The Romney Birth Certificate Joke

Romney’s birth certificate joke is incredible because it works on so many levels. Ann Althouse says:

Romney is saying — in so many words — I'm more truly and fundamentally American than Barack Obama. And the implication is: I want you to think about the ways that Obama hasn't fully embraced American values of freedom, capitalism, etc. etc.

Glenn Reynolds tweeted: "Romney joke not about birth cert. Way of reminding people of Obama's post-American approach to presidency. Will work."

The MSM is believes it’s a gaffe. Jan Crawford of CBS: "At Romney event, two reactions to his birth certificate joke: reporters gasped--and a crowd of thousands laughed and cheered."

Last night on FOX’s Special Report the liberal columnist for the Washington Post, Charles Lane, called it “tasteless,” “awkward” and an “unforced error.” ...

Lane apparently feels that there’s nothing funny about Barack Obama. He told Romney to play nice, leaving the jokes, mudslinging, distortions, lies and to the Obama camp (although he will never characterize them as that). They are so dim that they may think that Romney tried to appeal to the “Birthers.” That’s the problem with the MSM, they think they’re sophisticates, but they are not. They fall for bumper sticker slogans and the Cro-Magnon-crude political lies of the Democrats. You have to be stupid to do that, and their acceptance of it is proof.

And keep in mind that until he decided to run for President, Obama claimed to have been born in Kenya. ...

Question for Charles Lanes: was this just an unforced error? Or was it the sort of claim that Elizabeth Warren made to appear more "authentic" or exotic? This bio was around for 15 years even as Obama was collecting millions in royalties from his semi-fictional books. Awkward, isn't it? The MSM knows what to do with Obama's awkward gaffes: it ignores them. Oh, that's just Obama being Obama .... moving on.

Romney is reinforcing many people’s feeling that Obama really isn’t “American” in the same way that even many immigrants who came to America quickly became assimilated. They believed in America’s freedoms, its promise for a bright future, its exceptionalism. Obama doesn’t believe that America is special. He has said as much. In fact, he believes that America is fundamentally flawed and it is his destiny to change America in a such a way that people born a century ago would not recognize it, and people born a century from now would despise the way we were.

However, when Romney says something in the form of a joke...there is huge outrage."

The Liberals in the press believe in a pattern. The pattern is that Democrats are allowed to say anything and Republicans are supposed to shut up and take it. Democrats can kick you in the b*lls and if you are a Republican you have to ignore it, and if you complain they tell you to stop whining. Mitt Romney threw a jab (it wasn’t a joke, it was a jab) and the press is shocked! This is not how Republicans are supposed to act! Well, guess what, the press had better get used to it. Of course they won’t because they are the print and broadcast arm of the Democrat party, but it’s going to be fun to watch them spit and foam at the mouth.

In 1996, Barbara Bush spoke at the RNC convention, introducing her husband, the former President. In her short speech, she said that he was a good, moral, ethical man.

She was excoriated by the liberal press. Why? Because, by saying her husband was a GOOD man, she was implying that Bill Clinton was not. And so, she was “attacking” and “going negative”, which was “beneath” the dignity of a former first lady.

So, the rule was, you can’t say anything nice about your own husband, if people might contrast that to what they think about someone else.

That is what is happening here. Romney said NOTHING about Obama. He made a perfectly factual point — that he was where he was born, and that people knew he was born there, there were records and people who would remember and could speak to it.

It’s not Romney’s fault that none of that seems to be true about Obama. Obama, who refuses to actually release his birth certificate, who instead spent months hiding it and them submitted records OF those records in a way that, at best, made it look like they were fraudulent. A man for whom nobody seems to remember his past, a man who wrote in his own autobiography in a way that suggested he was born on foreign soil, but who then gets mad if people quote him.

Romney’s no birther. But Obama’s no capitalist, and yet he makes jokes like he is all the time. It’s not racist to suggest that Obama hasn’t proven his state of birth — it has nothing to do with his race. If Obama was white, the SAME questions would be raised.

I know that, because IN FACT Obama IS white. At least, he is exactly as white as he is black. His mother was white, and she is the one who was there to raise him when his black father left. She is the one who actually gave birth in some hospital, so we are talking about a white woman giving birth somewhere and getting a birth certificate for her son, the son of a white woman.

It’s not about race, it’s about his inability to tell the truth, his inability to be open and honest and to provide useful information.

Finally, the Republicans are starting to face up to what they should have addressed in 2008. That Obama is really only an An Accidental American. The fact that almost no one was willing to discuss the fact on the Federal political stage, reflects the damage that the absurd cult of "political correctness" has already wrought on the American perception.

A community, tribe or nation is a multi-generational concept. It is not a game of musical chairs.

William Flax

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