Not Obama's opponents, but his political and media supporters, who insist on a political purity test from Republicans, and who use the "refused to repudiate" line of attack on all who do not comply.
David Gregory asked John Boehner this weekend where Boehner thought Obama was born and to what religion Obama subscribed. Boehner, who was not the one to bring up the subjects, gave the only answer he could:
"It's not my job to tell the American people what to think," Boehner said on NBC's "Meet The Press" when asked about a recent focus group of Iowa voters shown on Fox News during which several said they believe Obama is Muslim.What is wrong with this answer?
"The state of Hawaii has said he was born there. That's good enough for me," Boehner said. "The president says he's a Christian. I accept him at his word."
The word of the State of Hawaii officials is what we have, since Obama has failed to follow the advice of his family friend, Hawaii Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie, and supporters such as Chris Matthews, David Corn and Clarence Page, to authorize the release of his original birth certificate. That's Obama's choice under Hawaii law, but when someone running for president refuses to release such ordinary documentation (John McCain released his birth certificate) it allows speculation and conspiracy theories to flourish.
As I have pointed out before, Obama and his supporters have been playing the "birther card" for years as a means of demonizing opponents who do not pledge allegiance to Obama's narrative. This strategy has backfired, as witnessed by the focus group mentioned in the quote above.
As to Obama's religion, what else was Boehner supposed to say? He takes Obama at his word. Should Boehner have sworn on a stack of Bibles to something only Obama could know for sure? Obama is not the first candidate whose religious principles have been questioned and he will not be the last. Whether such questioning is fair or appropriate is one thing; but only the candidate himself can dispel any doubts which may linger in the electorate.
Yet Boehner has come under criticism for not educating the masses, as if that were Boehner's job on these issues. Witness Jonathan Capehart at The Washington Post:
"... in the face of a persistent lie that has ensnared way too many in his party, it is incumbent upon those who know better to tell the uneducated or the mistaken what the truth is."What Capehart wants is a religious faith in facts which are presumed to be true, but which are under the control of Obama.
There is someone who could educate the masses. He should do so.
Update: Jim Treacher notes:
I don’t recall anybody ever asking Nancy Pelosi if it was her job to correct any of the myths and misinformation that were spread about George Bush. Yet David Gregory seems to think John Boehner is obliged to perform that service for Barack Obama.--------------------------------------------
Related Posts:
Obama's "Birther" Strategy Has Backfired
Obama Misplaying the "Birther" Card
Coakley Supporters Fabricate Birther Accusation Against Brown
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Bill Maher could clear this up in seconds:
ReplyDelete"Bill Maher says he doesn't think Obama is a Christian."
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-maher-doesnt-think-obama-is-a-christian/
Nobody ever asks the press why they asking such stupid questions. I think that would be my gut response "Why do you ask? My opinion of Obama's religion, birthplace, dietary habits and such have no effect on the legislation I would propose or support - my job is legislating. Should this time be spent discussing the job?"
ReplyDeleteWhat "myths and misinformation" were "spread about George Bush"?
ReplyDeleteThat he didn't serve honorably in the military? That is neither myth nor misinformation but a matter of public record.
That he didn't in fact win the 2000 election? That is neither myth nor misinformation but a matter of public record.
That he was the worst president in the history of this country? That is neither myth nor misinformation but a matter of public record.
President Obama's birth in Hawaii is also a matter of public record.
How many times does President Obama have to say he is a Christian before people stop questioning that?
Why is it even a matter up for debate? Because he is black? Because he had an Indonesian stepfather? Because his father was from Kenya?
Do the people who question Obama's religion question whether Newt Gingrich is a "real" Catholic? He wasn't raised as a Catholic, he's been divorced three times.
It's obvious that Republicans like Boehner refuse to push back against this nonsense because it is politically expedient to encourage the Republican base to believe anything that will undermine President Obama regardless of its truth.
Conservatives really are among some of the dumbest people that have ever remembered to breath.
Why doesn't Gregory go ask that question in Arizona or the ten other states that are considering passing eligibility laws in time for 2012....?
ReplyDeleteThe answer is that he really doesn't want to ask the question so much as he wants Boehner to kill the issue because he knows that's a can of worms he doesn't want opened.
The reason the MSM and the left get away in turning a glaring achilles heel for Obama into an offensive weapon against Republicans and conservatives is that too many of us cower in fear when the issue comes up. We've allowed them to turn an obviously fatal problem into a boogie man to use against us. Let's find some spine and confront this issue head on. Show us the birth certificate already!
ReplyDeleteIf it proves his citizenship, so what? What was the big deal? Why did he put us through all of this?
kmn - February 14, 2011 @ 10:30 AM
ReplyDeleteYour conspiracy hallucinations are just that, hallucinations. None of your "facts" are true.
For example your wish that Al Gore had won the 2000 election. Nearly all investigations and reviews of that election have shown the George W. Bush did in fact win.
How many years did Mr. Obama serve in the military?
What does Mr. Gingrich's religion have to do with any of this?
"That he didn't serve honorably in the military? That is neither myth nor misinformation but a matter of public record."
ReplyDeleteYes. President GW Bush served honorably and ably in the Texas Air National Guard.
"That he didn't in fact win the 2000 election? That is neither myth nor misinformation but a matter of public record."
Yes. He won, by every extant counting standard.
"That he was the worst president in the history of this country? That is neither myth nor misinformation but a matter of public record."
That's a matter of opinion, and, frankly, if you hold that he was the worst, you're ignorant and blind to the faults of the moron currently in office.
"Conservatives really are among some of the dumbest people that have ever remembered to breath."
The word is "breathe". I'd say it's ironic, but it's not. It's par for the course. The left preens about its self-declared intelligence, while walking around in the fumes of their community-based reality.
The reporters aren't going to ask The only person who really knows, that would violate their policy of continuing to try and discredit republicans. I have my birth certificate, I'm proud of where I was born, and if I applied for a job where the question came up, I'd let anybody who wanted to go to city hall and see for themselves. Why ask people who have never seen your birth certificate to validate it exists? Well, Obama's strategy so far assumes it'll make others look bad. Now that the bloom is off the rose, it's not working out so well- especially if the goog Gov. Abercrombie tried to find it and couldn't! Someone really should just ask the ONLY person who this issue pertains to to 'pit up or shut up'!!
ReplyDeleteLast time I checked Speaker Boehner was not in the employ of Barack Obama. If Barack wants to clear the air, he can do so in five minutes by releasing his full birth certificates.
ReplyDeleteI also don't recall any democrap congresspeople being asked to repudiate truthers who make up 40 percent of registered democraps. Where was the democrap leadership's responsibility on that issue, questioned?
President Obama released his birth certificate to the world in 2008. That state-issued legal document states that he was born in Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteIt's a lie to say that he has "refused to release such ordinary documentation." He has, and it's too bad for the birthers that they refuse to accept it, or think that a magical "long form" birth certificate will somehow say something different.
He refuses to release it because it will show his name as Barry and not Barack, and the implications that arise from that.
ReplyDeleteIt's very simple: Boehner won't categorically refute Birthers because they represent too many GOP votes.
ReplyDeleteIf Obama has any real control over the release of his birth documents, then his not doing so is quite devious indeed: he's inciting the Birthers to discredit the GOP for him, & they're more than happy to help. However, the document in question is classified as strictly confidential by law (which is a good thing, given the growing prevalence of identity theft/abuse) so the entire question is moot.
Seeing Birthers' abstruse attempts to account for contemporary Hawaiian accounts of Obama's birth in the local news media is like looking back at the geocentric astronomers of old, frantically piling epicycles upon epicycles to cram reality into their defective model.
The very idea that all candidates for POTUS (along with their running-mates) are not rigorously vetted by State, the FBI &/or the NSA as to trivial details like their citizenship the moment they're nominated to run for the office is laughable in the extreme.
Such epic ignorance is par for the course in a political millieux that laughs & sneers at basic scientific realities like the Greenhouse Effect or macro-evolution, while speculating with deadly seriousness as to whether or not the theory of relativity is secretly a socialist plot.
kmn asked, "What 'myths and misinformation' were "spread about George Bush?"
ReplyDeleteDAN would RATHER you just use his circa 1969 Microsoft Word created documents detailing Bush's preferential treatment way back then ... a time when Bill Gates was a baby genius selling his software to his very first customer, the Texas National Guard, as the core of your argument, RATHER than trying to argue with these right-wing wackoes.
By the way, what's the frequency?
it is incumbent upon those who know better to tell the uneducated or the mistaken what the truth is.
ReplyDeleteI think we should have a national discussion of Obama's religious beliefs, which clearly has to start with the church he attended for 20 years and the pastor he called, in print, his spiritual mentor.
What gospel is preached at that church and by that pastor? That must reflect Obama's religious beliefs, then. Or else he needs to explain why not, in what respects he disagrees with the Rev Wright, and why he nevertheless took him as a religious guide.
I agree with Bill Maher on the subject of BO's religion. He's definitely not a Christian if he ever espoused the religious views of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Wright preaches what we real Christians used to call heretical doctrine. The core of Wright's religion and ideology is that there is no reality other than material reality (Marxism); that Jesus was a man "of color" who advocated violent class and race struggle (Marxism & Racial Supremacy akin to neo-Darwinist ideology espoused by the leaders of the Third Reich); and Wright also preaches an eschatology in which the Kingdom of God will come only when the oppressed (people of color) rise up against their oppressors (whites and Jews), and not incidentally, this new Kingdom of God will come to pass here in this material world in which we live because there is no other. The President attended Wright's religious services for about 20 years, but claims that he knew nothing about all this talk of liberation theology, and that he couldn't possibly bring himself to speak out against Wright because ... well ... just don't ask him to do it; he can't. And so he has not put the issue of his religious faith behind him. The issue is not whether Obama is a Christian or not; the issue is whether he is a REAL Christian or a heretic claiming to be a Christian. Likewise, just because Jeremiah Wright claims to be a Christian and a Christian minister does not make him one. He believes in some of the ugliest and most hateful ideologies in history, and we have a right not to take Wright's word or Obama's word for anything.
ReplyDeleteDid David Gregory ever ask a DhimmiKKKrat to defend the Tea Party when the left was calling them racists?
ReplyDeletekmn's "facts" are not facts. Or else, the "fact" that the NYTs, which found that the recount in 2000 turned out in Bush's favor, is really just a lie.
ReplyDeleteLoony tunes like kmn live to troll.
Sean said...
ReplyDelete"President Obama released his birth certificate to the world in 2008. That state-issued legal document states that he was born in Hawaii."
You are misinformed. Obama has yet to release nor anything. If he had, he would site that as his reason for not re-releasing them. You are probably referring to the purported copies of his Certificate of Live Birth being presented at a couple of online sites. They are probably forgeries but Hawaii continues to refuse to authenticate them and to release certified originals.
Call me any name in the book just release your documents.
ReplyDeletePasadena Phil, you need to get your facts straight. Obama released his state-issued, certified legal birth certificate in 2008. Certificate number 151 1961 - 010641. Even Joseph Farah of WND does not believe the document is a forgery: http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=104163
ReplyDeleteLook, it's great that you're a birther and won't believe the overwhelming evidence, but that's your issue, not mine. You don't get your own facts, and you don't get to claim that Obama has not "released anything." That's just false. Obama's campaign requested the COLB, shared the original, certified, stamped copy with Factcheck.org, and they posted plenty of pictures. If you don't respect Factcheck.org, that's fine. But don't pretend Obama hasn't taken steps to satisfy your conspiracy theory friends.
Speaking of the birth controversy, tomorrow, February 15th, a new book will be released titled "Deconstructing Obama" by Jack Cashill. Cashill has been investigating Obama's background with a fine-tooth comb for a very long time. Here is Cashill's bio: http://cashill.com/about/index.htm
ReplyDeleteHaving read many of Cashill's articles about Obama over the last few years, I know people will be stunned when they learn that Obama's parentage is not as black and white as we presume it to be.
Thomas Lifson, publisher of American Thinker, has reviewed the book and says the following:
"Deconstructing Obama is an important book, one that unravels significant parts of the fabric of Barrack Obama's contrived and closely guarded personal history. Candidate Obama's stature rested to an extraordinary degree on his first autobiography, Dreams from my Father. Cashill convincingly demonstrates that the claimed authorship of Dreams is a fraud, the most politically significant literary fraud in history. I was able to follow the story Cashill presents from the beginning, and watched as the media did everything in their power to discredit and relegate Cashill's first-rate detective work to obscurity and opprobrium. The literary and biographical sleight-of-hand committed by the president and abetted by his media allies will not stand the scrutiny of history. This book is a chance for readers to get the real story now."
Amazon.com: http://bitsy.me/06r
What nonsense.
ReplyDeleteA majority of Republicans are currently birthers. http://www.salon.com/news/politics/birthers/?story=/politics/war_room/2011/02/15/birther_poll People who assert that position are right up there with 9/11 truthers and flat-worlders.
So it is newsworthy that a majority of Republicans cling to a borderline insane point of view. Asking Republican leaders about this is a reasonable question, and is caused by the fact that it is a majority opinion of Republicans, and not some side issue kept alive by media or Democrats. Trying to pass it off as such is dishonest.
Kmn has strenthened my theory that lefties are incapable of arguing their point without using the words stupid, dumb, or crazy and blaming either Bush or Palin.
ReplyDelete