Why no Fear that Bloggers’ Palin Derangement Syndrome Will Damage Democrats?
I’m trying to figure out why so many believe that birthers’ obsession with President Obama’s “missing” birth certificate will hurt the GOP. I have received e-mails from friends and acquaintances–and not just liberal friends and acquaintances–warning of the damage birthers could inflict on my party.
And this despite the fact that no leading Republican has attached himself to the issue, saying that Obama may be ineligible to serve as President. Indeed, not one single House Republican voted against the House resolution “declaring Barack Obama a native of” Hawai’i.
Yet, “Media Matters, Think Progress, and a host of left-wing blogs all became obsessed with the Birther theory and movement in the past month, as opposition mounted to Obama’s health care plans.” They want to turn attention from the flaws in the President’s policies to the supposed zaniness of his adversaries.
So, if the obsession of a handful of right-wingers is supposed to define, damage and possibly destroy the GOP, why doesn’t the obsession of a substantial number of left-wingers in the private live of the former Governor of Alaska threaten to define, damage and possibly destroy the Democratic Party?
Nearly every sensible conservative blogger I’ve read over the past few days has taken issue with the birthers, joining Bob Owens (and me) in stating that we believe (indeed, we are certain) that Barack Obama was born in the USA. Have as many liberal bloggers (and pundits) taken left-wingers to task for making much of Mrs. Palin’s private life, publishing unsubstantiated gossip as if it were confirmed fact?
And even if they had taken those left-wingers to task, wouldn’t (by the logic applied to the birthers and GOP) the very fact that left-wingers were peddling such sordid rumors about that good woman be enough to taint the entire Democratic Party?
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I’m sure that’s the hope, and I sometimes wonder if Obama isn’t withholding his birth certificate just the keep the Birthers going. But I don’t believe it will hurt Republicans in the slightest. The Birthers will have as much effect as the 9/11 Truthers.
Personally, I enjoy political theatre, love the puppets, and don’t mind the Birthers. I don’t like the Truthers because I find them offensive on a really fundamental level (they insult a lot of good people who gave their lives that day), but the Birthers? They’re more like the fake moon landing people. All good fun.
Comment by tim maguire — August 4, 2009 @ 12:01 pm - August 4, 2009
In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme religious right (people who love to push their beliefs on others while trying to take away their rights) and that’s who they need to focus on if they real want to win. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Out”.
In the same vein, to all the birthers in La, La Land, it is on you to prove to all of us that your assertion is true, if there are people who were there and support your position then show us the video (everyone has a price), either put up or frankly shut-up. I heard Orly Taitz, is selling a tape (I think it’s called “Money, Lies and Video tape”). She is from Orange County, CA, now I know what the mean when they say “behind the Orange Curtain”, when they talk about Orange County, the captial of Conspiracy Theories. You know Obama has a passport, he travel abroad before he was a Senator, but I guess he fooled them too?
Comment by Paul — August 4, 2009 @ 12:12 pm - August 4, 2009
Paul, you keep repeating your mantra about extremists taking over the GOP and yet despite my asking you to show us the evidence, you have yet to do so.
SO, who the blink is Orly Taitz? Never heard of her. Why is she important to this discussion?
Comment by GayPatriotWest — August 4, 2009 @ 12:18 pm - August 4, 2009
here is a little background on Taitz and Keyes. . .from Nov 17 2008
http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=104&num=186942
Comment by rusty — August 4, 2009 @ 12:38 pm - August 4, 2009
They didn’t believe it about Trig’s birth certificate, why should we believe about Obama’s?
Someone I otherwise respect, Jim Wallis, a member of the Christian left, wrote an anti-Palin column. At some point, you have to ask why. I just don’t see the reason for all the invective against Palin who, at the very least, was a successful governor. Didn’t that used to be an achievement?
Obama’s birth certificate contains some kind of embarassing information or he’d release it. As I’ve said, I bet it says he’s a Muslim. It might list a different father or unknown father. It might list him as Caucasian. It might list a different last name. It might be absolutely clear about where he was born. I hope some enterprising clerk of courts puts national interest above his job and releases a copy.
Comment by Ashpenaz — August 4, 2009 @ 1:32 pm - August 4, 2009
It’s a question of The Narrative, set by The Media, who serve Obama’s narratives slavishly and managed to elect him in 2008.
It’s not that Birtherism should hurt the right-wing (most of which ignores or repudiates Birtherism), or that it would hurt the right wing in a sane world. It’s that Obama’s minions *want to use it* to hurt the right wing. So GPW, when your:
…, they are really warning you of the damage that *they want* and intend to inflict on your party.
For the same reasons, Trig Trutherism won’t hurt the left wing – although it certainly deserves to hurt its proponents, at the least.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 4, 2009 @ 1:44 pm - August 4, 2009
They’re already damaged?????
Because we’re supposed to be better than they are.
Sorry. That’s just stupid. Most people don’t warn their friends (or enemies for that matter) of the rattlesnake hiding under the rock, wanting them to go ahead and lift the rock and get bit. That statement makes no sense. If I, or anybody else warning against the birther poison, wanted to hurt the GOP, we would be ENCOURAGING the promotion of this silliness, not warning against it.
Comment by Sonicfrog — August 4, 2009 @ 2:13 pm - August 4, 2009
No. It isn’t. But your comment is pretty stupid. I was obviously referring to GPW’s left-liberal friends. I was drawing a connection between left-liberal interests who would obviously have a large vested interest in promoting memes that damage Republicans, and only memes that damage Republicans… and the ordinary left-liberal who would identify with said interests. It was pretty stupid of you to miss that, sf.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 4, 2009 @ 2:36 pm - August 4, 2009
P.S. I was also referring to a dynamic operating on an emotional or unconscious level. I was positing that GPW’s left-liberal friends consciously want to see his party go down. then *un*consciously promote (or unconsciously want to promote) memes which support GPW’s party going down. Again, sf, I think most readers of my comment would understand that and it was fairly stupid of you not to.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 4, 2009 @ 2:39 pm - August 4, 2009
Further and finally: The meme under discussion here, that left-liberals are indeed pushing in order to damage GPW’s party, is simply false: the meme that conservatives and/or Republicans are (1) hard-line birthers or overly tolerant of hard-line birtherism, and (2) crazy. Our joking aside, sf, that meme is what is really stupid.
I have to go flog myself now… I hate the word ‘meme’ and I just used it, 3 times.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 4, 2009 @ 3:03 pm - August 4, 2009
#10, i’d offer to do it for you, but I’m out of practice
Comment by The_Livewire — August 4, 2009 @ 3:46 pm - August 4, 2009
That’s OK, TL. I mean, I’d be a beginner myself.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 4, 2009 @ 3:58 pm - August 4, 2009
come on. When Libs and Dems tell Repubs they better stop doing something because they are only hurting themselves-it really means “we have to get them to stop, it’s hurting us”. When has the opposition ever offered helpful advice for their opponent.
“Tom Brady, if you want to win games, you really need to stop throwing on target missile touchdowns to your guys. If you keep scoring again and again, you’ll lose 16 games in a row”
Comment by Racer — August 4, 2009 @ 4:55 pm - August 4, 2009
Joe Biden is a perfect example of the albatross no one warned Dems about. Everyone knew he would be a big time liablility and horse’s ass.
I laughed at how lefties “warned” Repubs about palin. We all know if she was even 1/100th as bad as their frothing at the mouth of her was, they’d keep their mouths shut.
Comment by Sue — August 4, 2009 @ 4:59 pm - August 4, 2009
You’re on the money that no prominent Republican has sided with the birthers.
But, according to the Washington Post, there’s a poll that doesn’t reflect well on Republicans. Twenty-eight percent of Republicans think President Obama was not born in the United States. Another thirty percent are not sure. The poll found that 93 percent of Democrats are sure that Obama was born in Hawaii; 83 percent of Independents also have no doubt. But only 42 percent of Republicans have no doubt.
Oh, well, some people still insist the earth is flat and that man and dinosaurs shared space 5,000 years ago.
Comment by Lee — August 4, 2009 @ 7:01 pm - August 4, 2009
The poll found that 93 percent of Democrats are sure that Obama was born in Hawaii;
Because that’s what they were told and it’s good enough for them.
The precendent has been set. We no longer need to know a damn thing about any future presedential candidates. All you need is an empty suit and can read a teleprompter “purtier than a $20 whore”.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — August 4, 2009 @ 10:38 pm - August 4, 2009
And if anybody dares question where they came from or try to look into their past, ol’ Sonic there will deride them as “kooks” while bitching and moaning about how they’re allegedly hurting the Republican party.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — August 4, 2009 @ 10:41 pm - August 4, 2009
I’m one of those who thinks the birth certificate people are letting themselves be distracted from the real issues: 787 billion stimulus that is actually political payoff, nationalization of health care, the census being moved to the White House, rather than staying at Commerce, where it belongs, out of control government spending, etc.
President Obama won the election and some people need to learn to deal with it. Going after President Obama about his birth certificate is ridiculous. For all I care, President Obama could be a resident of Mars. It doesn’t change the fact that he won and his agenda, not his birthplace, is what needs to be opposed.
Comment by Blake — August 4, 2009 @ 11:11 pm - August 4, 2009
Actually, it’s not that 28% of Republicans believe Obama was born someplace else, it’s that 28% of Republicans want to see the evidence.
I am not a birther, I’m just a United States citizen wondering why it is that Obama is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (whose dollars?) to avoid showing a ten dollar certificate.
I am wondering why the man who promised an open and honest administration is hiding his college transcripts, his passport records, his health records, his writings. Why is this open and honest administration full of tax cheats?
Why did the press constantly rail about the “secretive Bush Administration while it was an open book compared to what we see today?
Birther? No, an American who wants the answers we’ve demanded of every other administration.
Comment by Peter — August 4, 2009 @ 11:14 pm - August 4, 2009
Whatever you may believe the number is not a “handful”.
Comment by Argent — August 4, 2009 @ 11:51 pm - August 4, 2009
Humm…Blake must be attempting to be funny. However, if he is actually being factual, then his ignorance regarding the Constitution of the United States of America is incredible. Unfortunately, it seems like alot of the Dems are ignorant of the Constitution.
Comment by Duffy - Native Intelligence — August 5, 2009 @ 12:01 am - August 5, 2009
I am not a USA citizen but I know enough about your Constitution to know that the issue needs to be settled to show once and for all that the incumbent in the White House was eligible in the first place. What is of concern is that there is a measure of secretive behaviour regarding all of those records. Could it be that the records show that the real name of Obama is something different, like Soetero? Could it be that he did become an Indonesian citizen because of his mother’s marriage to an Indonesian Muslim?
From the beginning of this particular administration there has been nothing but subterfuge and secrecy on a scale that I have not seen from any previous POTUS. The incumbent makes Bill Clinton come up smelling like roses, and even Jimmy Carter is no longer the worst president in recent history.
Comment by thestraightaussie — August 5, 2009 @ 2:50 am - August 5, 2009
Exactly. I think it’s pretty likely that Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen (as is required for the Presidency). And I basically want him to be. I want him driven from the Presidency because his policies were widely recognized as destructive, not on a technicality! But one can’t help noticing that he is hiding something.
Literally – Obama is, for starters, literally hiding his long-form birth certificate, AND his college records, AND his medical records and other records; hiding the latter kinds of records to a degree that is in fact unprecedented for modern U.S. presidents. Even if it’s all innocent, then why is he hiding all of it? One would expect a Democrat to understand that it’s not the “crime”, it’s the cover-up.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 5, 2009 @ 4:02 am - August 5, 2009
#18 – “President Obama won the election and some people need to learn to deal with it.”
We said the same thing about Bush in 2000 and 2004, but obviously it didn’t sink in with the likes of you.
Checkmate.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — August 5, 2009 @ 10:55 am - August 5, 2009
TGC, you wrote:
That was referring to this passage:
First, a little review of proper use of pronouns in the English language. A correctly used pronoun should refer back to it’s antecedent, ie, the pronoun refers to the last proper noun used in the paragraph. In the sentence you wrote, this is how it would look if you simply replaced the pronoun with the antecedent:
GPW, in his original text wrote:
Comment by Sonicfrog — August 5, 2009 @ 12:52 pm - August 5, 2009
WOW. Talk about proof reading. Should have looked like this:
TGC, you wrote:
That was referring to this passage:
First, a little review of proper use of pronouns in the English language. A correctly used pronoun should refer back to it’s antecedent, ie, the pronoun refers to the last proper noun used in the paragraph. In the sentence you wrote, this is how it would look if you simply replaced the pronoun with the antecedent:
GPW, in his original text wrote:
GPW is clearly referring to all his friends warning him, not just the Liberal ones. Therefore, for clarity, it would have been better to have written the sentence more like this:
Now, I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t made the same error or others when posting, as we are often in a hurry and proof reading takes a back seat in those cases (god knows my spelling is sometimes atrocious). Next time, before you launch into attack mode, make sure your prose and intent is clearer, OK.
If you find all the posts I’ve written on the subject, you will see that I never used the term “kooks”. That’s yours my friend.
Comment by Sonicfrog — August 5, 2009 @ 12:56 pm - August 5, 2009
Still wrong, sf. I mean, look at your opener: “TGC”? LOL
I’m not even going to bother with the rest of your rubbish.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 5, 2009 @ 1:04 pm - August 5, 2009
P.S. That makes twice recently that some over-excited person has attributed TGC quotes to me or vice versa. TGC, I love ya – but our thoughts and writing styles are not *that* alike. Odd.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 5, 2009 @ 1:23 pm - August 5, 2009
Portrait of a Palin-Hating Sicko: Jesse Griffin.
1. Obsessed with pronography —- Check
2. Trig Truther — Check
3. Misogynist —- Check
4. Wants to teach little kids to cross-dress and perform fellation — Check
Comment by V the K — August 5, 2009 @ 1:47 pm - August 5, 2009
Obama’s birth cert isn’t missing:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2306640/posts
And it wasn’t even done with MSFT Word…
Comment by MaggieL — August 5, 2009 @ 2:55 pm - August 5, 2009
Wouldn’t it be fun if someone interviewed Phillip Berg? Ya know, the Hillary supporter (did I mention democrat) that started all of this? I thought it was funny at first (logically, I thought it was for the purpose of eliminating Obama so Hillary could slide in), but now I kind of wonder WTFPI. I mean really, even this isn’t a right wing conspiracy no matter what the msm says. They are a day late for the party. Who cares what they have to say?
Comment by MotherRedDog — August 5, 2009 @ 4:07 pm - August 5, 2009
Eh, ILC…. TGC…. Tomato – Tomaaato
Of course you won’t bother with the rest of my “rubbish”. “Rubbish” = pronoun follows antecedent.
Comment by sonicfrog — August 5, 2009 @ 5:07 pm - August 5, 2009
Lame save, sf.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 6, 2009 @ 9:50 am - August 6, 2009