Posted on 07/28/2009 10:22:30 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
In 2005, when I was working as a speechwriter in the South African parliament, a far-left faction of the ruling African National Congress spun a yarn that accused the leader of the opposition, the intelligence minister, and the Mossad of colluding to frame Jacob Zuma, the faction's chosen presidential candidate.
Intelligence agents loyal to Zuma bugged the opposition's parliamentary offices and produced a bogus document that they claimed was a transcript of Internet chats between Zuma's supposed opponents.
It was all nonsense, but the conspiracy theory galvanized Zuma's supporters, who soon pushed him to the top of the ruling party and the country, trampling the rule of law in the process.
Here in the United States, the conspiracy theory that alleges that President Barack Obama faked his American birth is likewise troubling. Rather than propelling Republicans to power, however, the "Birther" theory is being used by Democrats and their media allies to isolate and undermine the opposition.
Though some of the wonderful "facts" people have been led to believe about Obama are demonstrably untrue (he is still often referred to, for example, as a former "law professor"), the fact of his American birth is not one of them.
The test is not simply whether there are doubts, but whether those doubts are reasonable. That is a test the Birther theory failed long ago. Perhaps its proponents ought to have had their day in court, but that probably would not have helped their cause, nor convinced the most determined among them to abandon it.
The media has cast Birtherism as a conservative phenomenon -- and it is fast spreading among conservative activists -- but it was originally a Democrat obsession. The most prominent Birther, Philip J. Berg, is a Democrat who backed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary. Other rumors, such as the infamous and non-existent Michelle Obama "‘whitey' tape," were also weapons in the Democrats' internal struggle.
In the same vein, left-wing pundits claim the Birther thesis reveals latent racism in the Republican Party. But it was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who made race an issue in the 2008 campaign. From the Obama campaign's charges that Hillary Clinton was the Senator from Punjab, to the Clinton campaign's leaking of a photo of Obama in Somali garb, right up through Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" comment and the whole Jeremiah Wright affair, it was the left that remained obsessed with race and identity politics.
The Birther theory is likewise an artifact of left-wing squabbles. Conservatives who are tempted by the Birther theory should ask themselves why the mainstream media is now so interested in the story when they were so reluctant to give any attention to the allegations during the 2008 campaign (when, if true, they might have made a difference).
It's not because there is any fresh evidence to support the Birther thesis, but because the Birther thesis has again become politically useful to the left.
Since Obama took office in January, his supporters have sought to entrench his power by creating controversy around one conservative after another. The first target was Rush Limbaugh, whom Obama himself singled out. Then they revived the smear campaign against Sarah Palin. The Birther controversy is the latest incarnation of this strategy, which aims to taint all Republicans by association with a discredited libel.
And too many conservatives have been eager to take the bait.
There are two reasons why so many find the Birther theory compelling. One is the opaqueness of Obama himself. There is much about our president we still do not know.
For example, throughout 2008 the media showed little interest in Obama's connections to the underworld of Chicago politics, regarding Hillary Clinton's references to fraudster "slumlord" Tony Rezko as mere fear-mongering. When the Blagojevich scandal exploded in December 2008, many journalists were quick to accept Obama's assurances of innocent naïveté.
Other details about the president's past remain hidden or suppressed. Obama has never, for example, provided a convincing explanation of why he disposed of his papers from the Illinois State Senate, or how he managed to lose the thesis he wrote at Columbia. He sometimes fibs about essential details of his personal life -- such as where he met his wife -- and offers inauthentic projections of empathy with ordinary folk, such as references to arugula or memories of "Cominskey Field."
The Obama team also has a habit of releasing information in cryptic drips and drabs, and Friday-afternoon document drops. During the campaign, he suddenly revealed that he had taken a trip to Pakistan in 1981 -- a voyage he had not alluded to in either of his two memoirs -- and his staff only belatedly acknowledged his authorship of an unsigned Harvard Law Review article on abortion.
The candidate who promised transparency has been anything but transparent, feeding the suspicion that drives the Birther theory.
The other reason the Birther theory has caught on -- particularly among conservatives -- is the weakness of the Republican opposition.
Despite the GOP's success in slowing down ObamaCare, Democrats still have a huge majority in the House, a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate, and a White House that is aggressively expanding its executive power. One Republican leader after another has stepped down or been tarnished by scandal.
Many Americans -- including some who had convinced themselves that Obama was a moderate -- are eager for a way to stop the runaway left-wing agenda of Obama and Nancy Pelosi's Congress. In the absence of strong Republican leadership, some find the Birther theory a compelling, if desperate, solution.
Yet it is ultimately a self-destructive one -- not just because it is almost certainly false, but because it contradicts the essential spirit of the conservative movement.
The philosopher Robert Nozick distinguished between two approaches to political thought: the "invisible hand" and the "hidden hand." Those who embrace the "invisible hand" believe that people, given the freedom to make their own choices, tend to achieve social goals without being forced to do so.
Sometimes the invisible hand fails, and strong central leadership is needed. But as a general rule, free markets and civil liberties have worked well in promoting human progress. They have certainly proved better than the alternative, in the form of state control, which has produced only poverty, war, and misery.
"Hidden hand" thinkers, by contrast, believe that everything is controlled by unseen forces -- not spiritual but human in nature. Socialism thrives on such ideas, including the notion that big business is constantly manipulating all of us to feed its insatiable greed -- an idea that Obama and much of his left-wing base subscribes to quite openly. In fact, socialism depends on conspiracy theories to justify its war against personal liberty, to blame for its inevitable failures, and to cover up its own very real machinations.
The real "conspiracy" in American politics is the way in which special interest groups loyal to Obama now have unfettered access to power and public money. The unions that ran themselves to the brink of insolvency by giving millions of dollars to Obama and the Democrats, for instance, are being handed taxpayer bailouts and huge shares in companies newly acquired by our rapidly-expanding government, the better to begin the cycle anew.
The answer is to expose this corruption, to fight for policies consistent with American values of freedom, and to win elections again -- not to waste time and resources on political alchemy.
The Birther theory is, in effect if not in intent, a gift to the Obama administration, bequeathed by the indignant rump of the Clinton effort and now deployed against the Republican opposition. It is also deeply corrosive of the spirit of liberty that conservatives bring to American politics.
That is why conservatives and Republicans should reject it -- and dismiss with contempt the media's effort to hang it around our collective necks. There is enough in this administration to oppose on the merits -- or lack thereof.
Do you honestly believe Obama feels threatened for a second by the BC issue? If so, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Unfortunately, I think they were very effective against Bush, especially in relation to the politics of personal destruction.
The “no blood for oil” meme was something I started to hear even from [misinformed] Republicans.
We lost the senate and the house and then the oval office so I think they did pretty well with memes and mantras of paranoia and division.
I know lots of otherwise sane and rational people who *still* believe that “9/11 was an inside job” crap.
I wish it weren’t so but now here we sit with an Alinsky disciple ruling the country.
Keep compromising. You seem to be pretty good at it.
Our Constitution means more to me than a sliding GOP and the sinking of the RATS!!
Are we to cave in like the rest of them, including Rinos and the judicial system, HELL NO!!!
And finally, I think our U.S. Armed Forces are listening closely???
By Joel B. Pollak
Teaching Arabic and Propaganda
My class watched three movies this semester, all with political themes. One was "West Beirut," which cast Christians as the prime bad guys in Lebanon's civil war (though, to be fair, there was plenty of hatred all around). Another was "The Tale of Three Jewels," an allegorical film about Palestinian nationalism that portrayed Israeli soldiers as bloodthirsty child-killers.
The third movie, "Destiny," told the story of the great medieval Islamic philosopher Averroes and his struggles against Islamic religious fundamentalism. It was a bit more nuanced than the first two. But the film omitted the fact that it was only through the Hebrew transcription of Averroes's writings by Jewish scholars in Egypt that his works were preserved for posterity.
William Buckley???
Any questions???
If he was registered as foreign student (???) Question is, how did he get a U.S. Passport???
At what, pray tell, makes you think he was "registered as foreign student" (whatever that means)?
Pure BS.
The “no blood for oil” meme was something I started to hear even from [misinformed] Republicans.
Talk about behind the curve! That was the left's slogan in the first gulf war. It was barely even used during the second.
We lost the senate and the house and then the oval office so I think they did pretty well with memes and mantras of paranoia and division.
The left mouthed mantras of paranoia since 2000. It did them no good in the 2002 and 2004 elections. We lost Congress in the 2006 election because the Iraq war was going badly. We lost the presidency in 2008 because of the financial crisis and recession.
If you think the left's paranoid mantras convinced any voter who was not already a die-hard leftist, then you are an idiot.
I know lots of otherwise sane and rational people who *still* believe that “9/11 was an inside job” crap.
Yeah, and I'll wager that every single one of them is either a die-hard lefty who will never vote Republican in his life, or an ideological purist with a habit of wasting his vote on third party candidates.
I wish it weren’t so but now here we sit with an Alinsky disciple ruling the country.
Every conspiracy theorist needs a boogeyman. Alinsky seems to the the one of choice for birthers.
Junior now runs National Review. He's the demon seed of the old man.
Two possible Hawaiian hospitals have been publicly mentioned, but I have seen no official documentation that confirms either as the birth hospital. I have seen no names, officially confirmed or unofficially speculated, for the doctor or midwife who delivered him.
To my knowledge it is not known why this basic information has not been released to the public.
We do not know whether or not the primary source document behind his released Certification of Live Birth (assuming it is legitimate) was a long form Certificate of Live Birth, a Certificate of Delayed Birth, or something else. Nor are we certain that such a primary document still exists.
You may be a bit behind on this issue, but at least you are starting to ask the right questions.
For what other reasons would seal these school records???
You can't be serious. Someone really lacks imagination, I see. Off the top of my head, I can think of several highly plausible reasons:
1) Bad grades.
2) Disciplinary problems that could embarass him.
3) Evidence he was a beneficiary of affirmative action.
4) By keeping them sealed, he encourages idiot conspiracy theorists like you, who then make the entire opposition look stupid.
Neither he nor any member of his family has mentioned any hospital other Kapiolani.
We do not know whether or not the primary source document behind his released Certification of Live Birth (assuming it is legitimate) was a long form Certificate of Live Birth, a Certificate of Delayed Birth, or something else.
Yes we do. Certificates of delayed birth are only issued if applied for one year or more after the fact. The information on his COLB clearly shows his certificate was filed with the registrar within 4 days of his birth. Therefore, a long-form certificate of live birth must be the source document.
btt
Except for that April Fool's Day e-mail that so many fell for, there is no evidence whatsoever that Obama ever registered as a foreign student and there in no evidence that he has used anything except for a U.S. Passport.
I agree with you...and just recently, I have been confused by Coulter’s response, as I have been a real fan of hers. But, in times like these, I can’t help but question whether these hard times are not “FUEL” for those who only wish to write and sell books-——knowwhadimean? We’re all glued to the FoxNews tube and, honestly, much of what they “hawk” is books written by other “conservatives” that they have on their shows. I’m beginning to think that THEY are using the ‘crisis” to make money, as well, with little concern for the damage that is being done to the regular Joe that no publishing company would publish, if, indeed, he wanted to publish a conservative book.
Google publishers Regency (sp? Coulter’s and Malkin’s and other conservative writers’ publishers) and you’ll find that they won’t publish anyone who doesn’t have an already recognizable “name” OR agent.
Keep up the “birther” fight-—there’s something there that EVERYONE wants hidden, until the time is ripe.....for THEM!!! The rest of us that believe that there is info being hidden on purpose, will not stop, until true transparency is seen.
They won big. This is why they tell lies. Of course we will tell only the truth about them ~ those filthy child molesting pigs,
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