The King of Bahrain was disinvited from Kate and William's wedding because of violence against his own people. Andrew Breitbart was disinvited from election night coverage by ABC last year when an uproar by activist groups over his race baiting shamed them into it. Birther-in-Chief Donald Trump, as of this writing, has not yet been disinvited by The Washington Post to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which will also be attended by the President. If Obama even bothers showing up (and I wouldn't blame him if he didn't) I hope he uses the occasion to subject Trump and all the prom-goers to another public shaming. Since Stephen Colbert is not this year's entertainment, Obama should nevertheless use him as speechwriter.
Ezra Klein tweeted his profound embarrassment at his paper's association with Trump, but other than that, the paper has remained mum. But really, the entire mainstream press is to blame, even those who continue to half-heartedly debunk the birthers. When every respectable media outlet follows the debunking with poll numbers revealing that most Republicans don't believe Obama is a natural-born citizen, they are only perpetuating the myth. Even Lawrence O'Donnell, successor in bombast to Keith Olbermann, keeps the story alive by publicly calling for NBC to fire Trump and then invites loony birther Orly Taitz on his show for the sole purpose of kicking her off. Even Oprah keeps the story alive by inviting the Obamas on her show and asking "what took you so long?" Even I am keeping the story alive by blogging about it, so I'll shut up now. In case you missed them, here are my two New York Times comments on the issue, published today:
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/opinion/28thu1.html?permid=26#comment26
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/opinion/28collins.html?permid=1#comment1
One last thought before shutting up: Obama is coming out of this looking mighty good.
3 comments:
The only thing that "forced" the President to do yesterday that which he should have done more than three years ago was the fact that he was making more news than his proposals. He has no one to blame for that except himself. The people that think he was born in Kenya are a subset of the people that think Elvis is still alive or that Dick Cheney personally carried four or five tons of thermite up each of the twin towers on the morning of 9/11. Both sides have their "Birthers" read some of the Left wing conspiracy blogs if you doubt that. Then there is the head of a major religious sect that speaks of "visiting the space people up in their UFO"! What is a birth certificate or not next to stuff like that?
So now that the President has thrown down on his critics can we please focus the news people on something a little more important like the looming bankruptcy of the whole country?
Richard
Richard: Obama's certificate of live birth was out there for anyone to see for years. This latest move (to release the "long form"), I guarantee you, won't silence these loonies any more than that did. Here's just one sample from some moron commenting on an editorial in my hometown newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
"Typical obumma south side Chicago, under the table, dirty politics. The more lies you tell, the more the public begins to believe it. That's why obumma didn't like the constant call for him to produce a forged birth certificate."
Even the leader of the loons, Donald Trump, says he needs to examine the certificate for its authenticity.
Equating the birthers with the people who think Elvis is alive or that Dick Cheney bombed the WTC himself is reasonable only to the extent that they're all equally delusional. But they represent distinctly different segments of their total populations. Fully 41% of all Republicans believe Obama was either probably or definitely born outside the United States. That's not just some fringe element; the Republicans and others who share their opinion represent 27% of the total American population.
That's insane. What does that say about us as a country?
I agree we have many more pressing problems. Obama does, too, and he's not the one making an issue of this.
It could say that universal suffrage might not be the best idea in the long run, too bad there isn't a means test for sanity. ( more than 15% of the general population believe Elvis is still alive!)
Richard
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