www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25444.html
Mike Castle learned the hard way back home in Delaware this month, there's no easy way to deal with the small but vocal crowd of right-wing activists who refuse to believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
birth certificate -- questions that have been put to rest repeatedly by state officials in Hawaii, where the birth certificate and all other credible evidence show that Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. When Castle countered that Obama is, in fact, "a citizen of the United States," the crowd erupted in boos, the woman seized control of the gathering and led a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. by Sunday, it had been viewed on YouTube more than half a million times. And birthers say members should expect more of the same in the coming weeks. "Absolutely," says California resident Orly Taitz, the Russian-born attorney/dentist who has become a kind of ringleader for the movement. "It is a very important issue, one that politicians should have taken up a long time ago." Moments after speaking with POLITICO Saturday, Taitz posted a call to arms on her blog: "I believe it is a serious concern and I hope that each and every decent American comes to town hall meetings with a video camera and demands action," she wrote. Having seen his colleague Castle come under attack, Rep. "Before I got back to Michigan before the break, we'll go through it, so that we're versed in it," Hoekstra said recently. But after talking to Castle about his town hall, he knows that he'd better be ready with an answer. Of the various approaches a put-on-the-spot pol can take, each carries its own risk of alienating constituents. Pick up a pitchfork in the cause of this conspiracy theory, and you risk damaging your reputation in the mainstream while aligning yourself with a movement some regard as having racist undertones.
However, members who decide to challenge the conspiracy theory, as Castle did mildly, risk ticking off a shrill minority who can upend their events and then post the video on the Web. And those who try to split the difference may find themselves getting doubly burned. At a Wyoming town hall in April, birthers jumped on freshman Republican Rep. "I'm not questioning your concern," Lummis told the crowd, according to the Wyoming Eagle Tribune. The congresswoman ended up asking for anyone who had "evidence" to send it to her. Tom Coburn's Washington office, birthers gave the Oklahoma Republican's chief of staff nine pages of documentation in support of their claims. The group later billed the meeting a success on one of Taitz's blogs. But when asked about the meeting, Coburn spokesman Don Tatro said that the office was simply trying to be "polite" and that "it is possible to mistake politeness for agreement." Doug Lamborn has received 33 inquiries about Obama's origins, with 10 coming in over the past week.
I do recognize, however, that there has to be something that Obama could do, or could have done, to quell this issue - it simply shouldn't get to this point. Why should it be so unreasonable, in the future, to require that any and all candidates for President provide full and irrefutable proof of their citizenship prior to the party primaries - and have the question settled at that point?
The Republican party has been the party of " avoid the real issues " for so long that they are unable to recognize important problems. When the TV personalities take on these issues they become magnified. He seems to be frothing at the mouth trying to find irrelevant issues to push. He and the other Republican TV wing nuts push these theories and lend them credence they never would have otherwise.
If the GOP is pervieved as aligning itself with these fringe groups, they risk being perceived as unserious an opposition party. There are several legitimate issues to go after BHO over, birth certificate issue isn't one such issue.
But, the nut job wing of the GOP (about 25%) will not let facts get in the way of their emotions and prejudice. It is truely scary to know there are so many who think the words of Rush should be taken literally and do not seem to have the ability to think for themselves.
I don't see a lot of explanations other than the hospital isn't listed (none of the announcements did this; also since at least parent is listed as a Hawaii resident that seems to make the point moot). Also, it can't be something the family did on a lark, since the papers were only using announcements provided by official agencies. I did see someone suggest people actually did replace all the old newspapers and microfilms in libraries, but is this something that more than one person believes (that's an awful lot of people that would have to be involved in the conspiracy). Anyhow, I'm always interested in a reasoned argument from the contrarian point of view.
And the more they scream and make idiotic accusations about birth certificates and college records, the more they shock and alienate the voters in the middle. And so they are writing their own poltical death certificate. Why do the Republicans hate the American electoral process? Republicans/Conservatives/Wing-nuts have worked themselves into such a lather that they hate the President and hate the country that elected him.
THOUGHT IT NOT UNREASONABLE TO DEMAND THAT THE PRESIDENT PRODUCE A BIRTH CERTIFICATE. IF THEY ARE SELF RIGHTEOUS AND MOCK PEOPLE WHO HAVE A LEGITAMTE QUESTION.. DON'T SNATCH DEFEAT FROM VICTORY BY MOCKING CITIZENS WHO ARE CONCERNED.
They just rammed him down our throats much like the failed stimulus package. Now they're in a potentially damaging situation to our country if this clown isnt American born. He should have been forced to render it long ago before he took the Ill senate seat.
If fact they always refer to snopes which only addresses the narrow question of:"is the certification of birth false" . Mulatto- doubtful- he could have played the race card more bas-tard- possible -well his parents were not legally married religion- possible- his mother might have in some nutroot moment put Islam down But all in all, what is the big thing? I believe the part about him hiding something embrassing to him is the more likely one. Of course if they were right- does that mean we would be stuck with Biden as Prez?
Many people across the political spectrum are interested in this. To say it involves only the birth certificate and refer to us disparagingly as "Birthers" is a red herring. We are equally interested in seeing his college transcripts and records, which could be more telling than a legitimate birth certificate. Trust me, all of you sneering Lefties who want to dismiss this issue -- the worse the economic situation becomes and the more The Won continues to "step in it" (eg, apologizing to the world on behalf of America but refusing to apologize to an individual American for personally slandering him, continuing to tell us that up is down and down is up in regard to budget numbers, continuing to operate in campaign mode and never actually doing any work, etc, etc, etc) the less patience people are going to have with his continued efforts to obfuscate and hide this information. You're going to see this incompetent run out on a rail train, either literally or figuratively, as should have happened to him during the campaign.
Why does he fight it in court instead of simply providing the $15 piece of paper? Why spend thousands and thousands attempting to stop the producing of the document?
You just aren't acceptable if you don't meet the rigid standards of the GOP standard bearers--like Sanford, Ensign, and Sessions who would have sat on a high court if he just hadn't seemed so racist. Well, Panama is almost the US, and the democrats accepted his birther story. we are in the 21st century, and the old men just can't move on.
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