Posted on 12/04/2009 10:02:44 AM PST by pissant
Sarah Palin scrambled away from the birther movement last night after giving them a wink and a nod on a conservative radio talk show yesterday. Posting on her Facebook page at 1:16am, Palin writes that, "at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States." She tries to dismiss her birther flirtation as just an acknowledgment of voters' right to know: "Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child."
Well ... three problems with her explanation.
First, here's what she said when asked if she would raise the birth certificate issue in a presidential campaign (emphasis mine):
I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers.
The key word there is "rightfully," which in this context means that it is right--as in correct or proper--to ask the question. She didn't say that the public has the right to ask, she said that it's right for the public to ask. That's an Alaska-sized difference.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
“The key word there is “rightfully,” which in this context means that it is right—as in correct or proper—to ask the question. She didn’t say that the public has the right to ask, she said that it’s right for the public to ask. That’s an Alaska-sized difference.”
Huh?
So the public has the right to ask, but it isn’t right to actually do it? That makes no sense. And I say that as someone that thinks the birthers are full of crap.
The problem with the birthers isn’t that they ask. It’s that they won’t accept the reality of the answer.
And since when is it so terrible that a politician doesn’t go out of her way to needlessly irritate some of her potential voters?=====================================================
The “birthers” wont accept the reality of the answer? We never got our answers, ever! Why do you believe President Obama was born in Hawaii? Simply because he said so when he started campaigning for President? There are numerous irregularities, that we all want answered. How can anyone trust someone that spends so much money hiding their past. It seems like you can accept reality, that YOUR Dear Leader is a huge fraud! Oh yeah, UP YOURS!
Now that Gov. Palin has stepped into the issue she should go the rest of the way and attempt to resolve it, it has been festering long enough. He stand and actions could help define her as a bold stand, with effective actions, could have done for Sen. McCain with the “financial crisis”.
It appears that a majority of the people in a position to resolve this issue know the answer (and don’t care) or are afraid of the answer (which means they suspect Obama does not meet the requirements).
There are not but three fundamental questions to be answered.
1. What are the implementing instructions (per state) for the Constitutional Requirements for president.
2. Who was responsible (per state) for the implementation of these instructions.
3. What documentation is available (per state) to indicate that the qualifications, for the Constitution Requirements was carried out.
Being that none of the states have made any effort to resolve/explain this issue (South Carolina “threatened to do so after the election) and that Róger Calero was on the ballet in several states, it seems the states may be at a lose to explain it.
You’re full of it.
Go back to your buddies at DU.
She’s simply stating that people have the right to ask questions regarding the birth certificate.
Her commment that she has never ask Obama to produce the BC doesn’t take away from the legitimacy of the question, as she made clear.
There is no meaningul comparison about the questions being asked. Palin qualifies her response, very cleverly, that she, as in her personally, did not ask the question.
A clear attempt to not get caught up as a possible nominee as a “birther”. Her previous statement speaks to the BC question being legitimate.
I disagree with the analysis (and find it interesting that it is at a site called “birther.org”, since I have been attacked for using the term “birther”, and you will note I try very hard not to do so anymore).
Moreso, by the analysis, we have no need for Obama’s birth certificate, because we already KNOW that his father was Kenyan/British.
I simply don’t believe that natural-born requires that BOTH parents be citizens at the time of birth. Although I could make a better argument for the FATHER being american than the mother, since originally (as one of the quoted documents shows) it was the birthright of the FATHER that mattered.
I would accept Obama as not “natural-born” if he wasn’t born on U.S. soil (in which case he WOULD have to have two american parents, and be born on soil that was legitimately under control of the U.S., like a military base). I would accept he was not natural-born if his mother did not meet the qualifications for confering citizenship (there were rules regarding her time in the states that some suggested she didn’t meet).
That’s because while I agree with the argument as to why it was considered important to be a natural born citizen, I disagree with the application of the definition based on that consideration. A child born to an American mother, whose father is unknown, would certainly pass muster under the “don’t have any foreign allegiances” — how could a child with no knowledge of father have any allegiance to the unknown father’s unknown place of origin?
But more importantly, it is a known fact that Obama’s father was not American. That no successful challenge has been brought on that point shows that, regardless of personal opinion, the considered constitutional opinion of those that MATTER is that “natural-born” does not require both parents to be citizens.
Which is why the lawsuits are about seeing the birth certificate, in the hopes the certificate will show that Obama was born in another country.
Why bother, if settled law proved he wasn’t natural-born because of the father?
The American people have a right to ask their leaders for information.
But the questions they ask might not be the “right” questions.
I could ask Obama is he is born in Hawaii.
But if I were convinced he was born there, and had a chance to ask him a question, that would be the wrong question for me to ask.
Getting into more of an area of opinion, most of us would agree that the press had the right (freedom of the press) to ask Bush about whether he did crack 20 years ago. But some people thought the press was WRONG (improper) to ask those questions.
Trying to wrap around it with an analogy here — but don’t you sometimes find yourself saying “Sure, you have a RIGHT to ask that question, but why would you, it’s offensive, or it’s insulting, or it’s inconsequential”.
As to what Sarah meant by that, I can only guess.=================================
Doing crack 20 years ago doesn’t make a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN ineligible to be the President of the United States. I am not really sure where you were going with that line of thought.
Could you point to where she said that she presented it?
This is what was on her Facebook last night:
Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask... which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.
It says she was asked, as was her doctor and lawyer. It does not say that she presented them.
Where does she say specifically that she presented them?
I’m with you. I appreciate that she is NOT on the “birth certificate” movement. And I have said before that I think they are wrong, but more power to them, which seems to be her position as well, although with maybe a little more disdain than I feel comfortable with expressing.
“She ought to know by now that that winking schtick just makes her look un-serious”
YOUR post makes it hard to take you seriously.
It was a RADIO interview dude. No one was winking at anybody. BTW, politicians wink all the time. Obozo has been winking, and Bush winked before him too.
President Obama also used his middle finger.
"Why do they avoid the issue altogether?"
Because they are chicken sh*t's!
The resident liberal Obamanoid speaks.
But her second statement speaks to the BC question being of no interest to her, and qualifies her previous statement to mean that the ASKING OF the question is legitimate, not the question itself.
A candidate gets in trouble when her supporters stop believing what she says, and start interpreting it the way they want.
“I don’t think she is afraid of a scrap. “
Been my experience that the best time to end a scrap is directly after it has started... one seems to have started.
The flip flop is the DEMS flipping and a flopping trying anything to hurt our next President Sarah Palin!!!
Makes sense. Really it does....John Gibson the instigator says obama is holding out the BC to let the birthers look crazy and lose respect...its costing US millions to achieve that nonsense notion...Sarah said it right on ask if you wamma know...you betcha!!!!!
The flip flop is the DEMS FLIPPING and a FLOPPING to try anything to tear our next great President Sarah Palin down...water on a duck...obama is not duck
“But her second statement speaks to the BC question being of no interest to her, and qualifies her previous statement to mean that the ASKING OF the question is legitimate, not the question itself.”
Absolutely Incorrect.
Wishful thinking on your part Charles.
She is being one her detractors say she isn’t. She is being clever and politically competent. Her goal is to run for President and not get caught up in this side issue.
Her job is not to taken on the BC issue. It’s to get elected in 2012.
This is clear if you read what it says and not what you want it to say.
Or more accurately, her previous statement really was just a statement that the public had a right to ask the question, not that the public WAS right to ask the question, and it was just worded inartfully.
Her reasoned, reflective writing on facebook should represent a more accurate view of her opinion, in which she says that the public has a RIGHT to ask questions, and equates that right to the right of the left to ask her questions about Trig.
She then notes the offensiveness of THOSE questions (which they had a RIGHT to ask), and notes she has NOT asked Obama about his birth certificate, or raised ANY question about his legitimacy; suggesting an equivalence showing that while she thinks SHE would have a RIGHT to ask Obama about it, she thinks it would be WRONG for her to do so, and she RIGHTFULLY has NOT ASKED.
Now, you seem to argue that Palin thinks the questions are legitimate questions that should be asked, but that she refuses to ask them, and is proud that she is NOT asking questions that she thinks should be asked — which isn’t a very flattering picture to paint.
I prefer to believe she said something inartfully in an on-air live interview which she has corrected when she had time to thoughtfully write about it, rather than believing that she crassly panders to both sides of the issue, questioning Obama’s birth but refusing to raise the question publicly.
hope this helps ya..you betcha!http://snunes.blogspot.com/2008/08/more-palin_3506.html..lets watch the spin..Palin Power
Your assuming things instead of reading what is there.
Wishful thinking on your part Charles.
She is being one her detractors say she isn’t. She is being clever and politically competent. Her goal is to run for President and not get caught up in this side issue.
Her job is not to taken on the BC issue. It’s to get elected in 2012.
This is clear if you read what it says and not what you want it to say.
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