You're missing the point. There should have never been any credible skepticism past the point of release of his short form birth certificate. Every Hawaiian state official - from either party - confirmed his birth there. The state of Hawaii recognized his birth there. There is exactly zero evidence to justify any further investigation. It is akin to some UFO nut jumping up and down and saying even though he has no evidence whatsoever of alien corpses and crashed UFOs being hidden by the government, he deserves a guided tour of every US air force base and facility to prove it.
So, there's really a couple of ways to look at it. Why wait for so long? Well, perhaps he decided to treat it as the lunatic, tin-hat wearing nutjob belief that it was, soaked in racism and motivated by xenophobia. From a moral sense, why should he stoop to a level that no President has ever been forced to just to prove his citizenship?
There's also the political side, which is that the 'birther' movement has wonderfully handicapped the GOP. They can't risk alienating the psychotic white supremist part of their base who is absolutely sure that 'goddamn socialist nigger muslim can't be 'merrikan'. They've lost the Latino vote, they've cratered in youth and they're in the process of going to war with the AARP. They need the birthers and the price they pay is getting tarred as even more extreme from the political centre.
I honestly believe that the President likely believes that there's no evidence that will satisfy the kooks and hicks who are convinced he's the product of a Kenyian hospital, so what's the point in trying? I also honestly believe that the political advisors to the President privately click coffee mugs every time Orly Taitz appears on cable news and spouts a new line of completely ratfuck crazy on the side of Republicans.
What I can't stand is the hypocracy of the media attempting to argue that the responsibly to answer to crazy, ginned up lunatic nonsense that has been humped as hard for ratings as possible by the American media lies with the President. Every news agency had available on-record proof that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on July 8, 1961, and chose to muddy that fact by pretending the claims otherwise had even the slightest credibility or any legitimate points.
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Date: 2011-04-28 06:08 pm (UTC)So, there's really a couple of ways to look at it. Why wait for so long? Well, perhaps he decided to treat it as the lunatic, tin-hat wearing nutjob belief that it was, soaked in racism and motivated by xenophobia. From a moral sense, why should he stoop to a level that no President has ever been forced to just to prove his citizenship?
There's also the political side, which is that the 'birther' movement has wonderfully handicapped the GOP. They can't risk alienating the psychotic white supremist part of their base who is absolutely sure that 'goddamn socialist nigger muslim can't be 'merrikan'. They've lost the Latino vote, they've cratered in youth and they're in the process of going to war with the AARP. They need the birthers and the price they pay is getting tarred as even more extreme from the political centre.
I honestly believe that the President likely believes that there's no evidence that will satisfy the kooks and hicks who are convinced he's the product of a Kenyian hospital, so what's the point in trying? I also honestly believe that the political advisors to the President privately click coffee mugs every time Orly Taitz appears on cable news and spouts a new line of completely ratfuck crazy on the side of Republicans.
What I can't stand is the hypocracy of the media attempting to argue that the responsibly to answer to crazy, ginned up lunatic nonsense that has been humped as hard for ratings as possible by the American media lies with the President. Every news agency had available on-record proof that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on July 8, 1961, and chose to muddy that fact by pretending the claims otherwise had even the slightest credibility or any legitimate points.