The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[mousepod]

Originally Posted by JWBear

The birthers are already claiming that it's a forgery.

From The Onion in 2009: Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama's Placenta

And on a more "serious" note... apparently Trump is taking credit for the release this morning. And sadly, he's partly correct.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by mousepod

And on a more "serious" note... apparently Trump is taking credit for the release this morning. And sadly, he's partly correct.

Like Boing Boing said, don't feed the trolls.

[wendybeth]

I read this and literally laughed out loud: (from CNN)



In a statement after Obama spoke, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called the issue a distraction — and yet blamed Obama for playing campaign politics by addressing it.

"The president ought to spend his time getting serious about repairing our economy," Priebus said. "Unfortunately his campaign politics and talk about birth certificates is distracting him from our number one priority — our economy."











Seriously?

[JWBear]

Are you sure you weren't reading The Onion, Wendy?

[scaeagles]

I'm acrtually surprised he released it....I'd have kept it an issue as long as possible if I were him.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I'm acrtually surprised he released it....I'd have kept it an issue as long as possible if I were him.

Agreed. He was in no way obligated to do it, he'd already provided more proof than any other president in the history of this nation of his birth. Letting the idiots scream was doing an excellent job of identifying the idiots for who they are. Now he's just given them all the smug satisfaction that they forced his hand. Yuck.

This editorial is interesting. I agree with everything on the first page. He loses me a bit with "Those who question the location of Barack Obama's birth are the very same people who would pack up and move out of the neighborhood if someone like me moved in next door." I do not believe that everyone who jumped on the birther bandwagon is a racist, closet racist, subconscious racist. I DO believe that racism was a leading factor in the why it gained such traction, but that's not the same as saying that to be a birther is to be a racist (even though the two things share the common thread of ignorance).

[Alex]

Personally, on that one i don't think it had so much to do with race as with religion. I think it gained traction because of the people who already believed him to be lying about being a Christian which already requires rejecting what is known about his upbringing.

Anyway, I think the reason they released was not because it will put the issue to bed. It won't. The quality of a proper conspiracy theory is that it can't be rebutted as any contrary evidence is not contrary evidence but rather simply further evidence of a conspiracy to hide the truth.

However, the story was starting to get a lot of talk in the more mainstream press and I would guess they're trying to put it back in the margins by getting two days of coverage on the release and then hopefully the mainstream news directors saying "ok, that's done now."

I don't think it will work even at that, but I doubt it was done to quell the issue among those who believe it.

[innerSpaceman]

I concur. I don't think the birthers were the target audience for this at all.

[flippyshark]

Hey, where ya been, scaeagles?

When I first saw the headline this morning, I had to ask myself if it was April 1st, (or if I had logged on to The Onion), so sure was I that BO wasn't going to dignify the issue with any further attention.

[Alex]

Though, thinking about it on the ride home, it occurs to me that unless America proves even stupider than I fear, it really doesn't hurt Obama in the long run to have Trump sucking oxygen out of the Republican campaign machinery. And giving Trump a "legitimacy" boost like this without really hurting himself or doing anything overtly political prolongs that.