Posted on 08/04/2009 11:41:38 AM PDT by steve-b
Journalist are often sent to places — a war zone, a natural disaster, or a crime-ridden slum — that are physically scary. Those assignments routinely win prizes.
Sometimes they may be asked to cover a story that is intellectually scary. Those assignments are less dramatic but can reveal more about human nature.
Perhaps the most intellectually scary assignment I have had in recent years was to cover a meeting of the so-called "9/11 Truth Movement" in the East Village, New York.
This gruesome assortment of conspiracy theorists insists that the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001 were an inside job.
It is easy to mock this deluded gang of ageing hippies, anarchists and anti-Semites.....
America is now again witnessing the advent of a crackpot movement in the so-called "Birthers".
This group insists, despite ample evidence to the contrary, including a birth certificate and two contemporaneous birth announcements in Honolulu newspapers, that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore constitutionally ineligible to serve as President....
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Reminds me of a saying: “Beware the wrath of a quiet man.”
We should all be locked up. Can’t have crazies running all over the place expecting the transparency we were promised.
Lessee, in 3 counties in England, female police officers were instructed to dress as muslims for a day so they would know what it is like to be muslim (say what!??).
And, this idiot writing for the Times is afraid of US!!???? FOOL!! You got more to worry about in your own backyard than you do 3,000 miles across the pond!!!
That's true, but those trying to debunk birthers with equally spurious "facts" aren't doing much to move the argument along, as in this gem:
For the "Birthers," it is the fact that the 2007 Hawaii birth certificate released by the Obama campaign last year was not the 1961 original. (FactCheck.org has examined the original 1961 birth certificate and says it has a raised official seal.)
FactCheck, as we all know, "examined" the same certification "released by the Obama campaign" that is "not the 1961 original."
Let me re-phrase that for any lurking debunkers in the media who aren't up to speed: the Certification of Live Birth posted on the internet by the Barack Obama campaign is not the "original" birth certificate. It is an abstract of limited information derived from the original birth certificate, but does not contain all the information on the original certificate. FactCheck examined the same "extract" posted on the internet -- not the original.
If I were a columnist (I hesitate to say journalist), such as this one, who didn't have an elementary grasp of the facts, I'd stay out of the debate. There's way too much useless static, on both sides.
Steve, you forgot the “barf alert” or “satire” header.
I like facts, and can be persuaded by facts, hence I don’t like reporters like this guy who lost me as a reader when he said there is ample evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii. No, there’s only a COLB and, as we all know (so does Steve-b) that there are four ways to get one of these COLB’s and one of the four ways only requires someone to call it on on the phone.
Like I said, I like facts and facts can be mighty persuasive. Mockery only makes me want to know more of the facts.
I gave up trying to reply rationally in these threads before the inauguration. But let me try one more time.
Let’s say Obama really was born in Kenya. His mother was only 18, and thus could not confer citizenship at birth on him because she couldn’t satisfy the statute in effect at the time, which required the U.S. citizen parent’s physical presence in the U.S. for at least 5 years after the age of 14.
So Stanley Ann Dunham goes to the consulate in Kenya to get a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (the equivalent of a birth certificate proving U.S. citizenship for those not born in the U.S.) and is told, sorry, you are only 18, it’s impossible for you to have been physically present in the U.S. for 5 years after the age of 14.
Without the issuance of that Consular Report of Birth Abroad, she cannot get a passport for her newborn son. And he cannot enter the U.S. without a passport.
Her only option is to petition for an immigrant visa for her son, which he is entitled to as the child of a U.S. citizen, even if he isn’t entitled to having U.S. citizenship conferred at birth.
That takes some time; how long it took in 1961, I do not know, but it was far from something that could be done on the spot. Baby Barack would have had to have stayed put in Kenya for some time.
The former INS/now USCIS would have records of the petition for the visa, and records of whenever Baby Barack did in fact enter the U.S., because that would have been the date he became a legal permanent resident. He would have been sent a green card shortly after his entry. There would be records of that.
I know. Ann Dunham got someone in Hawaii to issue a phony birth certificate saying Baby Barack was born in Hawaii. But Baby Barack still had to get from Kenya to Hawaii. Ann Dunham would have had to have gotten a passport for him with the phony birth certificate. The State Department would have records of this. And she would have had to have flown back to Kenya to retrieve Baby Barack so he could enter the U.S. with his fraudulently obtained passport.
In short, no matter how you slice it, there should be a highly incriminating paper trail of government records that could be readily unearthed. Why haven’t they been?
CometBaby, if you’ve got access to facts the rest of us don’t have, please share. I promise to remain composed. In fact, I wish this story would resolve itself one way or the other.
It should scare the hell of tar out of him!
He is too uninformed to understand the huge difference between the "thruthers" and "birthers." The distance difference between the two is as the distance between the west and east!!
Soon BirthMas is coming with a loads of BirthMas "presents"!!!
First time I read this guy “Bone’s” articles. At least a fascination with the lovely Sarah Palin makes sense. LOL!
Calling us conspiracy theorists is name calling is it not? Is asking for the transparency we were promised a conspiracy?
Hope I’m not bullying you too much.
Their real names are “After-Birthers”!!!
What draws my interest is the stonewalling and absolute volume of ad hominem attacks fired off at those asking to see his birth certificate. It seems rather unlikely the amount of anti-"birther" columns and radio/TV talk is the result of individual journalist interest.
The wisest tact is to remain unemotional when discussing this topic and tie it into his candor regarding educational, law practice and other records.
Right. I wonder about the difference in the silent majority and the ultra-loud minorities. Something tells me the white folks are getting fed up.
What really intrigues me is the total lack of any substantive background info being released, no school records, no nothing, and what really blows your mind is that no one (to my knowledge) has even said, “Hey I went to school with that guy, who woulda guessed he would be president!”, now that’s spooky. Nothing’s released, no real work history anyway, just a real ZERO.
..and if there's anything I would NOT give a drop of spit on...is HIS word
That is where we should focus our attention when talking about Obama. We should say we have more on George Washington’s background than Obama’s. We know where Lincoln was born. We have Roosevelt’s grades from Groton. We can see Kennedy’s plays on the Harvard Football team. We know exactly what Garfield ate before he was shot but we don’t know anything about Obama. We are just asking for something, anything???!!!
If you are liberal if you are conservative if you are democrat if you are republican...it doesn’t matter, just tell me what has he got to hide?? And doesn’t that alone make you suspicious?
I agree in large part, but I think that the stonewalling, anti-birther media blather, and the rest is in fact part of a type of “rope a dope” opportunity.
By letting this play out, Obama and his sympathizers in the media can portray conservatives as being wackos and out of touch with the needs of the country, and can distract them from focusing on a cohesive opposition to the Obama agenda.
I also think this is in large part the fault of many conservatives who have allowed this to happen. There are bigger fish to fry. No use crying about a sardine that may have been left in the can and thrown out.
A silly Bone-head with a whiney bone to pick signifying nothing.
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.