Over at Real Clear Politics, David Paul Kuhn has a pretty good take on the recent Research 2000 / Daily Kos survey revealing that 58 percent of Repulicans either don't believe or aren't certain that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Kuhn points out that in a Rasmussen Reports poll in 2007, 61 percent of Democrats either believed that George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, or weren't certain that he didn't.
I agree with Kuhn that there are lowlifes and imbeceles of every political persuasion, and that they ought to be treated with equal scorn. I also agree that the Birther "movement" has gotten far more media attention than it deserves. That's one reason that I've shied away from talking about it. People like Orly Taitz, the Russian-born dentist/real-estate-agent/attorney who has become the birthers' unofficial spokeswoman, ought to be institutionalized somewhere rather than being given a platform on cable news.
However, I don't buy that the two phenomena are entirely equivalent. For one, there are some quantitative differences. In the Research 2000 poll, only 7 percent of Democrats have doubts about Barack Obama's origins. That compares, in the Rasmussen poll, to 26 percent of Republicans who had doubts about George Bush's role in 9/11, and 43 percent who had doubts about whether the CIA had advanced knowledge of the attacks. Trutherism is pathetically widespread -- somewhat more so than birtherism -- and is also somewhat more "bipartisan" than its counterpart. By the way, I'd expect that you'd find a pretty wide overlap between the two groups -- that controlling for party ID and other factors, truthers are much more likely to be birthers and vice versa.
The other difference is qualitative. I can't recall any sitting Congressmen raising doubts about 9/11 (if I've forgotten one or two instances, I'm sure someone will remind me in the comments). On the other hand, quite a few Republican Congressmen have mimicked the birthers' doubts about Obama's place of origin. So, indeed, let's not give Taitz any more facetime. Instead, let's give Senators Jim Inhofe and Richard Shelby, and Represenatives John Campbell, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Posey, Roy Blunt and Dan Burton the ridicule they deserve for enabling these unpatriotic and malicious conspiracy theories.
8.03.2009
The Difference Between Birthers and Truthers
@ 8:58 PM
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There's also a big difference in what can be meant by 'have some doubts' in the two conspiracies. Obama either was or was not born in Hawaii. (He was, of course.) But what does it mean to say one has doubts about Bush knowing about 9/11 ahead of time. I think it extremely unlikely he (or anyone inside the US government) had knowledge of the nature or time of the attack. But it is far from implausible that some in the administration, including the Vice-President, believed that some sort of major attack was coming, and believed that in the long run such an attack was just what America needed to get its ass in gear to fight Islamist extremists and other threats to American power around the world. And because of that belief, they were strikingly blase about dealing with whatever came intelligence came in.
I have no respect for the truthers. But I think their paranoia is sustained in part by a germ of truth. Just as Roosevelt didn't know (despite conspiracy theorist's protestations) that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor, let alone on which date. But Roosevelt did take a negotiating stance that, while justified on many other grounds, was designed to ensure a Japanese attack somewehre, at some time soon.
As it happens, Roosevelt's determination that the US needed to find a way to actively fight Germany was correct, while Cheney's determination to beat up some A-Rabs was misbegotten, bothe strategically and morally. But the mechanics of the situations were similar. So depending on just how the question was worded and what mood I was in, I might give the 'not sure' answer about the Bush administration, without believeing for a second that the truther version of events has any validity other than that vouched for by Richard Clarke.
Depending on the wording, I would show up as fringe; I think it very unlikely that Bush was aware in advance or that Obama was born outside the USA, but I'm not *absolutely*certain*.
Regarding the CIA, it is perfectly reasonable to think that -- with the benefit of hindsight -- they had some advance knowledge but either didn't put it together in time or didn't believe it. (That obviously doesn't imply that Bush was warned.) I do remember news stories[1] about how the institutional barriers needed to come down to prevent recurrences, which suggests that *someone* claimed they had had *some* information.
[1] I'm not prepared to swear that it was 9/11 as opposed to another bombing, or that it was CIA as opposed to FBI that had information.
The republican party slowly circles the bowl as the sane leave the party while Orly screams birther lies and Glenn Beck call Obama a racist and the KKK member known as Jeff Sessions calls Sotomayor a racist. They lie constantly, it is not even within them to tell the truth.
Lincoln and Buckley are becoming democrats after death...
OH YEAH!!! Take that crazy reps! By the way Marsha Blackburn is insane, look for the clip of her and Gore arguing about whether Gore took some of the money that he had in his Save the Earth and Stuff acount. Oh, and Nate SENATE RANKINGS!!!!!!!!
Actually, one difference that comes to me is that Obama was either born on US soil or he wasn't. For 9/11, you can play the game of how much knowledge did Bush or the CIA/NSA/FBI/TLA/etc. have -- I mean, 'Al Qaida are planning to do something big in the fall' isn't useful without followup work, while 'Al Qaida will be hijacking four jets from major East Coast airports and flying them into major landmarks in New York and Washington on the 11th of September' is. So maybe a more exact phrasing of the question would be 'do you believe that Bush/the CIA had enough advanced knowledge to infer 9-11 before it happened?'.
For the record, the two concepts (i.e. that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and that some members of the Bush Administration had some sort of advanced knowledge of the 9/11 plot and didn't try their hardest to stop it) are very far from equivalent, just speaking in terms of the ideas themselves. There is a substantial amount of evidence that Obama was born in Hawai'i as he says, and anyway, even if he was born in Kenya, as long as his mother was a U.S. citizen that means that he is a natural-born citizen anyway. Until someone starts suggesting that his mother was not a U.S. citizen, the "birther" theory would be wrong on the law even if it were right on the facts.
On the other hand, the primary reason for giving the "conspiracy theory" label to the other theory is just that people find it implausible: "there's no way Bush wouldn't've tried his hardest to stop 9/11." However, there is evidence (i.e. their own website) that various Bush Administration members (Rumsfeld & Cheney) were desireous of a new Pearl Harbor to generate public sentiment for a massive military campaign in the middle east; there is also evidence (i.e. a National Security Briefing) that the government had at least some idea that, well, bin Laden was determined to attack inside the U.S. Neither of those facts are particularly controvertible, and to point out that this pattern, perhaps also including Bush's reaction to being told of the event itself, is not remotely inconsistent with the idea that the Administration was not as caught unawared as they would like people to believe is not particularly outrageous. This is a false equivalency.
While you ordinarily are a very evidence-driven person, in this case you are refusing to consider some very credible evidence from mainstream sources.
Why do such persons as a former FBI Director, university professors of engineering and physics, and experts in controlled demolition continue to argue that 9-11 could not have happened as stated?
One must at least consider the possibility that they are not all flakes, frauds or idiots.
Finally, what reasonable person would consider it plausible that Building 7--the third tower--imploded without even being impacted? (You can research this one yourself; all mainstream sources acknowledge that there were three and not two towers that fell on that day.)
Persons interested in mainstream sources corroborating the above assertions may visit www.wanttoknow.info.
Advance knowledge of 9/11 is a pretty ambiguous question. I mean, they quite obvious had reports and knowledge, I don't imagine it was anything other then bureaucracy and incompetence that failed to prevent the attacks, but if asked that survey question I might have said yes.
I think there's one more signifficant difference, at least in the interpretation of the polling result. It's a little bit of ambiguity as to weather having enough evidence and the forwarning memo(s) constitute "knowing in advance" or not. In some sense, they do insofar as they knew that the towers were a more likely attack spot than other targets, and they knew an attack was likely to be eminant. To be very clear, this is not evidence that they knew specifically that the towers were going to be hit, or on what day, or any other such highly specific information. However, even the memo warning of immenent terrorist threat added to the now well known targeting of the towers in intelegence may be considered "advanced knowledge," because a survey taker may or may not see partial knowledge in advance about a threat as enough to check either advanced knowledge or not.
In my own reasoning, if I were taking the survey, I would have selected the not sure option because while I don't think he had any idea of the time or the place of the attack, there is enough evidence to show that the administration did have enough advanced knowledge to make an educated guess. I would not say that incriminates him. Things could have been handled better, but there is no evidence of conspiracy. It just ceeds the point that information was there.
Therefor, I think that comparing an ambiguous, fuzzy idea such as weather there was and what extent of knowledge is required to constitute "advanced knowledge" of an eminent threat or attack to something as simple and easily confirmed as what country someone was born in is at best, like comparing people who beleive there is some doubt about some theories in physics (true statement) with those who believe there is some doubt about the charge of the electron specifically (a not so true sentiment).
Jonathan,
The idea that members of the government conspired to cause 9/11 is a conspiracy of such mamouth proportions that it would be impossible to cover up.
It is also a dramatically different type of claim, than the more reasonable suspicion that maybe there were a few high ranking members of the Bush Administration who were aware that some sort of terrorist hijacking was going to happen that week and decided to allow it to happen in order to "wake people up".
The claim that Obama was born in Hawaii, can be proved to the satisfaction of most any reasonable person.
By contrast, it's nearly impossible to rule out the possibility that Cheney, Feith, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz did not have any fore-hand knowledge of an impending attack to which they intentionally looked the other way (so to speak).
Couldn't the Rasmussen poll results be partially explained by the infamous "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in the U.S." memo from August 2001?
http://bit.ly/Y6UFN
That came out during the 2004 election, and it's quite possible that many Democrats believed Bush to be wildly incompetent, instead of believing the 9/11 Truth conspiracy theories.
Nate,
You also have to look at how questions are worked. Believing the CIA had advanced knowledge of an attack says nothing about that knowledge. There is a world of difference between believing the CIA conspired to make 9/11 happen and believing they knew some sort of attack was coming, but not specifics, and couldn't do anything about it. To call both groups truthers is stretching it.
Hmm - 9|11 started out in chaos and uncertainty about what was happening; in a few weeks we were already in Afghanistan. IIRC, at the time, Bush more declared bin Laden the perpetrator than show it (perhaps by necessity, given the pace). There was probably a lot of confusion at the start there.
In contrast, this birther thing is spreading uncertainty and doubt where there probably wasn't any doubt before. Plus, it's relatively new.
These points certainly don't justify anything, but perhaps they still help explain why there are more truthers than birthers?
Is the the title some deliberate mispelling (as birther rhymes with thurther...but what's a thurther?)?
On the other hand, quite a few Republican Congressmen have mimicked the birthers' doubts about Obama's place of origin.
I'd say this shows two things that make birtherism different than trutherism:
1) Unlike truthers and the Dems, birthers make up a pretty significant chunk of what's left of the Republican base; and
2) Republican Congressmen are scared shitless of upsetting the base. And let's face it, most of these people are crazy and are very easy to upset. Better to take a middle of the road "I don't agree, but I kinda agree" approach than to call them outright misguided.
Seriously, is there a Democratic politician anywhere who could have called truthers insane and honestly paid a political price for it? I tend to doubt it.
Nate-
In response to your final paragraph, I believe that Rep. Kucinich stated that he wanted to investigate "two areas" w/r/t 9/11. Admittedly, 'area' is an ambiguous term, but when dealing in such a 'conspiracy' you are never going to deal with specifics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIS6UJ8kRlY
Another video talking about the "two discrete...financial issues": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYpgCt-s808
Hope this helps.
Nate:
Perhaps a better partisan comparison would be the percentage of Democrats who believed in 2005 that the vote in Ohio in 2004 had been fraudulent. I recall seeing some numbers that placed that at a reasonably high level. That's a more objectively disprovable claim (unlike the 9/11 truthers), and if I recall correctly had the support of some Dem politicians. Given that, it might make for some interesting thought analysis on your part.
matt
Anyone got any choice Michelle Bachmann quotes about Birtherism?
I think people are playing rather fast and loose with their definitions of 'doubt'. If you think about trial by jury and reasonable doubt and how many people have been falsely imprisoned and later exonerated by DNA or witness testimony or confession. People apparently won't have reasonable doubt for a criminal defendant but they have doubt that Obama was born in America?
The birth issue is much simpler than the 9/11 issue so any reasonable person would be able conclusively believe one way or the other about obama's birth a lot easier than they could about whatever facts the 9/11 commissions are releasing/creating.
Another distinction between the truthers and the birthers, is that the desire to be absolutely sure about the truther theory is a lot more rational than the desire to be absolutely sure about the birther theory.
Suppose Obama was born outside of the US -- who really cares? Aside from the constitutional crisis that might arise if it came to light, I'd actually be less concerned about that than about whether the president was covering up an affair, like Clinton for example. And I barely care at all about that one. OTOH, if there was a 1% chance the US president had intentionally gotten 3000 American civilians killed for political gain in any way shape or form, I'd be worried as hell. That said, controlled demolition? Really?
Rep. Cynthia McKinney got into trutherism. Courtesy of Wikipedia:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-08-21-ga-candidates_x.htm
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041026093059633
@Nate -- typo: "lowlifes and imbeceles".
Imbeciles?
Didn't Orly Taitz see that piece in factcheck.org, a website I first learned about from VP Dick Cheney during the2004 VP debate. It was profiled positively by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday in 2008, too.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
Taitz and her ilk deserved to be ignored.
Just a simple question. Why does he have so many lawyers working to keep all his documents hidden? What is this guy hiding? Wouldn't it be so easy to just show his papers? Doesn't anyone care why he doesn't? That's what is bothering most of us, why he doesn't show papers, including school transcripts.
The problem is there's room for gray areas in the middle of the 9/11 conspiracy theories, but not in the Obama isn't a US citizen conspiracy.
For example, there are those who think the US flew their own planes into the towers, etc, on 9/11 and that explosives already in the buildings blew up and made the towers collapse. Those would be the most radical forms of the 'Bush caused/knew of 9/11 in advance' theory. But when you get milder, and it's just 'Bush/the CIA had some advance knowledge that could have prevented 9/11' it starts to get a lot more reasonable to believe it.
Plus I think I have heard somewhere before that the CIA had a bit of knowledge that something was going to happen, possibly involving airplanes, but didn't really know anything more then that. Chances are they did know at least a little bit that something was happening, but not enough to stop it. I mean Bin Laden himself bragged on one of the videos he released that most of the suicide hijackers didn't even know about the plan until hours before they hijacked the plane, he also bragged about a lot of his high ranking terrorists not knowing about the plan either.
Not a sitting congressman, but here's Howard Dean:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2092515/
A lot of birthers believe that even if the President was born in Hawaii, he's not a natural born citizen because his father wasn't an American citizen. That doesn't work either, since there's no support for the birther definition in the Constitution.
Ihre papiere, bitte.
Hmmm. I wonder if Orly Taitz, the Russian-born dentist/real-estate-agent/attorney knows that Stalin was not Russian, but actually was Georgian? As little contact she has with reality, I doubt it.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
Matt:
Yes, the "Ohio 2004 was stolen" hypothesis is inherently very testable and either provable or disprovable; however, you're too quick to assume that it would be disproven. It is certainly true at least that there were a lot of suspicious circumstances, and again, that the pattern of known facts is all too consistent with the so-called "conspiracy theory." For a fairly harrowing summary of the evidence in favor of the "theft hypothesis," (you might have to skim through the fairly overt partisan rhetoric), see Mark Crispin Miller's "Fooled Again" (I couldn't even finish the book, it made me so angry).
It's one thing to be wary of "conspiracy theories," especially when they run contrary to known facts or are patently untestable; it's another thing entirely to dismiss summarily any idea on the basis of its apparent absurdity or the idea that "it could never happen here." After all, every prosecutor in the nation is a "conspiracy theorist" every day, because conspiracies (in the ordinary sense of the word) happen every day.
@Mike
"Just a simple question. Why does he have so many lawyers working to keep all his documents hidden?"
Gee, I don't know. How many lawyers does Obama have? Does he have more than Bush or Clinton did? How many more? Are his legal bills greater than Palin's?
Just a simple question Mike. When did you stop beating your wife? Care to provide documentation? What do you have to hide?
Mike said...
Just a simple question. Why does he have so many lawyers working to keep all his documents hidden? What is this guy hiding? Wouldn't it be so easy to just show his papers? Doesn't anyone care why he doesn't? That's what is bothering most of us, why he doesn't show papers, including school transcripts.
Ah, yes. The mindset of a birther is shown above. Just like those birthers who say (are there any who don't?) "A certificate of live birth is not a birth certificate" (nevermind that almost all states call the document a 'certificate of live birth'), or have no problem that McLameBrain was born in Panama.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
.
BIG difference! "Truthers" are individuals raising legitimate questions of official intent on a subject of real import, regardless of Party.
"Birthers" are corporate drones trying to defeat legitimate political intitiatives by the Party they oppose.
It's law versus politics, non-partisan versus extremely partisan, trying to get at the truth versus peddling lies.
How could anyone be confused on that?
Got it? OK, I'm going to the movies.
.
Guess what? "The Polls" aren't exactly the total negative-fest against Obama and the Dems that the GOP/Media Complex would have us believe.
If you read the CBS/NYT poll that's cited as Evidence ObamaCare is dying, you will find that in fact 55% of Americans trust Obama on health care, whereas only 26% trust the Republicans: http://jed-lewison.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/30/759787/-Republicans-are-losing-the-health-care-debate
Meanwhile, more bad news for the GOP: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/3/761457/-New-Gallup-PollBad-News,-TERRIBLE-News,-for-The-Republican-Party
Nate, I don't think there is really much overlap between birthers and truthers. The polling evidence shows that most birthers are Southern Whites.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/31/760258/-The-birth-of-a-regional-rump-party
and
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/1/760363/-Southern-whites-overwhelmingly-Birthers
This tells me that the birther movement is fundamentally a racist reaction to Barack Obama's presidency. The truther movement, OTOH, seems like it would be based more on mistrust of government than anything else. Trutherism would not be confined to Southern Whites. I would expect to see a much stronger correlation between Moon Hoax conspiracy theorists and truthers than between truthers and birthers.
I think some people here are trying to whitewash the democrats in that 9/11 poll. I doubt anyone responding to that poll interpreted it to mean “the Bush admin just hadn’t put the pieces of the plot together.”
Believing that the Bush Admin was behind 9/11 or covered it up is even MORE nutty than the Birther conspiracy. In the Birther conspiracy a handful of govt documents are being hidden and a couple newspapers are lying. While that’s very silly, for 9/11 to have been a coverup there would have to be literally thousands of people involved, all hiding evidence, manufacturing fake evidence, altering video, making up stories, and all coordinating expertly with each other in order to murder thousands of their own countrymen. It’s as absurd as saying the Earth is flat.
Saying that the Bush Admin knew about 9/11 but didn’t try to stop it is also very silly, as there would have to be a number of people and agencies involved in the plot; I’d put that and the Birther conspiracy on the same level of kook.
I used to think Democrats were more rational than Republicans. Hell, many/most Repubs don’t even believe in evolution, in spite of the fact that there’s vast amounts of fossil and genetic evidence for it. Hell, evolution has been witnessed occurring in lab experiments and in the real world. (it’s why we need new flu vaccines every year, the flu evolves) But the 9/11 polls changed my perception of the Democratic party. As someone who’s left-leaning I don’t want to admit it, but the Dem nuts are just as crazy as the Repub nuts. (Though the right-wingers are still more violent)
That said, as the moderates abandon the GOP ship, I think the Repubs will get even nuttier.
For the purposes of answering the poll question, it's also entirely reasonable that a number of people would ascribe Bush as having advance warning of the attacks simply by the existence of the "Bin Laden determined to strike..." memo. These people aren't truthers, just people who think that maybe his lack of specific knowledge was due to an intentional choice to more or less ignore the broader al Qaeda threat.
They definitely had advance knowledge of 9/11. Enough to take precautions. They ignored the warnings either due to incompetence or willful negligence.
The obvious, paraphrasing H.L. Mencken, never underestimate the I.Q. of peeps living in America's heartland or even the cities.
American's love, love a good mystery.
It's very, very hard to keep a secret, especially a military secret although the 'History' and 'National Geographic' channels etc. do documentaries all the time re: long held secrets. Remember watching the '60 Minutes' story about German's Enigma machine which the allies stole and used to decipher the secret German code. And NG last nite had a story on "The Great Escape" during WWII that American intelligence played a big part in and was kept secret until the 1990s.
And how was JFK's affair w/his intern, Mimi Beardsley Alford kept secret for around (40) years. JFK is my hero lol I digress! :)
And yet, out of all this madness and mystery "we" elected Barack Hussein Obama President of the United State of America, how the hell did that happen ;) there's a mystery for 'ya!
Yes Virginia, we elected a Socialist, Communist, Marxist, Islamo-Fascist, wealth distributor, Satan, the Anti-Christ, the devil incarnate who was born in Kenya and is a Muslim etc. etc. the leader of the land of the free and the home of the brave! Oh the humanity ...
No wonder the Republicans are pissed and have their panties in a bunch lol no mystery.
And re: the military and the oft used oxymoron of military intelligence ;) if, for instance, Clinton was "wagging the dog" when he authorized those bombings in Africa, don't you think it would have leaked from the Pentagon that he was just trying to cover his ass er deflect attention away from all his Monica Lewinsky troubles.
Like I said, it's very hard to keep a secret, but there have been instances in history when a few slick "devils" have pulled off the impossible.
Speaking of secrets remember Geraldo drawing his military map in the sand giving away U.S. troop movements in Iraq! Rivera, what a tool for faux news ...
so let's recap, some Americans aren't very bright, a man hears want he wants to hear and disregards the rest, living is easy w/eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see, and quoting a former president whom the Reps very much want to dig up given their current situation:
Trust, but verify! ;)
ciao
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people!
p.s. my fav tv shows as a kid: 'The Outer Limits', 'The Twilight Zone', 'Star Trek', 'One Step Beyond' and, and, and 'The Wild, Wild West', I digress ...
Nate:
That is a "Thruther"?????
I think you mean 'Truther".
Nate, I can't check this since the Rasmussen page you linked to is premium content, but I wonder about the exact wording of the "advance knowledge" poll question. Were poll respondents being asked whether Bush knew in advance that hijacked planes would be flown into tall buildings on 9/11 and knowingly chose to let it happen? Or were they being asked whether Bush and the CIA had information prior to 9/11 pointing in the general direction of bin Laden which they perhaps could/should have chosen to follow up on but didn't? The former statement is ridiculous, but the latter certainly rational enough (and with enough basis in fact - see bin Laden memo) that 61% of rational people could reasonably say they agreed or weren't sure about it. This is in contrast to the "debate" about Obama's birthplace, which contains not a shred of reason.
Nate…
My friend, you need an editor.
First off, your title. What’s a “Thurther”?
Second, you just launch into your theory without defining what a “truther” is. I can sort of figure it out, or, I suppose, consult some other source, but if you’re putting me through hoops just to get your point, you’re not doing your job.
Please.
upon further review lol "never overestimate the I.Q. of peeps living in America's heartland or even the cities."
carry on
During the primary campaign, there was a short "John McCain can't be president because he was born in the Canal Zone" movement. Anyone know who/what the origin of that silly trial balloon was? Democrats? One of his GOP opponents? Fortunately, that died swiftly but this Obama birther nonsense keeps getting air time. So much more interesting than explaining the different options for health care reform and educating the American people about health care systems around the world that work. Thank you, MSM.
Firstly, a Daily Kos poll is about as believable as Keith Richards claiming he has never done heroin. Secondly, it never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which this site goes in order to explain away things that look bad for the president or the Democratic Party.
No Democratic Congressman ever questioned what happened during 9/11? Yeah, I guess Cynthia McKinnney wasn't a Democrat when she said that the Bush administration had advance knowledge of the attacks and allowed them to happen for business reasons?
And when the Congressional Black Caucus invited David Ray Griffin to give testimony about 9/11? I guess they were doing it to see if they could answer those "unanswered questions"(the euphemism for "I believe Bush is responsible") about 9/11.
And don't even get me started on the whole Trig Palin conspiracy theories.
Please, you can spare us the nonsense about how a third of Democrats believing that the president of the United States was responsible for the deliberate murder of 3000 citizens is somehow worse than a segment of the Republican Party doubting where Obama was born.
PS You better cover up. Your hypocrisy is showing.
Nate, the populations of the birthers and truthers undoubtedly overlap, but more by personality types than by actual persons.
Also, if you decide that your repeated spelling errors are robbing you of the invaluable currency of credibility ("imbeceles" pops to mind), I will proofread your 10 next non-urgent posts in 60 minutes or less apiece. For free. Just sayin'.
@phoenixwoman: polls showing Americans trust Obama on health care reform more than they trust the R's, those polls are factual, but don't make for good copy. Don't fret, the D's are going to push some decent legislation through, over the MSM's terminally ill body.
gnirol: I believe that the "John McCain can't be president because he was born in the Canal Zone" thing was started by Ron Paul supporters (but not the candidate himself).
And what about the whole Diebold episode during the 2004 election and the claims that Bush stole the election because he was down in those unbelievably scientific exit polls. There is no evidence at all that Bush "stole" the election in Ohio, or anywhere else that year. But what do you know, the Congressional Black Caucus, with the backing of John Edwards and others, made claims about the election being stolen and other such bullshit. They even stood up and protested the election in the House. And old reliable Keith "everybod on Fox has higher ratings than me" Olbermann was on the air touting some bogus research about exit polls and fantasizing about secret meetings between election officials that gave the victory to Bush.
When it comes to ridiculous conspiracy theories meant to cast aspersions on the legitimacy of democratically elected leaders, the Democrats take a back seat to absolutely no one. We were subjected to all sorts of wacky conspiracy theories during the Bush years.
And frankly, the ploy here is transparent. If that many Republicans believe Obama wasn't born here, well then, it is safe for their elected officials, etc. to ignore them on issues such as health care, cap and trade etc. (tomorrow the anti-semites at The Daily Kos will probably try and claim the majority of Americans who oppose Obamacare are Birthers). That was precisely the strategy used for the tea parties. Portray the hundreds of thousands of Americans who protested as a bunch of wacky, unpatriotic racists. Why, that is just what the Dems are trying to do now.
PS How is that 8% unemployment working out for you guys?
masanf said...
And don't even get me started on the whole Trig Palin conspiracy theories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ok, ok, we'll try not to get you started lol because some of us are concerned about your high blood pressure!
Let's recap, you are obsessed w/DK accurate political polling, Keith Richards is still alive, who knew ?!?, at least the Dems try to get rid of their whackos ie mckinney, spitzer, edwards etc. whereas buffoons vitter, ensign, sanford, perry, palin, bachmnann, blackburn, sessions, pfotenhauer, cantor, boehner, blunt, king, etc. are still flourishing in that loony bin that is the Rep party.
and your tit for tat ad nauseam inaccurate comparisons show your continual desperation to apologize/rationalize for all of your party's recent failures!
Yea, we wouldn't want to get you started as we already know you're a raving, lunatic, sore grape, sore loser, conservative rep troll, who's apparently addicted to 538 and obsessed w/the Dems total control of U.S. politics
take care, blessings
"...polls showing Americans trust Obama on health care reform more than they trust the R's, those polls are factual, but don't make for good copy..."
I am curious, are they more, or less, factual than the seven or eight major polls that have come out in the past few weeks from every major, legitimate polling organization detailing how a majority or plurality of Americans are opposed to Obama's health care plan. In fact, there is no major poll out there that I know of where more support the Obama plan than oppose it.
But hey, cherrypicking polls has become something of a hallmark of Obama sycophants. I mean, if you people can overlook the nine or ten dozen polls showing that 75% or more of Americans, including 2/3of Dems, are opposed to the EFCA, it shouldn't be hard to overlook the polls indicating most Americans don't want ObamaCare.
massa-nf…
Keep goin’ man. You almost got everybody in the GOP fleeing for the exits. One final rant should do it.
:o)
I think the funniest thing about Orly Taitz (or whatever her name is) is the profound lack of self-awareness of how profoundly ridiculous she looks and sounds. She actually went on Colbert--maybe, given how dense she is, she actually thinks Colbert is a REAL conservative pundit.
But the best slam-dunk proof of how intellectually and legally bankrupt her position is was the jag she went on about how Obama's SSN was really that of a Connecticut man who would be something like 112 years old.... Ummmm Orly... (a) how did you get your hands on Obama's (alleged) SSN? (b) you quite sure you have the right number, and didn't transpose digits, and (c) you DO know that the Social Security Administration recycles SSN's....right? Did you bother to check whether and when this Connecticut gentleman died and did it happen to be some time before Obama was issued his number.....hmmmmm?
By the way, people, don’t forget—cash for clunkers…
"ok, ok, we'll try not to get you started lol because some of us are concerned about your high blood pressure."
Man, you really, really need to come up with some new material. You repeat the same stuff over and over every single night. And every time I see that list of names you add someone else to it with the only criterion seeming to be opposition to the Democratic Party. I am curious, since Nancy Pelosi has lower approval ratings than Dick Cheney, does that mean she belongs in the "out of touch" loony bin too? She can join Roland Burris, Stephen "I take kickbacks" Rattner, William "90K in my freezer" Jefferson, Charlie "I don't pay my taxes" Rangel, Tom "I don't pay my taxes" Daschle, Hilda "I don't pay my taxes" Solis, Kathleen "I don't pay my taxes" Sebelius, Timothy "I don't pay my taxes" Geithner, Ron "I don't pay my taxes" Kirk, Rod "I pay bribes to Roland Burris" Blagojevich, John "PMA" Murtha, Ed "I have threesomes with Eliot Spitzer and some random hooker" Rendell, Pete "I am just a nut" Stark, Ned "Blackface" Lamont, David "my approval ratings are lower than Satan" Paterson, Eliot "I blog at Huffington Post while those same hypocrites are riding Mark Sanford" Spitzer, the absolute nut job Obama just nominated for a science czar position who favors forced abortion and sterilization, etc. And just for the hell of it because he is an absolute douchebag and politicians sometimes appear on his site, let's throw in Markos "Screw em, who cares if Americans are murdered and I never met a Jew or Israeli I wouldn't malign on my site" Zuniga. And let us not forget the 32 or so Dems in New Jersey who were just arrested for bribery and corruption. So please quit acting like both parties are not filled with lawbreakers, nutcases and corruptocrats. They are.
And you might want to save the "lol" crap for when you play World of Warcraft or text your friends that go to high school with you.
Daily Kos: Anti-semites since 2002.
beamman said...
I think the funniest thing about Orly Taitz is ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The funniest thing to me is how she won't shut up and tries to dominate the conversation by talking ad nauseam w/out making one rational, sane point!
Much like Elizabeth Cheney.
Yea the Reps echo machine is in full force because as Janeane Garofalo said to Olbermann, the Reps are really, really pissed that an African-American is now president!
ciao
"By the way, people, don’t forget—cash for clunkers…":
I haven't forget about it. I was too busy reading multiple articles about the record deficits and double-digit unemployment we will be experiencing under the Obama administration to make a comment on it. My bad.
"Yea the Reps echo machine is in full force because as Janeane Garofalo said to Olbermann, the Reps are really, really pissed that an African-American is now president!"
Hahahahahahahahahah, the fact that you think Janeane Garafalo is not some nutcase speaks volumes about you. I bet you also believed the story Randi Rhodes told about being pushed down by a conservative when she was trying to hide the fact that she was drunk and fell on her ass. I guess she was getting wasted because she foretold the record deficits and double-digit unemployment that would happen under the Obama administration.
And why are the people on this site so obsessed with race? I couldn't care less about Obama's race. I have been married to a black woman for eight years, so the race card thing doesn't phase me, at all.
Pragmatus, don't you have some hilarious online Daily Kos poll to cite like it is some sort of irrefutable evidence backing some ridiculous point you are trying to make?
masanf said...
"ok, ok, we'll try not to get you started lol because some of us are concerned about your high blood pressure."
Man, you really, really need to come up with some new material. You repeat the same stuff over and over every single night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Right back at 'ya, as you continue to apologize for all the Rep pailures w/your continual ad nausean Rep talking points ie
but, but, but the Dems are worse meme.
but, but, but I have no rational response so I'll be sarcastic.
but, but, but I can't handle the truth so I'll try unsuccessfully to quiet someone who is pointing out the truth and making you look like the raving lunatic.
now using tired ad nauseam personal comments that have no effect because we all know your just a basic, common, garden variety troll, doing what you do best, spewing nonsense, deflecting, using red herrings and straw men trying to be noticed above the crowd!
take care, blessings
"So much more interesting than explaining the different options for health care reform and educating the American people about health care systems around the world that work. Thank you, MSM."
Yeah, because it is the fault of the "MSM" that more and more Americans are rejecting the Obama plan. Amazing how the Democratic Party can never accept the fact that the American people don't want to live in a country farther to the left than Sweden. Of course when unemployment eclipses 10%, the people on here are gonna wish the MSM would cover something other than the jobs numbers.
One can see from the birther phenomenon why republicans aren't too keen on science. First they make up their minds, then they only accept information that fits their foregone conclusion.
It's the opposite of science, and the anti-Obamans basic m.o. Pick any act or position taken by Obama, assume it is wrong, and look for anything that can be used to support the conclusion.
It's human nature, of course, and dems aren't above it, but it's a hallmark of the current know-nothing obstructionists.
masanf said...
Hahahahahahahahahah
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yea, talk about ad nauseam. One might want to stop using Hahahahahahahahahah especially since Obama is still quite poular despite the Reps echo machine. And the current state of your sorry ass Rep party.
A poll today say there are (30) solid Dem states and only (4) solid Rep states. Yea, I'd be laughing at that reality also.
but, but, but dude continue what your doing ie the perfect Limbaugh ditto head trying successfully to take his party back to the dark Ages.
Hahahahahahahahahah
take care
Orly Taitz is giving Dentists a bad name.
"Right back at 'ya, as you continue to apologize for all the Rep pailures w/your continual ad nausean Rep talking points "
Firstly, it's ad nauseum, not ad nausean or ad nauseam. Secondly, I haven't apologized for anything the Republican Party has done. If you were more than a semi-literate moron, you would see that I quite clearly stated the Republican Party, as well as the Democratic Party, is full of nutcases and corruptocrats. I guess you just can't stand it when someone gives you a dose of your own pathetic medicine and lists a bunch of kooks and thieves in the party to which you have sworn fealty. Furthermore, pointing out the fact that we have record deficits and will be seeing 10% unemployment after we were promised it would not eclipse 8% is no "talking point". It is fact. Just like it is fact that you are a hypocrite if you try to tar the Republican Party because some of its members believe in wacky conspiracy theories and then turn right around and issue an apologia for the third of your party who believe George Bush deliberately murdered 3000 American citizens.
And man is it absolutely hilarious when someone whose posts consist entirely of calling Republicans loony tunes, racists, nut cases, trolls etc. claims someone else is using ad hominem attacks in lieu of an actual argument. Hell, you haven't ever made an argument. All you do is list a bunch of names, claim anyone who supports them is an idiot, and then call people who insult you for your below-average intelligence lunatics. Unless you consider "Republicans are bad" as some sort of devastating riposte or the epitome of cogent, well-reasoned debate, you haven't really made any sort of point at all. I am not the one with the elevated blood pressure. Quite the contrary. When all you can do is insult the tens of millions of decent, patriotic Americans who support the Republican Party by either implicitly, or explicitly, stating they are racists or nutjobs or evil, it probably isn't wise to accuse others of being assholes. Oh yeah, let us not forget the fact that you seemingly play the race card every time someone disagrees with you or has the temerity to criticize the president. As this, and other left wing blogs have made clear, dissent, for the left, was the highest form of patriotism, right up until 01.20.09. Since then, the Democrats have played pretty much every card in the race deck. I guess if it distracts people from the fact we are rapidly approaching double digit unemployment, you have to use it.
The 9/11 conspiracy truthers arn't novel.
A big segment of the public believe FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen.
A big segment of the public believe the Goverment sunk the USS Maine in HAvana harbor to manufacture a pretext for the Spanish-American war.
masanf said...
I am curious, since Nancy Pelosi has lower approval ratings than Dick Cheney,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have mentioned a couple times previously the voters don't know who Pelosi is, but they do know cheney and also as I have mentioned previously addition by subtraction doesn't seem to be working for Reps.
So just pay attention and stop spewing your talking points er nonsense and the rest of us won't have to repeat the political reality back to you.
And again, so much agression and anger!
Chill ...
take care
masanf said...
blah, blah, blah
Hahahahahahahahahah
Hahahahahahahahahah
Hahahahahahahahahah
yea, time to stop feeding 538's fav passive/aggressive troll!
take care
oh, and I haven't pointed out all your spelling/grammar etc. mistakes so when one resorts to that in a political debate, I just smile! :)
ciao
Come, come. There is a lot of evidence that 9/11 was planned and carried out by insiders. Not necessarily Bush.
Simple video evidence is the most striking. This shows the collapse of World Trade Center Bldg. 7 on September 11, 2001 at 5:20 pm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD06SAf0p9A
It takes expertise to collapse a building into its footprint.
Here's what happens when you screw up a demolition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjNhseQ7GfU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mahalo.com%2Fturkey-building-implosion&feature=player_embedded
As is obvious, steel-reinforced buildings are robust.
Few people know much of anything about 9/11 all the while holding strong opinions. Poke around a bit before coming to conclusions.
Which is worse: a prez accused of being 'Not American'...or the previous 8 years of a VP who wasn't even human? Take your pick.
btw masanf, it is ad nauseam w/an a not a u. So I made a typo, whereas you are an idiot!
I crack myself up!
take care, blessings
"A poll today say there are (30) solid Dem states and only (4) solid Rep states. Yea, I'd be laughing at that reality also."
Yeah, I guess you missed this caveat: "It is important to note that these categories only apply to a state population's party leanings and are not necessarily indicative of a party's electoral strength in that state". Most people would have realized that when they saw states such as KY and Arkansas listed as solid Dem and Georgia as Dem as well. Evidently there are people on this site too stupid to realize that in many states, particularly those in the south, Democratic Party registration is a traditional thing that has no connection to how one votes in national elections.
I guess you were too stupid to realize the multiple factors that influence how one registers to realize the nuances. Most people with IQs north of 10 would have realized this when they read from Gallup that this is unchanged since the last election, when McCain won more than four states. As a matter of fact, the poll actually states that the Democratic advantage on the national level has shrunk since 2008.
And you can also quit assuming I am a Republican because I criticize Obama.
shiloh,
You missed a couple of big time secrets that lasted for decades:
1. The White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, nuclear bunker for Congress. Construction started in 1959, lasted until 1961, but, even though suspected, most didn't know anything about it until 1995; and
2. The National Security Agency - created on November 4, 1952 by President Harry S. Truman, but it didn't become known by the general public until well after Nixon resigned.
By the way, the NSA has an exit off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (the sign states 'NSA Employees Only'), and to those who drove the B-W Parkway (as I did in the mid-70s), it was an open secret that the agency existed and 'NSA' stood for "no such agency".
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
EmonOkari
You can bet that if the president was a republican, those same birthers wouldn't care if he was from mars. I for one would be happy if Obama was a Vulcan.
As Jon Stewart suggested long ago, when you peel the flesh off Cheney's face you'll find a murderous android underneath. At least he was made in USA.
"And again, so much agression and anger!"
Nope no anger here. No talking points either. Just the facts. Facts such as record deficits and soon-to-be double digit unemployment. Facts such as the one about how the Democratic Party has just as many kooks and corruptocrats as the Republican Party.
PS ad nauseum has multiple spellings, but I am pretty sure it doesn't have two n's in it.
The Collins English Dictionary lists ad nauseum as an acceptable alternative spelling.
Pretty sure nowhere does it list it as being spelled ad nausean though.
Mike in Maryland said...
shiloh,
You missed a couple of big time secrets that lasted for decades:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Mayan 'End of Times' prophecy says the world is gonna end on December 21, 2012, so in view of the ever changing time/warp continuum, it's all of very little consequence, when one looks at the big picture! lol
ciao
I have to say, when the 911 truthers, (and I'm talking about the Big T, grand conspiricy Truthers) were flooding blog comments with their conspiracy rants in the Bush years, I found it annoying that people might associate my rational political opinions with the crazy beliefs of a fringe group that couldn’t even agree on the details of the conspiracy. Come on, this was the same guy who couldn't say nuclear.
Now that the crazy is spilling out of the right wing instead of the left, It's pretty funny. People’s ability to filter the world to fit their beliefs always amazes me. The moon landing was fake, The government covered up an alien autopsy at Roswell, the world is secretly run by the illuminati, or the Free Masons, or the Jews, or the Gay mafia. The holocaust never happened, the world is going to end next year. It’s all here, all you have to do is connect all these unrelated data points and have a insanely blinding worldview.
I wonder what goes through the heads of Truthers when they read a Birthers rant & vice versa. Do they see the eerie similarity? The manic, desparate, can't-you-see! tone, Or are they amazed that someone could be so gullible?
masanf?
What does the 'nf' of your screen name stand for? Something along the lines of '[racist term][sexual act]?
By the way, since you are such an expert on the term "ad nauseam", you should know the etymology of the word. It is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as:
"Argumentum ad nauseam or argument from repetition or argumentum ad infinitum is an argument made repeatedly (possibly by different people) until nobody cares to discuss it any more. This may sometimes, but not always, be a form of proof by assertion".
What the American Heritage Dictionary doesn't say is that the 'proof by assertion' usually ignores FACTS, which, as has been pointed out many times, (per Stephen Colbert) "FACTS have a well-known liberal bias."
If you didn't know that etymology of the word (very easily found), it shows that you don't know what you are talking about, or you don't know how to do research (although not necessary, it is usual for both conditions to support each other and be present at the same time in the same TROLL person).
And, has anyone noticed? The usual TROLLs at 538.com are not supporting masanf in any great numbers? Are his talking points embarrassing to them, or is he one of their sock puppets, just not being used effectively?
Curious people want to know!
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
dougsa said...
Come on, this was the same guy who couldn't say nuclear.
Are you saying it was the (acting) POTUS people are saying directed the 9/11 coverup?
Or was it the ACTUAL (but behind the scenes) POTUS? I think Cheney has demonstrated he DOES know how to correctly pronounce 'nuclear'. Or was it Scooter? Maybe Rumsfeld? Rice?
VBG
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
I for one can't really get over the fact that her name is ORLY? Taitz, it makes me think of the owl pictures.
Another difference: I'm wondering how many in the Rasmussen poll were thinking of the infamous August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing warning of Bin Ladin's determination to attack the United States. It's true that this memo is not exactly advance knowledge of the actual 9/11 plot, but -- depending on how the Rasmussen poll was worded -- the PDB explanation would account for a significant portion of the positive respondents.
You can bet that if the president was a republican, those same birthers wouldn't care if he was from mars.
Indeed. It wasn't that long ago that they were trying to get 'Ahhhnald' to run for Prez.
I love it when the right-wing posters here try to imply that bad economic times will sink the Obama administration and all its plans.
Besides the painfully obvious irony contained within that argument, it's a losing proposition, given that most folks will be much better off in 2012 than they are now.
Good luck with that one.
Orly is a French airport--Russians were fond of naming their children after new technologies and the like. Or should we now say Freedom airport?
Timothy Morton said...
Or should we now say Freedom airport?
Timothy, Timothy, Timothy. That is so 2003ish.
VBG
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
I think there are clear differences between Birthers and the 9/11 'Truther' movement. Not that either has a grip on reality as far as I can see, but the Birther movement is more closely aligned to the politics of it all. I think that Birthers are not necesarily about convincing others of Obama's illegitemacy, more about raising the question. Once the question has been raised, it gives those who already don't trust Obama, because of his race or his political beliefs or whatever, a reason that is more easily digestable. (They don't want to admit to themselves that they are racist so they decide to give some credence to the idea that maybe Obama wasn't born in the US).
I read a piece about a year ago looking at how race was affecting the election, and people's views. The thing the piece brought out was that voters racism wasn't couched in 'I'm not voting for him because he was black', it was more like 'I don't trust him because of Rev Wright' or 'I don't know enough about his views' or some other coded terms. (As I remember the piece it was mostly in the North where people used these coded terms). The point in the end is that the way the Republicans have tried to get at Obama is to reduce the trust people have in him. They can do that by trying to emphasise the 'he's not like you' meme. That is what, when it comes to it, the whole birther thing is about.
I think that the 'truther' movement is not really political at all. Its a classic conspiracy. Somehow government has lost the trust of people, and now some people do not believe anything the government says. So the government says 9/11 was an islamic fundamentalist plot, some people go looking for any scrap of evidence that it might not be true.
Emonokari said
'You can bet that if the president was a republican, those same birthers wouldn't care if he was from mars.
Indeed. It wasn't that long ago that they were trying to get 'Ahhhnald' to run for Prez.'
----------------------
It is interesting to note that the two people who were verifiably not born in America on a major party ticket (George Romney and John McCain) were both Republicans.
But that is not to say either were not 'natural born citizens' just as its not clear what Obama's legal position would be if he were not born in the USA. Romney and McCain both get in by being born to two US parents, I would imagine. The legal position currently suggests that Obama would qualify as a 'natural born citizen' by his 1 US parent, and significant residence in the US. But there is little legal case law precedence, and little desire on the part of any court to create it.
Orly Taitz is actually Moldovan-born.
"George Romney"?
The eligibility of children born outside the US to US citizen parents to become President has not yet been tested in court.
We live in London and our daughter was born here; although she is a US citizen from birth (by virtue of both of us being US citizens), when we registered her at the US Embassy we received a letter from the State Department stating exactly that: they could not confirm whether or not she would be considered "native-born" for the purposes of taking public office where such was a requirement as it had not been definitively decided in a court of law.
I do remember at least one example of someone who is both a truther and a birther: Philip Berg, who brought the most well-publicized lawsuit against Obama last year. Berg claims to be a Hillary Democrat and argues that John McCain is also ineligible to be president.
It's one thing to make a general assumption that most birthers are right-wing loons upset at having a black president (and that includes Alan Keyes, by the way). But when it comes to particular individuals, discerning motive seems like a waste of energy. I'm reminded of something Michael Kinsley once said about Pat Robertson: the question of whether he's anti-Semitic has overshadowed the easier question of whether he's a total nutcase.
Nate, please don't use the word "unpatriotic" in those terms. Its too Bushwellian in reference to how we scrutinize authority figures.
Why the Birther issue is something that needs more exposure rather than less:
1) Conspiracy nuts equate the lack of "MSM" (hate that term) coverage as validation for their wacko theories.
2) Irrational ideas like this, when left to the dark corners of the right wing conspiracy theory internet/radio, have a bad habit of staying put rather than dissipating.
3) most importantly, I think it is pretty obvious that this is the new language of racial/identity politics in America. This is something we should be having a national discussion about: how race affects people’s willingness to accept the validity of an election. I suspect for some segments of America, the notion of a “Kenyan-Prince-Baby Scam” articulated so well by John Stewart last month is far more plausible than the idea that a guy named Barack Hussein Obama is now President. Furthermore, we basically proved that the Bradley Effect doesn't really exist, if it ever really did, in the 2008 election. So my thinking is that we, as a culture, have generally accepted the idea that being a different race, religion, etc., is not something anyone can overtly, consciously denigrate and use to explain why someone should not be President, CEO, etc. The alleged "questioning" of Obama's "Natural Born American"-ness are a legalistic, logically "defensible" way of articulating a broader, irrational, fear of foreignness in general, and an uncomfortably with heterogeneity in particular. By allowing "birthers" to continue to express their unchallenged insanity, they are given space to "de-Americanize" the President. As the Nazi's showed us, once you change the language you use to describe people, you make it really easy to dehumanize them; which is what I would argue is the unconscious or conscious objective of the advocates of this insanity.
4) Most importantly, by allowing people to consistently articulate these conspiracy theories without challenging them publicly and frequently, those unstable individuals like the recent murderer/assassin of Dr. Tiller are allowed to fester on their insanity, living online or on AM radio in an insane echo chamber, until they do something stupid/evil. The biggest danger here is that through de-Americanizing the President, they Birther nonsense dehumanizes him, and makes insane people feel like patriots for doing the unthinkable.
Ignoring things does not make them go away.
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney raised the specter of Bush having prior knowledge of 9/11.
I find it comforting to note that I haven't seen one single poster to 538 from someone who actually believes these idiots.
Of course I expect a higher level of intelligence here at 538, still it's nice to have that faith vindicated.
Gyrate, you are correct that the 'natural born citizen' requirement hasn't been clearly defined by the courts. There is an assumption, and its vaguely confirmed by current legal precedent, that someone born to 2 US citizens is a natural born citizen. My understanding is that the courts current precedent is that old feudal English/British law carried over on this matter, as the law and the constitution has not further defined what a 'natural born citizen' is exactly. And old English feudal law would consider that someone born to two citizens was themselves automatically a citizen.
But this is an area of law where the precedents are not clear, and the courts do not seem to be terribly keen to clear up the matter.
Just to make it clear though, Obama's birth in Hawaii, proved by his birth certificate, and certficate of live birth, and further established by press announcements in the local Hawaiian paper at the time, confirm him as a natural born citizen.
If the birther narrative was the only crazy thing coming from the Republican base, it could be written off. But the Republican Party, in its effort to "energise the base", has put forth (or tacitly approved of) several other crazy stories:
- Obama wants to change the U.S. flag.
- Obama will form a militia that resembles the German SS.
- Secret Muslim!
- He is going to take away your guns.
- Obama will force you to euthanise your grandmother.
- Obama will ban pickup trucks.
- He was never sworn into office because the second oath was not taken with his hand on a Bible.
_ The "public option" is not optional; it is mandatory.
- Obama is the Anti-Christ.
The list goes on, and grows nearly every week.
This is not "political discourse".
It is the kind of thing the CIA does to Third World nations to destabilise leaders we don not approve of.
Fuelled by this naked terror-mongering, the ranks of tax protestors, "sovereign citizens" and "redemptionists" grows. Each small shift to the Right is consolidated and becomes the new "centre" of the Party; there is never any movement away from the fringe.
In today's Republican environment, I find it difficult to believe that McCain would now take the woman to task who claimed that Obama was an "Arab".
Brian wrote:
"I find it comforting to note that I haven't seen one single poster to 538 from someone who actually believes these idiots."
Well, PeteKent has not weighed in yet. He is a "birther".
I think part of the problem was the ridiculousness of it. If some idiot said "give me your car" had a box knife, he wouldn't get it from me without a fight. I mean, come on, seriously, a box knife? Those things are so pathetic as weapons that you could legally carry them on a plane.
We did arrest one of the 9/11 hijackers in Minnesota before the event. The FBI did send a warning about a week before that the bad guys were training people to take over planes. And at least one airport security caught five of the hijackers with box knives their luggage. But since they were legal, they let them through.
So I'd say sure, the Administration had advance knowledge. But I think it was ignorance, not malice, that allowed those attacks to happen.
I don't want to say that we're a pathetic country that deserved to have that happen to us, but a bank teller recently refused to give any money to a bank thief, chased him down, tackled him, and held him for the cops. For this, the bank fired him.
Where the heck did the idea the soldiers and police will protect us, so we have no need to defend ourselves?
The only thing I have to say about this whole "issue" is it shocks me how much credence has been provided to these loons and how much airtime they have gotten relative to other groups of crazies. It shows where this country is heading. Just the fact that a site like this has this many comments dedicated to absolute nutjobs should tell us something. It's a touch unsettling, and actually scares the daylights out of me as to where the direction of this country might be heading.
There is a long history of belief in white racial superiority in this country. In many ways, mostly unconscious, those beliefs are still with us. But those views are not as simple as "White people good and black people bad." Historically, it was a more nuanced and complex system, based on degrees of blackness. Historically blacks were horribly oppressed and cruelly deprived of their basic human rights, but there were degrees of poor treatment within the system.
Historically, here in South Carolina, slaves were assigned different tasks and social roles based in part on their degree of African-ness. Full blooded African slaves were assigned the most menial tasks, being treated as little more than beasts of burden. (This, of course, was after the period when newly arrived African slaves taught a bunch of English lesser aristocracy and haute bougeousie raised on wheat and wool how to cultivate rice, cotton and indigo in a sub-tropical, swampy climate. The whites would have starved or gone broke without their help.) Mullattoes, being half black, were given slightly higher status, and worked as lesser household help or as gang leaders in the fields. Quadroons (1/4 African) were assigned higher status jobs, such as nurse (in both senses), cook, midwife, teamster, nanny or overseer. By the time the African blood was attenuated to 1/8 an octoroon would often be treated more as a hired hand or poorer family member (which they often were... that mixed heritage didn't come out of thin air!). They worked as valets, personal assistants, supervisors, household managers and personal, ahem, companions. It would not be uncommon for an octoroon or quadroon to learn a skilled trade, like smithing, carpentry, embroidery, musician or cheffing. Often they could keep some or most of the profits they made from these occupations when working for employers other than their masters.
Additionally, in the Old South there was a highly informal category of what a South African would call "Honorary White". These were people who while having some non-Northern European blood, and clearly not as white as a Briton, were none the less given some (though not all or even most) of the privileges of a white person. Hispanics, assimilated Native Americans, a few rare Asians and the more prosperous free people of color (ministers, school teachers, merchants, creoles of color, octoroons, etc) fit this category. They were seen as nearly the equals of whites, with some of them obviously being "better" than some whites, especially working class whites, even if the most ardent racists would never admit it.
This category was extended to include wealthy, powerful or highly skilled people of color from other countries. So, while a white racist in the 1920's would never sit down to a dinner table with his black cook, he might do so with the black ambassador from Liberia to discuss international trade, foreign policy or simple chit chat. Foreigners were considered somewhat outside of the racial system, though still definitely looked down upon.
By defining Pres. Obama as foreign, white racists (mostly unconsciously) are able to reduce the cognitive dissonance of two "facts" a racist would see as self-evident and clearly obvious: that African-Americans are stupid, angry, impulsive, lazy and un-poised; and simultaneously President Obama is smarter, calmer, less impulsive, harder working and more poised than the vast majority of whites. By defining him as both multiracial and foreign, they are able to mentally process the obvious high quality of a person who could become president without abandoning their other beliefs. Basically, he is "one of the good ones" and thereby kept from disrupting their racism.
The difference is... 9/11 WAS an inside job. To believe otherwise is to simply ignore the evidence.
Don't be a fool.
actually Truthers are more widespread, and mostly consist of people are not insane.
http://patriotsquestion911.com/ - is a directory of a couple thousand high-profile people who are involved in the movement, including congress/senators and senior military. The movement is mostly propelled by engineers and architects, unlike the Birthers which is run by the insane Orly and some politicians.
The ambiguously worded question of 911 foreknowledge does not touch the core Troofer fantasy--a fantasy that is comparable in its staggering idiocy to the Birfer fantasy. Troofers believe that the WTC towers fell because of a professional demolition job, not because of the planes that hit the Towers. Most often, they also believe or at least insinuate that an entity with Zionist ties was behind the demolition and that the demolition was conducted with full knowledge of Bush administration. They also contend that a missile, not an airliner, hit the pentagon.
I tend to ignore the composite 58% number that includes those who believe he is not an American citizen and those who are "unsure". As many have pointed out, the definition of "unsure" is quite slippery, and while it's indefensible in light of all the evidence to say Obama might not be an American citizen, maybe a lot of the people answering "unsure" are just ignorant (as opposed to loony).
The more shocking number to me is the percentage of Repubs that flat-out believe Obama is not a natural born citizen. Depending on the poll, it tends to hover around 1 in 3. That's effed up.
Anybody know what percentage of Dems in 2007 were died-in-the-wool truthers, i.e. they were "certain" Bush had advance knowledge of the attacks? That is a more interesting number to me.
let through all of this not one republican candidate for president has bothered to produce the long form of their own birth certificate.
does this mean not one leading republican candidate for president is a can prove they are a natural born american citizen.
To me, the obvious difference between the Truthers and Birthers is that the 9/11 thing is around a real event. All major events have conspiracy theories associated with them - Pearl Harbor, the Moon landings, the JFK assassination, MLK's assassination, the Vietnam War, etc. So it's not surprising that we have a conspiracy theory built up around 9/11. It wasn't about Bush - any president at that time would have had the same conspiracy.
The Birther thing, on the other hand, is clearly partisan. It is being done for no other reason than to say "Obama isn't a REAL Amurican, he's a FURRINER!"
My question to the Birthers is what is your goal?
I assume since you are all fire-breathing Republican parrots that you think that if you can prove that President Obama is not an US citizen and get the title stripped form him that McCain will become president. But that shows how delusional you are because then VP Joe Biden would them become president. So unless you nutjobs are going to start a campaign that Biden is a secret alien pod person you'll still have at least four years of a Democratic President.
dre7861@
I asked that very question last year:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiA.bzAsvNlBqjKFlskkm9Xty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20081209050519AAvaLPB
Soon after 911, some people began to argue that the pattern of explosions at the World Trade Center resembled a deliberate demolition job. The demolition theory, as well as other 911 conspiracy theories, began to circulate soon after 911. Among the congress members who took those theories seriously were Ron Paul (R Texas) and Cynthia McKinney (D Georgia.) However, no one seems to have doubted that Obama was Hawaiian until forty or more years after the event, when it became politically useful for his opponents to express those doubts.
Yeah, there is a HUGE difference between the idea that 9/11 was explicitly known about, covered up, or even planned (truthers) and the idea that the Bush admin was forewarned in some way but ignored the warnings (which is in some sense what happened: though not in any way sinister or intentional: they simply missed the key elements that we all see more clearly in hidsight).
Does the poll question really make it clear which is which?
There is one big difference between the birthers and the truthers - For the birthers claim to be true there has to be some sort of mass conspiracy. After all, Hawaiian officials have already said they saw the original birth certificate with their own eyes - so if Obama wasn't born in Hawaii then you have to believe there is some massive coverup involving the state of Hawaii.
However, all that needs to be true for the truthers claim is that Bush had some information about an impending attack by Al Qaeda like, I dunno, a document titled Al Qaeda determined to attack on US Soil, that he chose not to take seriously enough. Sort of like a bunch of people chose not to take seriously the scientists who warned about the weak levies in New Orleans before Katrina. Now of course some truthers go too far and claim that Bush let the attack happen for political reasons and THAT part is crazy, but to say that Bush ignored warning signs because he was careless is not at all crazy given his carelessness over a lot of other things as well. Unlike the birther claims, it doesn't require a conspiracy, just carelessness.
It is not in contention that Bush had, "advance knowledge" of the attacks. The President's Daily Briefing of August 6, 2001 stated that Bin Laden was determined to strike in the US. The memo was released officially by the White House, Bush has confirmed he saw it. There's no conspiracy here, that's the official account of events.
This is a very different belief from thinking Bush ignored it willfully, or had something to do with planning or executing the attacks.
In short, the "advanced knowledge" poll question does not identify truthers.
Nosimplehiway,
Don't forget one of the most widely known octoroons at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century - Willie Piazza, one of the richest madams, and richest persons, in New Orleans.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
I have a niece, born and raised in the USA, who now lives in Tanzania. She's so close to the Kenyan border that, when pregnant with both of her children, she had her pre-natal checkups in Nairobi. But when the time came to give birth, she went to Italy (her husband's home country) for the first child and the USA for the second. In both cases, the inconvenience and expense of doing this was considerable, but she did it anyhow.
I think the weakest point in the birthers' arguments -- aside from their lack of any positive evidence that Obama was born in Kenya -- is this: how many American born and raised women do YOU know who would have traveled 6,000 miles to a third world country to bear their first-born child, in 1961 when sanitation in Kenya was worse than it is today? And when they had the obvious option of having that child right where they lived?
It simply doesn't add up.
While I don't believe the Bush Administration had advance knowledge of all the specifics of the eventual terrorist conspiracy that unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001, I do believe that different government agencies did have enough information to have prevented the attacks and did not. That lack of prevention was somewhat willful, in that Clinton Administration transition officials warned Bush Administration transition officials that Al Qaida was an imminent threat - as did the CIA - and they refused to pay attention, partly BECAUSE the Clinton Administration was advocating that they do so.
I prefer to attribute the Bush Administration's calamitous failure to gross incompetence and pigheadedness (such as way later shown in the reaction to Katrina), rather than something worse. I don't think for a second that Bush was smart enough to have advance knowledge of any more than a fragmentary nature, but it is obvious to me that, had the good agents in the NSA, FBI, CIA, FAA, Customs, and other agencies been paid attention to, instead of ignored and subsequently fired (remember Sibel Edwards?), the attacks could have been prevented. Add the fact that those most responsible for ignoring good information (most obviously, Condoleeza Rice, but there were a whole bunch) were promoted and decorated, and there is room for a great deal of suspicion that the Bush Administration were at least accessories after the fact.
I don't think these remarks make me a "truther," but I do think there is considerable room for doubt on just what different Bush Administration officials knew and when they knew it.
Proving where, when, and to whom President Obama was born does not require access to secret information and is very cut and dried.
wv: opina
@ Mike
Thanks for mentioning Willie Piazza, Mike, she led an extraordinary life, as a free creole of color and as a businesswoman. Notice though, that she used the nickname "Countess", emphasizing an exotic flavor. That, and her chosen business of prostitution, made her less threatening to the white establishment, which would have been much more reluctant to tolerate a plain, old black girl running, say, an import/export business or a department store. Her exotic-ness (and her 7/8ths white heritage) allowed people to disassociate her from other African-Americans and therefore allow her her achievements, without having to examine the racist system as a whole. The same process is at work with birthers and Obama.
Preposterous comparison - while you can lump all "birthers' since it is a simple, you do or you don't beleive our President is an American, there exist a variety of 9/11 'theories', all noting a plethora of inconsistencies, all suggesting different degrees of involvement by an 'inside' team.
There is one aspect of the event that is illustrated by a competent group of engineers and architectural professionals, it is not dead in the water, and it will not go away - the proof of demolition. http://www.ae911truth.org/
That may be the only saving grace for the 'truthers' - I see none for the birth bone heads.
As far as "advanced knowledge" goes - if someone sent you a note saying "I am going to kill x" would you say you had advance knowledge or would it take a note saying "I am going to kill x on Saturday at 10am across the street from the book store with a sledgehammer"?
And as for the comments that it is insulting to suggest that gosh, little ol' Georgie Bush would never, ever be responsible for a conspiracy that lead to the death of 3000 Americans - just what, exactly, do you think 4330 dead soldiers brought to you by the lies about Iraq is, other than a wide spread conspiracy, with media involvement, perpetrated on the American people and the world that has resulted in dead Americans? Do you deny that such a conspiracy took place? That it lead to more than 3000 American deaths and many more injuries? Please explain how that was not a conspiracy. Please explain how world hegemony schemes are never put into action if our leaders think that their plans might end up killing some Americans?
Please people, to think the Bush administration is smart enough to pull off anything is laughable.
Fred said...
Please people, to think the Bush administration is smart enough to pull off anything is laughable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So true lol as Bush continues to look for those wmd's under his desk.
But hey, many are still looking for the bushy haired man behind the grassy knoll ~ and the band played on ...
ciao
The Bush admin was anything but laughable - too many underestimated the capacity of W and his minions for deceit, deception and lies - they wrote their own history.
There seems to be a lot of evidence out there regarding the 911 "attacks"
“Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident”
Arthur Schopenhauer quotes (German Philosopher, 1788-1860)
Do I believe that little shrub was aware of, and thus directly responsible for, the WTC attack?
Not really. Little shrub, IMO, wasn't capable of putting 2 + 2 together, let alone taking clues and devining a bigger message from those clues.
Sort of like the person with a 1,000 piece jig-saw puzzle, and not taking into consideration the shapes, colors and patterns to put the puzzle together, but just randomly picking up a piece here and a piece there, not even looking for pieces that might fit together, and seeing if they mate up. If not, throwing those two pieces back into the pile and randomly pulling two more pieces out, and taking a single stab at fitting them together. If done for a long enough period of time, random chance will eventually mean two pieces will be drawn that do match, but it will take a very long time to finish the puzzle doing it in that manner.
IMO, 9/11 was a lot like murder vs. manslaughter - one is the intentional killing of another person, the other is not taking care to prevent the death of another person.
So where am I on the 'Truther' scale?
It is also not just the people in the little shrub administration who might be considered as having allowed manslaughter - it is the entire philosophy of the 'business knows best, and does the best job when unregulated' crowd.
In the 1970s and 1980s, when the terrorists first started hijacking airplanes, there were proposals to order the airlines to beef up the security of the cockpits, starting at and with the cockpit door. The airlines fought those proposals tooth and nail - they claimed that it would cost money to do that, and add weight to the airplane, thus costing more fuel. Those measures would hit the airlines quarterly bottom line profits! The HORROR is the government allowing that to happen!
The airlines won that argument in the 1980s. Their intransigence came back to bite them in the posterior, though, in 2001, when the hijackers waltzed into the cockpit of four airliners, killed the flight crew and took over the planes.
Short-sighted, maniacal concentration on the quarterly bottom line by the airlines was a major factor in the relative ease in which the attacks were able to be accomplished. And who aided and abetted the airlines defeat the proposed regulations on beefing up cockpit security?
The usual suspects - big business favoring, "NO! to all regulation", GOOPers.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
Nobody died in the birth that birthers deny.
A politician who denies Obama's domestic birth doesn't offend anyone other than his dead mother. Ditto for media.
A politician who trvializes 9/11 has to face the wrath of tens of thousands of survivors and victim relatives.
A media outledd who does so has to then turn around and sell ad space to NYC-based advertising firms that were only a few miles north of the Towers when they came down.
The consequences of promoting the two positions is totally different.
HEY NATE!! CHRIS MATTEWS STOLE YOUR IDEA. HE MENTIONED THE EXACT SAME THING ON HIS "TONIGHT'S BIG NUMBER" BIT!!!!
Chuck said...
Nobody died in the birth that birthers deny.
The concepts of intelligence, thinking about things in a logical manner, determining facts from fiction, respect for the political process, etc., etc., etc. dies every time the birther wingnuts scream their insanity.
In the 1920s and 1930s, there was a country whose leadership derided the concepts of intelligence, thinking about things in a logical manner, determining facts from fiction, respect for the political process, etc., etc., etc. at the behest of it's leading political party. Because of that, an estimated 61 to 77 million people died in the war caused by the denial of those concepts, including an attempt to wipe out an entire ethnic group.
So don't tell me that no one died as a direct result of people denying the concepts of intelligence, thinking about things in a logical manner, determining facts from fiction, respect for the political process, etc., etc., etc.
Nazi Germany is proof that insanity can and does lead directly to death.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
Chuck@
There are three main reasons why people find the birthers more disturbing than the truthers:
1) The birther theory, unlike the truther theory, has distinct racial overtones. While there are anti-Semitic versions of trutherism, it is mostly a paranoid fantasy about government corruption (which does exist, and does lead to the deaths of many, as in the Iraq War), and therefore nowhere near as offensive as the thinly disguised racism underlying the birthers who depict the first black president as scary and un-American.
2) The whole tone of the birther movement is one of murderous hatred to the point of fomenting insurrection. Look, for example, at this video of Alan Keyes, who openly calls for the military to refuse to obey the President, and comes about as close to advocating assassination as he can do without attracting the attention of the feds. Keyes is more explicit about his intentions than most of the prominent birthers, but the overtones are found throughout the entire movement. The rhetoric of the truthers is hysterical and over-the-top, but not, for the most part, tinged with an appeal for violent overthrow of the government.
3) If the birthers were a minor phenomenon ("the three remaining Klanners," as Ann Coulter put it), they might be laughable rather than scary. But when the majority of GOP voters have doubts that Obama was born in the United States, when several Congressman AND a talk-show host who's been dubbed the unofficial "leader" of the Republican Party AND a pundit for a mainstream cable news network make nods to the movement, you know it is something that cannot simply be ignored. I and a few others already corrected Nate earlier in this thread about his contention that no Congressman embraced trutherism (Cynthia McKinney did), but it was nowhere near as widespread or mainstreamed.
Someone may have commented such by now, forgive me if so, but thankfully you can mark my embarrassment of a Senator (Shelby) off the birther list...
http://blog.al.com/live/2009/07/sen_richard_shelby_now_confide.
one less clown in this particular circus!
Nate, you're one of the best numbers guys in the business. What are the odds that three skyscrapers, randomly damaged by impacts and debris, would fall perfectly into their own footprint? Demolition engineers must work painstakingly to place charges with precision and time them perfectly in order to achieve that effect. I'm not a numbers guy, but I imagine the probability against such an event is extraordinarily high.
On what planet did these buildings "fall perfectly into their own footprint"?
Oh-kay, never mind.
Nate, you're a numbers guy... how can two planes strike two buildings, and knock down three?
Also, one of the most vocal liberals on TV, Bill Maher was anti-Truther, even kicking them out of his studio audience.
Probably the most influential Truther, Alex Jones is closer to being conservative (the older type at least) than liberal.
From someone who didn't want to look into the 9/11 Conspiracy claims, but did so anyway. 9/11 was obviously an inside job. As was the Anthrax case.
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