COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Birth Certificate: Where Are the Indignant Questions to Obama?

Andrew C. McCarthy

If George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, or even a Republican the media likes (say, John McCain) had taken purposeful steps to block examination of so basic a document, the media would surely have turned such obstinacy into a scandal. The public might not have leapt to extravagant conclusions about whether they’d really been born in Kenya, or on Mars, or wherever.

But they’d have thought it was intolerably strange that campaigns were retaining lawyers and amassing affidavits rather than just producing a seemingly innocuous, readily producible document. The story would never have been about the people asking for the birth certificate; it would have been about the candidate who was moving heaven and earth to prevent people from seeing it.

And let’s not ignore that Obama did move heaven and earth. This is not just a matter of him thumbing his nose at a fringe collection of nutty “birthers.” There have been several court cases.

It is flat out bizarre that one should have to be sued to compel conformance with a routine that millions of Americans comply with every day. Many of these court cases, if not all, could have been short-circuited (indeed, many of the later ones would not have been filed at all) if Obama had just produced the birth certificate.

Instead, he not only refused to produce it; he and his campaign paid thousands of dollars in legal fees (in some places it is reported to be well over a million dollars) to fight the lawsuits — and Obama’s lawyers even threatened to seek disciplinary sanctions against lawyers for daring to file the lawsuits. Since Obama has been president, moreover, not just the time of courts and private lawyers has been tied up; government lawyers have had to spend their time — on the public’s dime — on this nonsense.




So, assuming as we should the legitimacy of the long-form birth certificate produced yesterday,
the only thing that makes sense is that Obama knows the mainstream media is in his hip pocket.
That is, he knew that he would not be held to the same standard as other politicians, and that if he acted in an unreasonable manner by withholding basic, easily available information that any other person seeking the presidency would be expected — be compelled — to produce, the media would portray as weirdos those demanding the information, not Obama and his stonewalling accomplices.

And he also knows that, having now finally produced the document only because the game was starting to hurt him politically, the media will not focus on how easy it would have been to produce the birth certificate three years ago, or on how much time and money has been wasted by his gamesmanship; they’ll instead portray him as beleaguered and the people who have been seeking the basic information (i.e., doing the media’s job) as discredited whackos.

It’s hard to say what’s more depressing, Obama’s cynicism or the zeal with which the media does his bidding.

Complete Article

25 comments:

  1. And, even this tool writes,

    So, assuming as we should the legitimacy of the long-form birth certificate produced yesterday,

    WHY?

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  2. I looked at the BC again. Under Race: African. Now that's funny. I need to find mine and see if in the race bracket it says: American.

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  3. If I went to court, time after time, to keep you from seeing my birth certificate, then I trotted out some piece of shit like this,

    Should you Assume It was Legitimate?

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  4. I might assume the powers that be don't want a Constitutional Crisis,

    but I sure as hell don't assume that piece of trash is "Legitimate."

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  5. The thing is: I've never been a "birther," but this is fucking ridiculous.

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  6. Obama managed to "convince" me.

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  7. Since most ordinary people, bankers, and company presidents have never studied currency theory, they swallow it hook, line, and sinker when the bond salesmen tell them, "a dollar is a dollar." That piece of propaganda should be rewritten to say "a dollar is 3¢."

    ...

    There is a quote I like that comes from Le Metropole Cafe. It goes, "we will have deflation in everything we own, and inflation in everything we use".

    ...

    I’ve concluded there is little to gain arguing on the one hand with a guy who turns rabid whenever someone contradicts him, even in a friendly way; and on the other, with a preening narcissist who comes to argumentation in the same state of sexual arousal that Jeffrey Dahmer must have experienced hovering over the fresh corpses of teenage boys. These guys are bad news, as lacking in civility and manners as buzzards in a scrum, and you’d do well to avoid them both.


    Deflation Or Hyperinflation?

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  8. The Indian government has shortlisted the Eurofighter Typhoon, for which UK defence contractor BAE Systems is a consortium member, and the French Rafale fighter for the 126 combat aircraft order.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Central banking has always been characterised by mystique, an attribute its elders have cultivated to give the impression of god-like omnipotence. As Mr Bernanke pointed out, there was a time when the Fed didn't bother to announce its policy decisions at all – not letting the public know was very much a part of its modus operandi.

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  10. Alan Carter, property analyst at Evolution, said: "Whichever way you cut it, the retail market is tough, but there is no doubt that quality retail assets perform relatively at their best the tougher the market is. Retaining occupancy is probably more important than trying to grow rental values this year."

    ReplyDelete
  11. As top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, Petraeus has relied heavily on CIA and special operations forces to capture and kill mid-level and senior insurgent leaders. But he has insisted that the targeted strikes be a part of a broader and more comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign — putting him at odds with advocates of a more surgical approach, including Vice President Biden.

    Petraeus, 58, is intensely organized and has relied on a network of trusted advisers, many with biographies similar to his own, with stints in combat units, graduate school and teaching at West Point. CIA veterans said it would be a mistake for Petraeus to arrive with an entourage.

    “If you look like you’re coming in to fix us and show us how to do things,” one former official said, “the antibodies start rejecting the transplant.”


    Militarized CIA

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  12. Trump, like Romney, is proof that the term "Republican" is now defined negatively: "Not a complete socialist."

    Americans who say the USA is headed in the right direction: 21%, a new low. (Rasmussen)

    Wal-Mart: Our shoppers are 'running out of money'

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  13. .

    I looked at the BC again. Under Race: African. Now that's funny. I need to find mine and see if in the race bracket it says: American.



    "Update, August 26 [Note: This article is from 2008, three years ago when the same issues were raised including the photoshop claim] We received responses to some of our questions from the Hawaii Department of Health. They couldn't tell us anything about their security paper, but they did answer another frequently-raised question: why is Obama's father's race listed as "African"? Kurt Tsue at the DOH told us that father's race and mother's race are supplied by the parents, and that "we accept what the parents self identify themselves to be." We consider it reasonable to believe that Barack Obama, Sr., would have thought of and reported himself as "African." It's certainly not the slam dunk some readers have made it out to be.

    Are The Birthers Right?


    I guess my question is "What info on the birth certificate are you saying is false?"


    Who to believe? FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com or Deuce and Rufus.

    I see an awful lot of 'assuming' in today's responses.

    .

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  14. Q, it is of no interest, whatsoever, to me "who you believe." If you choose to believe in the Easter Bunny, and Tooth Fairey more power to ya.

    I, however, will hold to my belief that there is something exceedingly strange with that piece of paper the State of hawaii has locked up in their vault.

    And, also, something extremely unusual about this particular "President."

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  15. Superman in the latest (#900) comic, has renounced his US citizenship. Even comic book characters can't stand Obama.

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  16. .

    I, however, will hold to my belief that there is something exceedingly strange with that piece of paper the State of hawaii has locked up in their vault.

    You worry about that peice of paper. I worry about Obama.

    There is a story the Russkies exchanged a phoney Obama for the real one shortly after his birth. It's assumed his father, a double agent, was involved.

    Donald Trump has demanded that the president provide proof that he is not a Russian agent.

    So far Obama has not responded.

    .

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  17. One of the very first things he did was 86 that defense shield.

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  18. Obumbles is a "show pony," but he ain't much of a salesman.

    Loses $10 Billion Deal to the Euros

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  19. His "road record" ain't too sporty.

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  20. Lessee, At the start of the 1st quarter GDP was estimated to be running 3%+, and gas prices were around $3.00/gal.

    By the end of the quarter gas prices were up to $3.75, or so, and GDP was 1.8%, and falling.

    Pure coinkydink, I'm sure.

    No propter hoc ergos, or whatever, jest coinkydink.

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  21. .

    No propter hoc ergos, or whatever, jest coinkydink.

    I think it's a conspiracy.

    .

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  22. Our colleague, the Global Head of G10 FX Strategy at Citi, makes a clear point of all of the very obvious reasons to be selling the USD (“Fed's ability to surprise on the dovish side, the ongoing overhang of USD assets among reserve managers, and the concerns that have emerged on long-term US fiscal prospects” and end of month flows), but at the same time, has issued a warning in his latest piece of the potential for some form of a correction in favor of the US Dollar. He cites their CitiFX Pain Indicator which shows USD short positions at extremes and levels that usually warn of market reversals.

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  23. This royal wedding stuff is royal bullshit.

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  24. What's your mom's take on the wedding, Deuce?

    ReplyDelete