Posted on 04/10/2011 12:28:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Forget primary elections and party caucuses. In many ways, the long, strange trip to picking major party presidential candidates is one of self-selection.
How so? Like how they focus attention on themselves in ways that appear – how to put this delicately – obsessively weird.
Which brings us, quite logically, to Donald Trump and Sarah Palin.
The billionaire developer and reality show star has been going on and on about President Obama’s place of birth, claiming now that he’s sent investigators to Hawaii to find out the truth. And now he’s gotten into a snit with a New York Times columnist over the subject.
Hello? Did Trump not think that his hometown newspaper might find what seems at the moment to be his main campaign issue…obsessively weird?
In her typically funny op-ed column, Gail Collins at the New York Times had had it with Trump.
“In a potential Republican field that includes Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, it’s hard to come up with a line of attack loopy enough to stand out from the pack. But darned if Trump didn’t manage to find one,” she wrote the other day.
Then she hammered Trump on the two things he’s best known for.
“Trump’s main argument for why he should be taken seriously as a presidential contender is his business success. Has Obama ever hosted a long-running reality series? Owned a bankruptcy-bound chain of casinos? Put his name on a flock of really unattractive high-rise apartment buildings? No! … ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ is widely regarded as terrible and cheesy programming, but, actually, it has its moments. I recently saw an episode in which a former top model had a serious discussion with a fellow competitor about whether this was the 20th century or the 21st.....
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
When you go after Mr. Obama, you’re going after Mr. Soros. If during a puppet show, I cut off your hand that holds the puppet, did I attack you or the puppet?
Actually those on both sides of the issue are Birthers. Anyone who believes Obama was born in Hawaii, without actual proof, is a Birther, just as those who believe he was not born in Hawaii without actual proof, are also Birthers.
Everyone who has an opinion on where obama was born is a Birther. Only those who are waiting for actual proof before deciding on the issue are not Birthers.
So, that makes Sarah a birther, and also Tokyo Rove and Ted Baxter too. Trump turns out to NOT be a birther because he is waiting for proof.
Any honest person, candidate or otherwise, must admit that they reall do not know if Obama is a natural born citizen or not. Nobody has proved he is. Nobody has proved he isn’t.
The big news is that Trump has succeeded in making the issue mainstream and no longer fringe. Others now suddenly find the courage they previously lacked to raise the issue.
Never-the-less, possession is nine tenths of the law. Obama possesses the office.
Since the Wisconsin (Gov and budget chair) approach is so successfully winning support for our side, will the birther issue become a tactical distraction?
I parse Brad Knickerbocker’s screed as follows.
Clearly Palin and Trump are helping each other by tag-teaming Obama.
Media sense danger for Obama!! Media no like Obama adversary tag team!!
So media say both not credible.
Media fling its weak humor at Palin and Trump.
Haha!!
Media do voter thinking for voter!!
How to put this delicately— ok, the media is obsessively indifferent to reporting Obama’s background with accuracy. So it is the media itself who is not credible. The media should be ashamed into investigating Obama’s past, yet it parades around in its ignorance (yes you Brad Knickerbocker) and points ignorantly at others onto whom it has projected its own shortcomings.
How disappointing. However, after all, OTOH, these are the guys that went to j-schools, so at least we could be thankful someone did not hire them to do brain surgery or fly a passenger airline.
Thanks Brad! Keep up the good work by being merely a nuisance and thereby removing yourself from being an imminent danger to the public!!
:-)
I’m beginning to think that jourbalists are people who regarded social work and education degrees as “too hard” and yet still wanted to contribute to the downfall of AmeriKKKa.
The term “birther” is nonsensical on its face. It means different things to different people.
Those of us who insist that a presidential candidate establish his eligibility under the provisions of the constitution may or may not agree on where we “think” Obama was born. What we believe in terms of birth location is irrelevant. What IS relevant is whether Obama (and any future presidential candidate) meets the constitutional requirements to serve.
The only difference between most conservatives on this issue is whether we think Obama actually established his eligibility (providing verifiable proof) in the first place. Some of us think he most certainly has not done so, and others think he did. Those who think he did establish his eligibility have not examined the matter closely and have allowed themselves to be deceived.
To me, the most appropriate terms would be “Strict Constitutionalists”, at least on this single constitutional provision.
But read it. Brave the waters. Lurk, spy. It's very, very informative.
They're very credulous -- they just take things at someone's word instead of doing a little snooping and reading themselves. Credulites!
Hey! You beat me to it! I was thinking “Credulites,” but of course they are indeed credulists!
Man ... your anger at Palin has reduced you to flailing. That's some weak stuff, beneath you.
Well, if it's any comfort, it appears that at least half, probably more, of CSN (Christian Science News) respondents in posts ain't buying it any more than we are, but several of them are a whole lot more eloquent and in-depth in their reasons and research than FReepers.
I just read through 240 comments so far at the site (not 260 plus as I said earlier, when I had only gotten about a quarter of the way through reading). It appears that the writer of this CSM piece is considered an idiot by quite a few readers.
Just that much more evidence that a whole lot more Americans are on the same basic political page as FReepers than what is generally perceived.
I believe there is some evidence that baby named “Barack Obama” was born in Hawaii in 1961. I also believe there is some evidence that a baby going by the name of “Barack Obama” is now living in our White House. I’m not convinced that this is all the relevant information.
Who’s the kook? Gail Collins has been many things, mostly bad to mediocre, but funny is not one of them. She is the scribbler who advocated women leave their husbands after turning sixty to find themselves. That nutty statement reaches the far recesses of radical-feminist kookery.
Gail Collins, Candy Crowley, Meredith Viera. Hmm.
The MSM is putting their first string offense Obamabot reporters out there against Trump. Poor guy, he will get slaughtered....
It is a wrap. Americans have decided, 51% to 49% in recent polls by MSNBC and CBS, after watching unscripted interviews with hard-hitting reporters Candy Crowley and Meredith Viera against the racist rich white man Donald Trump, that the moon is made of green cheese after all.
This fact was reported by the Honolulu Advertiser in the birth notices of August, 1961, as anyone who knows how to use a microfiche knows.
Did we mention that Donald Trump is a racist rich white man?
Racist! rich! white! man!!!
Quite frankly FRiend, it is a fact, and you know it.
I could post links if you can’t remember. I understand it is difficult to keep up with the flips and flops.
Not that she is the only only one flopping around, there are plenty of others. Some of those are too cowardly to even flip before they flop.
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