Posted on 07/28/2009 10:20:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The GOP, reduced to hosting loonies who obsess over Obama’s birthplace, is slipping into the ash heap. The Daily Beast’s John Batchelor on why Republican incoherence may doom the party to the fate of the Whigs.
The romantic yarn that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not in the United States, and is therefore an illegitimate POTUS is the core of a still-evolving conspiracy theory that now explodes like a neutron stink bomb splashing on the right wing while leaving the center and left idly smiling and curious.
What is going on with the despondent Republican Party that it hosts loonies called the birthers in its ranks?
The answer may be that the birther phenomenon is a mutation of a political virus called incoherence. Incoherence is fatal. It killed the Whigs (and led to the creation of the Republicans); it killed the Klan and the American communists. The birther mutation looks to erase what remains of the GOP’s credibility with the electorate, already at an all-time low and still sinking to third- and fourth-party numbers, if there were a third or a fourth party.
In sudden alarm Monday night, 158 House Republicans voted with the Democrats to endorse the self-evident fact that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. No whipping by the GOP leadership was necessary. The House Republicans understood that birtherism has jumped to a pandemic Phase 6, multiple infections in all states, much too late to stop with a quarantine on the Hill.
Already, a handful of House Republican members show signs of succumbing to the symptoms of brain fever—wagging fingers, dry-mouth stammering—by co-sponsoring a bill to require presidential candidates to submit a birth certificate. The primary patient is California Republican John Campbell, who showed tertiary impatience with his triteness on TV when he proposed, “It doesn’t matter if I have doubts or not, OK?”
August recess means that the Hill Republicans must go home to their districts to face the birtherite pod people, and there will be additional farcical confrontations similar to what the chump moderate Republican Rep. Mike Castle faced recently at a town-hall meeting in Delaware, when birthers flourished their birth certificates at him.
The pandemic is out of control, and those who argue cynically that birtherism is being stoked by the media, or fed by the cunning White House political operation to gain sympathy for a panicky presidency, are not examining the peculiar details of the potency of the illness.
This is not a pandemic that spreads only by the airplane, the Internet, or even by word of mouth, because a single exposure to the central whopper is not usually sufficient. Daily reinfection is needed or the disease goes dormant like algebra. Birtherism has found a durable vector, ubiquitous like insects and slippery like long-tailed mammals, in the institution of talk radio and its cable-TV compadre. The boss vectors just now are the burlesque artist Rush Limbaugh—“Barack Obama has yet to prove he’s a citizen”—and Limbaugh’s parasitic rival of bloviation, faux rueful Lou Dobbs: “I don’t know what the reality is. No one does.”
What is also striking about this mutation is that, as a talking vector, you do not need to endorse the birther template that the president was born of an 18-year-old girl who raced to Mombasa in time to deliver in an unnamed setting. You are just as effective a vector if you deny the birtherite creativity, if you produce the Hawaii documents, if you say the magic words “smear” or “tin-foil.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is a fertile source when he uses the briefing room to evince exasperation: “…this question in many ways continues to astound me.” Cable-TV stars such as the giddy Chris Matthews—“The birthers don’t let the facts get in the way”—and the stern Bill O’Reilly—“The Factor investigated it and found out that it’s bogus …”—become like Typhoid Marys, spreading an illness to which they claim immunity. Ratings, anyone?
Grimly, the birther episode is not a media story, or even a story about Barack Obama’s unique youth, but rather it is another illustration of the slow-motion decomposition of the GOP. The party, having lost its principles, its confidence, its courage, and then having lost an election, now experiences what it is to lose its mind, too, while it slips into the ash heap with other novelties.
The conduct of the Republicans in Congress since January has been astonishingly frail, as if the party had lost immunities to race-baiters like Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, to liars like John Ensign and Mark Sanford, to yammerers like Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann, to the goofily vain like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee.
The party has wasted away to the point where opportunistic eruptions like the birthers and much worse are natural sorrows. Republican incoherence didn’t begin with Mombasa. There is logic to the closing down of a great political party that has abandoned its own greatness to cheer on churls. Perhaps what appears terminal cowardice is only venality; perhaps what sounds like a death rattle is only the wrinkled ranting of crones in the Senate; perhaps the polls showing the Republican brand not as well regarded as Drano are just outliers. Perhaps, too, like miscreant HAL 9000, the GOP is warming up to sing, “Daisy, Daisy.”
*******
John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
“My question: can’t anyone find any friends, classmates etc that have any answers to the question, where did Stanley Ann have her baby? “
It’s much much worse than this.
No one can say Stanley was in Hawaii while fully pregnant. There are no nurses, no doctors, no ladies in the next bed, no photographs, no friends, no records of any kind, not a single witness ——— because she wasn’t there!
And the same bizarre scenario applies to many other aspects of his life - his mentor of 8 years is a bisexual deviant with a 699 page FBI file!!!
Coincidence?
His mentor writes a pornographic book about his repeated statutory rape of an underaged girl named “Ann”.
How many girl’s names are there out there? 100? 1000?
So this is just an odd coincidence?
No mother. No father. No grandfather. Can’t talk to Grandmother. No family friends. No ex-girlfriends, not even one! No photos, no ex girl friend photos, no one has come forth, although there is one mysterious white one that he mentioned in the book he supposedly wrote ... about how he threw her away cuz she was white.
All Muslim roommates.
And ... Did you see that the politician Alice Palmer, to whom he was chief of staff in Chicago, attended the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and had been greatly impressed by the Soviet system?
She made many statements explaining how wonderful Russia was and not at all evil like White America, which specialized, according to her, in giving blacks second tier education (!) and second grade citizen status.
Read for yourself at :
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2325
Don’t you think it odd that he is a Chief of Staff to a Moscow visiting politician?
Do you know a single other politician in all of America who goes to Moscow to attend Party Congresses???
What, you don’t know one?
Out of thousands?
And this is the one he chose to work for ???
What does that tell you??? (Alan Keyes knew what it meant, and said so)?
And when he had her disqualified from re-election by having 70% of her qualifying signatures disqualified ... she never made a peep.
And to this day still doesn’t make a peep, or even a comment?
Can you say “Party Discipline” ???
Self-evident? It's true because the Obamessiah said so?
Self-deluding fool. I suppose he still thinks the Democrats are loyal opposition. There's precious little in politics these days that is self-evident, other than that Hillary is incompetent, and Obama is arrogant, and moderate Republicans are self-deluding Pollyannas.
” You are accepting hearsay, claims, and conjecture as evidence, and this is what makes your posts draw so much fire.”
LOL, get serious. The BIRTHERS are accepting hearsay, claims, and conjecture as evidence, and then rejecting more solid, on the record evidence. A great example is the newspaper announcement. This is ‘waved away’ because of a 2nd hand report of a neighbor saying something the WND reporter about not remembering seeing them around 47 years ago.
Not to mention the phony report of ‘grandma says he was born in Kenya’ (nope, that was just bad reporting).
And you accuse *ME* of accepting ‘hearsay’!?!? Dont you see the double-standard? Physician heal thyself!
“We who are asking Mr. Obama to come clean with his past are making a very simple and legitimate request”
... so long as you admit that Obama was probably born in Honolulu just as the Aug 13th 1961 newspaper announcement seems to show, you are on solid ground. I’m with you.
BUT once you launch into these innocent-until-proven-guilty theories (”hes hiding it because his real Dad is Frank Davi Marshall and other BS) and suggest he HAS to have something horrible to hide (nope, maybe BHO just wants to hide it to P888 you off) and make false claims like “The COLB is a proven forgery” (no its not, nothing of the sort has been proven), you are outside that solid ground.
You are throwing junk out there to muddy the waters. Excuse me if I call BS on BS.
I too would like a lot more real information about Obama and not the Obamedia BS protection zone. But wanting more information doesnt mean I will automatically assume the worst and most bizarre assumptions about how he was born. He was almost certainly born in Honolulu.
“The original BC says his birthplace is Honolulu. In order to collect on the bet it needs to be revealed and say otherwise.”
“You’ve seen the original?? I seriously doubt that.”
No I havent seen the original. That’s why its an honest bet. I’ve calculated the odds at 99.999% Obama was really born in Hawaii and that is what his original birth cert will show, and 1 in a million odds that some variation of the birther conspiracy theory is true. Loong odds.
” What you MAY have seen was a computer generated forgery posted on an Obama supporting website.”
There was not forgery of the COLB. That is your false supposition and conclusion. The COLB has now been corroborated by the State of Hawaii official’s statement that Obama’s records show him born in Hawaii, we now have the cert # lining up very closely with babies born the day after Obama - just what you’d expect; and if you look at other COLB forms done in 2007, they look exactly the same as Obama’s COLB (so we know that at least any such forgery is not some crude one); also, I’d note that the COLB photographs clearly show that the COLB is a real physical document:
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_2.jpg
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_3.jpg
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_4.jpg
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_5.jpg
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_6.jpg
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_7.jpg
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_8.jpg
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_9.jpg
If the above photographed COLB is not a forgery, then we know *exactly* what is in Obama’s state of Hawaii records, its right there on the COLB.
“This is easily resolved-—have the Hawaii Secretary of Public Health (or whatever his relevant title is), testify UNDER OATH that he has seen the original and it says Obama was born in Hawaii.”
You have gotten a public statement from that official, Dr Chiyome Fukino of state of Hawaii records office: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/27/AR2009072703114.html
“I ... have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen,” Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino
“A notarized statement will do quite nicely.”
Sure, but this public official put their professional credibility on the line and made it public.
” Until something like that is done, legitimate doubt remains.”
Not really. Doubt remains, but I question the legitimacy of it when there are corroborating facts that align with the official’s statement and no credible alternative scenario regarding BHO’s birth.
No, I would say the reason for his falling poll numbers are as follows:
The economy is worse now than when he took over
Cap and Trade
Gates incident
Healthcare “reform”
Apologizing for USA actions abroad at every turn
ETc, etc
His falling poll numbers have absolutely NOTHING to do with a birth certificate.
Well, he’s been around....did an unbelievable job covering 9-11 as his show was out of New York and started 3 days before 9-11 happened.
When his show was taken off the air on ABC, many Freepers were quite upset, including me.
But he’s a jerk because he agrees with Coulter, American Spectator, American Thinker, Hot Air Pundit, etc? Brilliant (eyes rolling).
Here’s just one of 100’s (if not 1000’s) of examples of Freepers supporting what Batchelor says but of course when he says something that rubs you the wrong way, well he’s a jerk. Everything is so absolute with some people here.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2081974/posts
Maybe she should get her statement notarized, as according to this, she probably viewed the records as part of a lawsuit preparation:
http://www.pr-inside.com/hawai-i-health-director-dr-chiyome-fukino-r893490.htm
“A Hawai’i COLB is only one piece of paper in a complicated evidentiary inquiry involving Obama. No one outside two people from the Hawai’i Department of Health has apparently viewed the original 1961 document. Neither of them has any forensic or legal experience. Health Director Chiyome Fukino is a medical doctor.
She probably dug out the original COLB because the Attorney General of Hawai’i asked her to. Does that make sense? Absolutely it does. After all, his office has to appear at a court hearing in two weeks and respond to my lawsuit. That is the way lawsuits progress. Lawyers (AG) consult clients (DofH) and ask for evidence to prepare for court.”
I get the argument and defending the Constitution is a must. Seems to me, however, he has met the Constitutional requirements or he wouldn’t have been certified in 50 states plus Puerto Rico, Guam, etc....nor would he be sworn in under oath by the SCOTUS.
Maybe we should go after the Chief Justice next and have him impeached because he didn’t properly vet if the man was a citizen? /sarcasm
He called himself a Blue Dog? Interesting, because on his website and everywhere else he clearly lists himself as a Republican and a conservative. Is there such thing as a Blue Dog Republican? :)
Why did Ann Coulter say the same thing as Batchelor?
That’s not the author’s real name.
;)
That's flat-out untrue (and I did notice how you capitalized the word "birthers").
You, with your fingers in your ears, don't seem to notice that the Birthers are doing the exact OPPOSITE of what you accuse us of. We are NOT accepting hearsay, claims, and conjecture as evidence, as those on the left are doing.
The ENTIRE thrust of the so-called birther movement is to compel Obama and his minions to release factual evidence and verifiable documentation about this enigma's provenance and life history.
To date, all that Obama has released to the public are jpeg images of questionable origin and authenticity. He has not once submitted the most standard of personal documents to any court, qualified experts, or the US Congress for verification of his claims to eligibility.
Worse still, he has so far been tone-deaf to calls from the American people to do this very simple thing. He has steadfastly ignored every request to simply end the speculation by providing documents that every American citizen must provide in the due course of conducting their normal lives.
In fact, his attorneys have beat back every single court challenge to compel him to do this. If he is what he and his supporters say he is, then this behavior is inexplicable at best, and proves that he is indeed a fraud, at worst.
Until we see some hard evidence of Obama's eligibility to hold office, we'll have to work with circumstantial evidence, logic, and reason.
I tell you, it's real hubris to call people unreasonable and "nutty" for simply demanding solid evidence and truth on an issue of such basic importance. Especially when that evidence can be tendered with no effort whatsoever.
No - all of the effort being expended by the Obama camp and his supporters is to hide and withhold this vital data.
This is the glaring light in your face that you've closed your eyes to.
Let’s examine your reasoning. You assert that because he signed sworn affidavits in the 50 states that he was Constitutionally eligible, he must be eligible. But by another act to sign onto the McCain Senate resolution which stated clearly why McCain was considered a natural born ciutizen, yet by Obama’s own words, having a father who was a British subject and never an American citizen, Obama doesn’t meet the level of qualification he agreed was necessary for McCain to be eligible!
Can I just call him a nut then?
I detest Obama, but he is a natural born American citizen. I would guess that if the Obamaniacs produced the “long” form of his birth certificate, the birthers would call that a forgery. Nothing seems to sway them. They have no proof on their side that he was born outside the U.S., and the anti-birthers have a number of pieces of evidence....and logic on their ide. So you think the birthers would acknowledge the facts? Of course not, much better to keep the conspiracy alive.
There are only two ways her testimony means anything at all. One is a notarized document of testimony, the other is her verbal testimony, UNDER OATH, at a court proceeding. Outside of those two cases, anything she says means exactly nothing. I’d make a small wager that if she were asked to do such a notarized document that you would see more backpedalling than a land-stranded crawfish.
No, I actually said that he was certified in all 50 states, meaning that the Sec. of State of each of those states said he was legitimate in terms of meeting the requirements. Many of those states are Republican controlled. If those Sec. of States certified him (i.e...let him on the ballot) then by default the gov’t of those states found no reason not make him eligible for the presidency.
It seems rather odd to me that all 50 states would be duped since this whole “birther” thing has been going on for 2.5 years, plenty of time in advance of the general election.
Why was he certified on the ballot to be elected if he didn’t meet the criteria?
I keep coming back if the shoe was on the other foot and the libs were saying this about Bush or whatever Republican was in office, we would all call them completely crazy. So why is it any different when the shoe is on our foot?
Even so, his calling Rush a race-baiter (of all things!) makes me want to ask, “In what alternate universe has *he* been floating?”
BTW, I first heard him during the blue dress period, in late night guest appearances with Steve Malzberg, when the latter had an overnight show on WABC. At that time, Batchelor did historical stuff regarding impeachment, and the like. He was RIVETING! Unfortunately, he sure turned out to be a huge disappointment.
I noticed the same thing. All the third, fourth, and fifth tier hosts are providing cover for Obama. I wonder who is paying them... Who is in charge?
When did our guys get coopted by the bad guys? They’re attacking their own party.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
