half a dozen real professional document and imaging experts have found nothing wrong with it, including Krawetz, de Queiroz, Pex, Zatkovich, Broyhill and Colburn.
And if there were any further doubts, the Hawaii Department of Health says on it’s web site today: “On April 27, 2011 President Barack Obama posted a certified copy of his original Certificate of Live Birth” and links to what you’re calling a forgery. (http://health.hawaii.gov/vitalrecords/faq-obama/)
The second nonsense in your article is the adoption thing. Beyond the fact that the Hawaii Department of Health backs the certificate, the US State Department in the case of Strunk v. Department of State specifically denied that Obama had been adopted by his stepfather, and Obama’s attorney also denied this in a more recent case.
Finally, you make a total fabrication when you say “Unlike other recent presidential candidates, Mr. Obama has refused to permit release of his academic records from Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School.” In fact I don’t know of ANY recent presidential candidate who released his college record. The records of George W. Bush were accidentally released without permission.
So in answer to your innuendo-laden questions:
- Obama didn’t release his college record for the same reason most other candidates don’t.
- Obama’s birth certificate isn’t a forgery except in the minds of nut-case conspiracy theorists
- It is not unusual for people to have social-security numbers from the wrong state series. The Social Security web site says that the “area number” was never intended to be a reliable geographic indicator. When Obama’s number was issued, the numbers were assigned centrally in the US based on the return address on the application. Mistaking a “0” for a “9” turns a Hawaii zip code into one for Connecticut.
Sincerely,
Kevin Davidson
I wonder if you’ll get a response.
Yea Doc C. Well done!
…. and the dutiful, apologetic retraction is already on the press, I hear.
Riiiiight.
Looks like Kelly is a ‘opinion’ writer, i.e., a hack, the written equivalent of a ‘shock jock’.
http://www.post-gazette.com/jack-kelly.more
At least it wasn’t being reported as news … but it is sad to see tripe in a major metropolitan daily. Well, other than the NY Post or the Moonie Times.
___________________
Comment left on the article:
😉
Thanks, Dr. C., for taking the time tor refute Mr. Kelly. Kelly has a long history of writing highly partisan opinion pieces. See for example, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jack_Kelly and http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/29/1095557/-Why-does-the-Pittsburgh-Post-Gazette-give-birther-prominent-Sunday-space
As the article in the Daily Kos observes,
“Jack Kelly is a reporter and Sunday columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. For years, he has bashed Democratic politicians, and, as expected, these past 3 years have seen a relentless barrage of criticism launched against President Obama.”
Based on his writing, Kelly has been a birther since at least the spring of 2012.
Reading the article, the first thing that popped into my head is “who the heck is this ‘document expert’ Nick Chase?’
And big surprise, he’s just another self proclaimed birther “expert” who writes for the ironically named “American Thinker.” As he describes himself:
“About the author: Nick Chase is a retired but still very active technical writer, technical editor, computer programmer, and stock market newsletter writer. During his career he has produced documentation on computers, typewriters, typesetters, headline-makers, and other pieces of equipment most people never heard of, and he has programmed typesetting equipment. You can read more of his work at contrariansview.org.”
LOL!
My favorite part of that stock-in-trade crank-y resumé 😉
Nice job, Doc.
If you didn’t you might want to consider copying your e-mail to the editor(s) at the Post-Gazette and ask them for a response as well.
There’s nothing new in the column. While there are some die-hard birthers who will believe those things no matter what, most people have probably checked those things out and realized there’s no “there” there.
Is he counting on a segment of the population that hasn’t been paying attention for all these years reading about these things for the first time?
Re : In fact I don’t know of ANY recent presidential candidate who released his college record.’
Apparently Romney published his GPA, not his transcript, but still his GPA does mean something.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2007/02/01/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-mitt-romney
Most college related transcripts etc were released after the President’s left office. When I visited Reagan’s library there were college records like his college diplomas and high school diplomas I think I even saw some grades. The other factor is that he’s no longer alive.
But where are his kindergarten records??????
Folks, isn’t this paper itself known for its hit jobs on Democratic polititians? Thus what good would it do to write a news executive when the writer is merely doing his betters’will?
Ah-ha! An unsubstantiated GPA! Worthless! And what classes was he taking … what’s he afear’d of revealing? That he minor’d in Studies in Closet Socialism? 😉
This reminds me of Ron Polarik’s credentials, where he bragged about how he “worked with computers and computer printers, plotters, and optical/digital scanners, typesetting, offset printing, and automatic typewriters, for over thirty (30) years.”
Which, as it turned out, basically meant that he’d USED computers, printers and scanners. Like any other person who’s held an office job in the last 20 years.
You’re probably thinking of the other paper in the Pittsburgh metro…..the Tribune-Review which is owned by Richard Mellon Scaife.
Ellen, I didn’t read the US News article but later read the same info about Romney’s class rank and GPA. I also read that he aced his SAT decades before the test was remembered to allow most test takers to score higher, and before it became a three part test with a perfect score of 2400. I tried but failed to get BYU to confirm the GPA and SAT. That would have violated FERPA, a 1974 law guarding the confidentiality of student records. So did Mitt himself disclose his GPA?
In case my edit didn’t work, where I typed GPS, I meant GPA.
I think my favorite comment on the article is this one by T.J. Baker: “Where was Barack Obama on November 22, 1963? If he wasn’t assassinating President Kennedy that day, why has he never given a detail explanation of his whereabouts? Now, he was only 2 years old at the time, but as we know by that time children have honed many of their fine motor skills and a tyke would find it quite easy to hide on the grassy knoll
Confirmed reports from those who know absolutely attest to the fact that Barack Obama was seen in 1974 eating a cheap steak dinner at a diner in St. Louis, Missouri with family members. Mr. Obama has never lived in St. Louis and is not, to my knowledge, a Missourian. Why would he be eating a dinner there? If he ate there, why won’t he tell us whether he used A1 Steak Sauce or Ketchup? If he ate Ketchup, why won’t he tell us if it is Heinz or that commie goo they call “Hunts”?
In 1980, Barack Obama went on a date with a woman whose name and contact information I have been unable to discover despite repeated attempts to search the internets. Why won’t Barack Obama know that I want that information and then tell it to me? What does he have to hide? Did the date not go well? Did it not go well because he is a terrorist?
There are just so many questions that are totally legitimate to ask and we need answers! ANSWERS! None of those questions, of course, deal with his actual policies, like killing U.S. citizens in far away lands with drones. Keep up the good work on Soetoro.”
you’re somehow hostile – so it looks partisan rather than scientific.
I’d preferred it without cranks,nonsense,fabricated.
“no expert…” is somehow risky, just one counterexample is enough.
Because the response’s main audience was the newspaper site, I thought the greatest impact would be to use well-deserved ridicule substantiated with facts. And yes, the letter is definitely hostile, well-deserved hostility.
It’s not risky for me to say “no expert” because I know my material. Reed Hayes has made no public statement whatever, much less published his report, and even he has no credentials with electronic documents.
If you considered the larger context of the evidence that President Obama was born in Hawai’i (instead of just the technical details which show that the LFBC isn’t a forgery) then you would understand that there is no risk at all in Doc’s statement. You might have preferred it without terms like “cranks”, “nonsense”, and “fabricated”, but all of those terms have been well and truly earned by the birthers. Is it hostile, for instance, to call a person that lies a liar? I don’t think so.
If you have a counterexample, let’s hear who he or she is. Someone with credentials to demonstrate expertise in electronic documents.
Since no one with said expertise has come forward on the birther side, I say that Doc can sleep well knowing that he wrote “no expert…”
You are absolutely correct and this is a perfect example of the problem I see today in the media. That is that all ideas, all thoughts, all assertions are equal and worthy of consideration no matter how absurd or offensive they may be.
Of course they aren’t and that’s why your response is so refreshing and, in the real world, why Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show is so popular.
Well, when birthers ask for President Obama’s GPA and he refuses to release it, YOU might have something.
but it’s not hard to guess, where this leads to. They’ll be doing the same, using
that hostility, that language. It leads to a less objective discussion in general.
Dominated by emotion rather than arguments. That’s why it is usually not
appreciated in newspapers,talkshows,books,reports.
Mustard, not ketchup.
My experience is that a a level, factual response will either invoke a hostile response or none at all. A congenial discussion of the facts is virtually unheard of between birther and anti-birther factions and the approach doesn’t ultimately matter. The response is more related to the norms on the site where I comment.
In the case of a tabloid-style publications, I suspect that they want people to get angry–it promotes more visits to the site. It’s called “mining outrage.” One will get extremely nasty replies to nicely worded comments at sites like WorldNetDaily.
The locals at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have a rather different take on my comment than you, one warning:
In fact, the replies on this one are nicer than average.
Doc,
“My experience is that a a level, factual response will either invoke a hostile response or none at all. A congenial discussion of the facts is virtually unheard of between birther and anti-birther factions and the approach doesn’t ultimately matter.”
Facts are verboten for birthers.
I find three kinds of birthers:
– Those who know better
– Those who don’t any better
– Those incapable of knowing any better
Facts only work with the second group, but this far into the story I don’t know if there any of those left.
I did have a rather odd exchange on a particularly aggressive right-wing site. I made a comment, and a fellow asked me for more details. In responding to something like that, I always take extra effort to be complete and well-sourced. Afterwards, the person who asked thanked me politely for the response. Weird!
And that’s why birther arguments by and large are not discussed in objective newspapers, talk shows, books, reports, why birthers generally are ignored–because there is no there there. Any relevant, objective questions were answered definitively long ago.
Here Dr. C generates an overall objective tone, for the most part, because he is *dissecting* birther arguments.
For instance, there is no reason whatsoever to have an objective conversation about whether or not the PDF was forged. That is a foolish, ridiculous assertion that has no objective ground to stand upon. None. Period. Any pertinent, objective, semi-reasonable questions are answerable in two seconds to five minutes depending on your uptake speed.
But it gets discussed a lot here on Dr. C’s site. Three or four or more levels deep. Far removed from any actual, objective relevance. Quite an indulgence really, considering birther arguments about PDFs have no merit in the first place.
That, again, is because their arguments are being dissected like frogs. Not indulged. Not treated as equal logical objective considerations. The objective, calm observation is simply that they are foolish arguments.
Having respect for any person as a person is one thing. But while respect for a person as person is important in many ways, it is just as important to not give respect to what is foolishness at best.
In the case here, Dr. C is just telling it like it is. There are times to just say no, you are spreading falsehood, get behind me.
Birther arguments are frogs all the way down. Worth dissection, perhaps. But never mistake respect for a person as person with respect for falsehoods. It is more respectful to the person to call out such outrageously egregious falsehoods than to play footsie with their nonsense.
That’s the nice thing about birther arguments. There is so much in life that requires weighing relative merits, seeing multiple sides. It is nice there is at least one thing so easily and entirely seen for its meritlessness.
All these years I had no idea I was a document expert.
“And if there were any further doubts, the Hawaii Department of Health says on it’s web site today: “On April 27, 2011 President Barack Obama posted a certified copy of his original Certificate of Live Birth” and links to what you’re calling a forgery. (http://health.hawaii.gov/vitalrecords/faq-obama/”
Hawaii’s credibility has been recently further underminded with the death of Loretta Fuddy. We still don’t know how she died or what the autopsy reveals.
Obama’s BC is still a forgery and has never been recinded by the CCP. I saw somewhere that one suggested that Mike Zullo might have been able to get ahold of Virginia Sundahara’s original birth certificate which indicates a birth certificate number to be the same as Obama’s -10641. Such evidence would be irrefutable proof that Obama’s BC is a forgery and the possibility of one of Virginia’s Sundahara’s relatives finding the original birth certificate is definitely within the realm of possibility.
Since the Department of Health has already confirmed Obama’s certificate, and Sunahara’s certificate has already been published, I’d say you’re nursing a false hope.
I think birthers are “underminded” in general.
Virginia’s Long Form BC has never been released. Only the COLB which is in a computer system that can easily be manipulated.
I don’t think “easily” means what you think it does.
Exactly what evidence do you have to back up that statement? A COLB is a signed and sealed document generated from a controlled database that only specific employees at the DoH can access. If this is so easily manipulated why don’t you provide us with a single example of a COLB that has been “manipulated”.
This is just typical of the stuff you spew without a single fact to back it up.
Orly Attempts to Stay a possible cremation of Hawaii Health Director Loretta Fuddy
http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/?p=443192
Good job Orly! We must know how Loretta Fuddy died.
I think of number of suspects RC. – Fukino, Onaka, and Fuddy (Remember Fuddy is dead)
As always, your comment raises numerous questions, but I will restrain myself to two.
1. Are you aware that health departments always retain the original birth certificate? So there is no chance that her relatives have it. Perhaps you meant a photocopy of the original birth certificate?
2. “Irrefutable” means there is no possible refutation. It is a word that is used far more often than it applies. If two birth certificates have the same number — a baseless hypothetical you just made up — then which one is clearly a forgery?
I said evidence. The fact that you Birthers do not like what these officials have said is not evidence.
See what I mean? Frogs, all the way down.
Let’s hope there will be some justice here and Dr Fuddy’s family will benefit from an intentional emotional distress lawsuit.
Orly has managed to sink low enough this time that laughing at her antics and foolishness is no longer sufficient.
Yes, justice for Fuddy, I fully support John in this…
The woman is beyond despicable. She is accusing President Obama of killing Fuddy and others. The woman knows no shame.
What a despicable wretch.
Okay, Carl’s right. Beyond despicable. I wasn’t limiting myself to Orly, though.
Since it’s of little-to-no consequence, participating in Orly’s weird hobby (Birtherism) should be optional.
I don’t believe Ms. Fuddy’s friends and family haven’t signed up for it.
This presumes that it is possible to have a discussion in good faith with a birther—it is not. No birther can afford to do this because if they failed to make straw men of their opponent’s arguments, didn’t use logical fallacies to support their own, and addressed criticisms directly then they would necessarily be forced to admit that their theories were erroneous. There is over 5 years of empirical evidence which strongly supports this statement, why do you think it is possible to have a rational, objective debate with a birther?
I mean this every bit as harsh and nasty and cruel-hearted as it sounds, John.
You can rest assured, that when your time comes, be it five minutes or five decades from now, no one is going to give a DAMN how you died. And as miserable a thing as you present yourself here, I rather doubt that humanity, or even your own relations will miss the likes of you. I’d ask you to stop darkening the proverbial doorstop here, but that would be like asking a pig not to crap where it eats.
Or it could mean that Virginia’s birth certificate is a forgery!
gsgs,
How, exactly, would you suggest that we engage John in objective discussion? He continually posts unsubstantiated nonsense and refuses to ever address the myriad of criticisms leveled at his arguments. I’m not smart enough to figure out how to get him to engage in good faith, but surely it’s no problem for someone of your wisdom and understanding. Please show us the error of our ways.
Yes, just how does one engage living, breathing excrement in such a discussion? Especially excrement that looks at Taitz’s ghoulish behavior and actually cheers her on?
Sure but science should be risky or it is not really a good hypothesis 🙂
And yes, John has shown himself to be quite a fool, so until you familiarize yourself with his history, it is hard to judge how people respond to him.
John will let NO evidence dissuade him from his fear and hatred induced opinion of President Obama. For a while he suggested that the PDF findings by me, RC and Vicklund had placed significant doubt on the CCP findings but soon he was looking for excuses again.
He deserves nothing but our ridicule. Not because he is a birther but because of his past, well documented behavior.
“Still”? A thing either is, or isn’t, a forgery. Nothing begins or stops being a forgery.
Very curious. Why do you think the CCCP, a supposedly all-volunteer entity that is only officially affiliated with a county gov’t in AZ when it’s convenient to be, would be in a position to “recind” [sic] a vital record on file in the state of Hawaii?
Ohhhhhhh, you mean that the CCCP hasn’t rescinded their claims that Obama’s LFBC is a forgery. What of it?
Again and again and a thousand times again, SAYIN’ AIN’ DOIN’.
Nuts can say whatever silliness they like, their saying in no way alters reality.
You demonstrate this principle every time you post! 😀
slarti: first, by deleting that very post.
Why do we “only” have Johns and Hermetians here but no Zullos,Taitzs,Vogts,Papits,Hayes,… ?
Whenever they try they get attacked.
Obots do it by ridiculing and insulting.
Birthers do it by affidavit, ignoring Obot counterarguments.
And ~20% of the nation still thinks he was born outside, so we failed
to convince them.
Give them the chance to admit their errors without getting hanged.
Actually Garrett Papit did post here quite a bit, 151 comments by my count.
Zullo has never commented here, or anywhere else that I know of. Taitz doesn’t make a habit of posting outside her own site either. She showed up once saying that she didn’t usually post on Obot blogs. Hayes is under orders from Zullo not to talk to ANYBODY. That leaves Vogt, who left one comment demanding an apology for an article I wrote. And of course. Mr. Apuzzo left 71 comments, and Dean Haskins 76. Bob Gard was provided an extensive forum to defend his book and left over 200 comments.
Anyone who actually wants to debate the issue with facts and reasoned argument will be treated with respect. In Bob Gard’s case I set up a special article that only he and I could post to to facilitate the debate and to avoid the problem of him being overwhelmed by too many comments coming from every direction. The people who get “run off” don’t fit that description.
So how about you try using facts instead of making up history, eh?
I personally cannot fathom ANYBODY thinking that Taitz, Zullo or Vogt would ever admit a mistake anyhow.
Hermetian has been engaged in discussion at NBC’s for months and at Amazon for over a year. he has had ample time to admit his errors, but has shown no inclination to do so. Niether has John, who has been posting here for years.
18% of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the Earth. If 18% can’t be convinced that the Earth revolves around the sun, it’s no surprise that 20% can’t be convinced that Obama was born in Hawaii.
Some people are impervious to the truth. Being nice to them won’t change a thing.
Several have been given the opportunity none have taken the offer.
Sorry gsgs, they get exactly what they deserve as they continue, in light of what they know, to hold to foolish positions.
Really, who cares? Life is too precious to waste trying to convince such people. Nor does it mean anything. As pointed out here and to you previously, 20% if people generally believe all kinds of nonsense.
I know from personal experience that there is no way to convince such foolhardy souls. My family is full of them. One, count them, one person in the whole extended family changed their mind, and they did so when the President released his long form birth certificate. Merely because that was their idea of what a birth certificate is, despite facts to the contrary. I purposely started dialogue with family members in the most reasonable of tones. It mattered not. I was the one accused of personal attacks, merely because I asked one of them not to personally attack me. That experiment ended with someone in my own family threatening my life.
I have a lifetime of experience with family going ballistic when faced with the mildest of considerations. This is just the latest.
They are your 20%. Or whatever the actual % is.
As I noted, I do not think the purpose of this site, or of many people who spend time here, is to convince birthers, certainly not at this late date. So there is no failure when that is not even a goal, much less to convince those unconvincable %’s.
As for chances, they have had endless number of chances. Whether or not they get pilloried is irrelevant. Someone wants to publicly defame anyone, much less a President, without facts, without basic sense, then they deserve to be ridiculed and lambasted, most particularly, again, at this late date.
This is not a normal topic, not even a normal heated and cantankerous topic. This is just clear poison. At this point, it is not about convincing anyone, much less those insistently holding mindless notions of PDFs being forged.
They do not need our coddling. If they want, they can just stop talking and walk away from it. They never to admit they are behaving foolishly. They can just walk away.
Finally, in the actual world of science, where papers presented are very objective and rational, scientists still rip and shred each other all the time.
So, while in general and in many conversations, it is good to be spacious and gracious, here it does not much matter. You basically are asking us to serve tea and cookies to “thieves.” Go ahead. That’s fine, as you wish. But don’t think it means anything for you to continually put it upon other people to serve up such “tea and cookies.” As if doing so is all that is necessary to turn scoundrels into Santa Claus.
In other words, wait around for them to spontaneously see the light?
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! You’re (disingenuously?) making the assumption that birfers are operating in good faith, willing to recognize error, accept what they cannot change, and that they are actually seeking truth.
You must be concern trolling. Birfers, being partisans first and foremost, subjugate reason to ideology. They only seek to spin all information into support for their desired alternate reality. Admitting error is literally out of the question. This is Conspiracy Nut Psychology 101.
He’s been doing it, harping this same tune, for quite awhile now.
Do you see gsgs? It isn’t just the “prejudiced” people at the Fogbow—it’s your own behavior which makes people think you are a concern troll. Do you have the integrity to consider the possibility that you are the one who’s mistaken here?
Those who came were “chased away”.
I saw it several times here and at other blogs. Birthers at Obot blogs
are probably wrong, but they are civil and not abusive. At least what I saw.
I don’t know how it was before 2011, though.
I estimate <20% of posters here are birthers.
It's the whole atmosphere that is anti-admitting-errors, figuring out
things in cooperation. Errors are not tolerated, you get multiple users
jumping on it.
I saw many other controverse discussions in internet, but usually it was
more productive.At least some partial agreements were achieved.
Of course, you'll blame it all on the birthers, but then you failed
to convince them.
It's not just me. It's general "netiquette", you usually sign it when you
register to a forum or blog.
Of course this site does not require registration.
Some individuals will respond differently than others. I post at WND and I posted at Birther Report before they banned me. At the latter I was bombarded with viscous personal attacks and threats, and at WND it was all about the personal attack. Pretty much on any right-wing site I can post a credible source, and be called Dr. CON, a communist, libtard, proven liar and Obama’s gay lover. That doesn’t run me off. It’s the fact that no one acknowledges facts that ultimately leads me to write them off, not the tone of the discussion.
Generally when I’m out and about, I am on my best behavior, but it never made any difference. There is a difference between a controversial topic and a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories don’t work by the same rules and for some reason, you expect them to.
You listed some individuals who it turns out were not “chased away.” I think you are arguing a vacuous case.
Almost as vacuous as his claim that everyone at the fogbow was politically motivated against birthers and when they failed he came back here to make the same claims.
Dr.KN, I didn’t say everyone is politically motivated rather
I argued statistically from yougov-polls and started a fogbow-poll
that was deleted sometime after Obama 7, Romney 2.
It’s most obvious that policy is a big factor
in birtherism and “antibirtherism”. Also for John Kelly
and DrC here – see their other articles.
Do you ever consider the arguments that other people make or the possibility that you might be wrong? People have repeatedly pointed out the fact that anti-birthers are not politically homogeneous, while the birhters defining characteristic is their hatred of President Obama rather than any long-standing political belief, but you see unwilling to even acknowledge these arguments. Why?
First of all, it is catsup, not ketchup 🙂
Secondly, everyone knows that the red commie condiment is made by Heinz, as in Teresa Heinz Kerry and her commie husband John Kerry. 🙂
Thirdly, this reminds me of the list birthers put forth a few years ago detailing all of the records from President Obama hadn’t given them. His baptism certificate, his kindergarten records, his parent’s marriage certificate, etc,. The list eventually grew to be quite a bit longer, but this example has 25 items birthers wanted.
0bamas’ hidden records: Why are these off limits? (Free Republic, post 8 on the page)^
I find it totally believable and unremarkable that someone President Obama’s age wouldn’t know or have most of these things.
I grew up with both of my parents, and lived with them until I went to college. I was very close to my father, yet offhand, I have no idea where my parents got married, apart from knowing the state. I don’t think I have ever seen their marriage certificate. Neither I nor my own children have baptism certificates that I am aware of, though I know where we were baptised and when, and by whom. I know where I went to kindergarten, but can’t recall my teacher’s name.
None of this is even remotely remarkable, proof of which is that birthers didn’t bother to demand any of these details from Romney, Paul, McCain, or Palin, but to birthers, it means something when the person in question is President Obama.
It goes without saying that people inclined not to like Obama, liberals, blacks (or whatever) are more biased towards believing birther stories than others. But it’s a little more complicated than that because other factors, such as education level are also indicators for birtherism (the more educated, the less birther). There is also a strong regional, and of course a strong racial bias, and an age bias. Those biases complicate the simple party affiliation correlation.
What I think is more interesting and more telling is that (depending on the poll) half of the Republicans are birthers or birther leaning, while next to zero % of the national Republican leadership is birther.
I’d love to see the correlation between birtherism and SAT English scores.
First, birthers are the ones who need to do the convincing. After all, they are accusing one or many people of *crimes*!
“I’m sorry, sir. We have to arrest you. We don’t want to. We have no evidence of a crime even happening. But 20% think you did something, they don’t know what exactly, this or that maybe, they find your cologne suspicious, so nothing we can do. Unless you can convince us maybe that you’re innocent? It’s up to you. If you can convince those 20%, then we’ll apologize for defaming you and calling you a criminal. But we can only do that if you convince us…”
Garbage pretending to be reasonable and objective!!!!!
That’s what happens when someone defames another person’s character or accuses them of a crime with no reason! With no evidence, much less even the slightest sensible suspicion.
Don’t want to be treated poorly, don’t want people jump on little, tiny errors? Then they shouldn’t be accusing someone else of a crime without having the slightest clue what they are talking about!
Someone comes along accusing the President of a massive conspiracy, or criminal subterfuge, against reason without evidence of any merit, and the big issue is whether or not *their* feelings are hurt, *their* sensibilities!!!???
I’m all for good manners and civility, but walk into my house “waving a gun,” so to speak, and then get upset because I don’t offer tea and cookies???!!! Yes, yes I know, it was polite gun waving, civil and genteel door breaking, even with promises to pay for repairs to the house after breaking my arm.
I should be ashamed for forgetting my manners. Please forgive me. It’s obviously my fault. I failed to convince them not to break into my house.
Communist!
I remember her first name was Katja, but that’s all (and I could be wrong and it was another name starting with “K”). Also, it sounds awfully Russian (= Communist), too.
The only thing I actually remember from kindergarten is how I sneaked into the principal’s office to call home – but ended up calling the wrong number because German numbers read out are flipped (43 is “dreiundvierzig” = “three-and-forty” so I dialed 43 as 34 etc.).
I don’t think any kindergarten teacher would remember me if I became King of the Universe, so I was probably born in Kenya, too.
foreigner=gsgs: First of all, I haven’t noticed any greater civility and good manners on the part of birthers than of Obots. Quite the contrary, when you consider their leaders Orly Taitz, et al.
Second, birthers in general violate the Golden Rule, expressed in legal terms as he who seeks equity (in the courtroom) must do equity, or must come into court with “clean hands.”
But in the court of public opinions, birthers generally do everything but “do equity.” I was looking at a thread on a rightist websight that had a back-and-forth between a poster that challenged his/her adversary to provide proof that there was a travel ban to Pakistan in summer 1981. No, the other party said, it would be too much to ask of him/her (the genders were concealed behind screen names) to exert that kind of effort, but it was Obama’s obligation to provide documentation that he was a citizen and thus could have been travelling on a U.S. passport.
Masses of birthers have in so many instances denied clear evidence that goes against their position, or pretended that it didn’t exist.
They won’t admit that they have zero evidence that the state of Hawaii enacted and enforces a statute that allows the state to issue birth certificates affirming someone who the state Department of Health knew was foreign born,but attesting that they were actually born in Hawaii. They’ve denied the evidence showing their 1981 travel ban meme is a hoax, including government documents and newspaper articles.
They continue to assert that Obama sealed his records with his first executive order as president, when that executive order was more than 95 percent cribbing Reagan’s last executive order, and the only (small) difference in substance was that Obama order specifically asserted that vice presidential records are also included.
They continue to assert that other presidents have released academic records that Obama continues to hide, when in acuality no president or presidential candidate has ever released a copy of his grades. I’m told that Romney released his GPA (3.97), and I know that McCain mentioned his (very low) class rank at the Naval Academy in his autobiography, and Carter mentioned that he finished in the top 10 percent at that same institution. And Kerry released a document with his Yale grades AFTER his presidential run.I could go on and on, but here’s my point: If you demand evidence to prove or disprove a fact about the president, and there’s already evidence in the public domain that provides conslusive proof to a reasonable and reasonably intelligent person, you have not equitable or moral (and certainly not legal) right to insist on additional evidence of your own choosing be provided.
foreigner=gsgs: First of all, I haven’t noticed any greater civility and good manners on the part of birthers than of Obots. Quite the contrary, whn you consider their leaders, Orly Taitz et al.
Second, birthers in general violate the Golden Rule, expressed in legal terms as he who seeks equity (in the courtroom) must do equity, or must come into court with “clean hands.”
But in the court of public opinions, birthers generally do everything but “do equity.” I was looking at a thread on a rightist websight that had a back-and-forth between a poster that challenged his/her adversary to provide proof that there was a travel ban to Pakistan in summer 1981. No, the other party said, it would be too much to ask of him/her (the genders were concealed behind screen names) to make that kind of effort, but it was Obama’s obligation to provide documentation that he was a citizen and thus could have been travelling on a U.S. passport.
Masses of birthers have in so many instances denied clear evidence that goes against their position, or pretended it didn’t exist.
They won’t admit that they have zero evidence that the state of Hawaii enacted and enforced a statute that allowed the state to issue birth certificates affirming someone who the state Department of Health knew was foreign born,but attesting that they were actually born in Hawaii. They’ve denied the evidence showing their travel ban meme is a hoax, including government documents and newspaper articles.
They continue to assert that Obama sealed his records with his first executive order as president, when that executive order was more than 95 percenta cribbing of Reagan’s last executive order, with the only (small) difference in substance was that Obama order specifically included vice presidential records.
They continue to assert that other presidents have released academic records that Obama continues to hide, when in acuality no president or presidential candidate has ever released a copy of his grades. I’m told that Romney released his GPA (3.97), and I know that McCain mentioned his (very low) class rank at the Naval Academy in his autobiography, and Carter mentioned that he finished in the top 10 percent at that same institution. Kerry released a document with his Yale grades AFTER his presidential run was over.
I could go on and on, but here’s my point: If you demand evidence to prove or disprove a fact about the president, and there’s already evidence in the public domain that provides conslusive proof concerning that fact to a reasonable and reasonably intelligent person, you have no equitable or moral (and certainly not legal) right to insist on additional evidence of your own choosing.
but we don’t want to be compared with birthers, we are better, right ?
Better at evaluating evidence.
Actually, I think most anti-birthers would welcome comparison to birthers, because, as a group, we are, in general, “better”.
It’s objectively provable that we’re more literate (e.g., knowing what “compared with” means), better informed (e.g., knowing the difference between a “document” and an “electronic image of a document”), and more civil (while there are many anti-birthers, including me, who will ridicule birthers if they refuse to even examine, much less respond to, contrary evidence, I’m not aware of any who have called for their extermination. Not even in jest. Calls for violence are routine among birthers).
Now that nearly all the honest skeptics have been weeded out by having their doubts addressed, the birthers (again, as a whole) have been distilled down to a group of vile, hateful, spiteful people who wouldn’t recognize “civility” if it bit them on the ass, sat them down, and forced them to write 25 times “I will not attempt to insult my political opponents using homophobic epithets”.
We are better at evaluating evidence, predicting likely outcomes, analyzing situations and legal opportunities.
So in some ways, we are better…
Beyond what others have just said, it doesn’t matter whether we are better, or whether or not this person is better than that person. To my mind, you are just playing games, tweaking people’s desires to think of themselves as good. But it doesn’t matter. This is not a forum of “better people.”
Some people here or anywhere will respond more even-keel, some will respond this way or that way in any given moment, some will just relentlessly rip new orifices in birther garbage.
I personally prefer the honest straightforward villains to those who blame the victim, or try to make the victim feel like they are not good enough–for example, trying to tweak them into worrying about whether or not they are being the better person.
None of that changes anything, though, because no matter how you slice them, birther arguments are wrong, ridiculous, childish, despicable–take your pick; any particular argument is its own unique mix of nonsense, whether well-meant or purposely misleading.
It doesn’t matter whether or not we are better than birthers. People are quite a mix of things. But even if any of us here happen to be “better,” so what? There is no great pride in being better than a birther at seeing the truth about the President’s birth and eligibility. Might as well feel a genius for being able to do basic arithmetic.
So either way, it does not matter.
What does matter is that no matter how anyone responds to such nonsense, birther arguments fail because they have absolutely zero basis.
Are some birthers “innocent” in their beliefs? Some few may claim innocent beliefs, but that just means they are willing to believe baseless, stupid, vile gossip and defamation without doing the most basic and simplest of research and thinking, or without really knowing. Especially at this late date. And that is almost worse to my mind, if not worse, than someone who knows 100% they are lying through their teeth.
It does not matter if the battered wife is better than her deadbeat husband, does not matter if she handles every interaction in the most graceful, rational, objective fashion. The perpetrator is the husband. It does not matter if anyone loses their cool with birthers, the birthers are the perpetrators of a hoax, a lie, a deception, a foolish fart of the mind or heart, take your pick.
And if they engage in vile, stupid mindless gossip, it does not matter whether or not *they* are more innocent than the outright liars. They still are willing to defame someone without doing their homework, or without being able to understand that “homework.”
Hear, hear.
I would add my complete agreement to your assessment, and I just thought you’d want to know …
Appreciate that, and Merry Christmas!