Birthers, truthers: Not a false equivalence, except in one sense

Politico's Ben Smith notes something I've brought up several times in this space and had the opportunity to discuss once on MSNBC. People have made much of the surprising share of Republicans who will tell pollsters they buy into the fantasy that President Obama is really a foreigner in the Oval Office (a logical consequence of birther-ism).

But just a few years ago, you could get an equally, surprisingly large number of Democrats to tell pollsters they believed that George W. Bush either allowed 9-11 to happen, despite having foreknowledge, or else actually conspired to make it happen. Smith has crosstabs from a 2006 poll that show more than half of Democratic voters were supposedly truthers. (I think that pollsters overcount both birthers and truthers for the very reason Smith hints at:

I'm still not sure this represents actual belief, as opposed to a kind of trash talk about a president you hate.

I think this drives much of today's birtherism, too. But one of the first commenters to Smith's post offers this up:

Ben, find me ONE candidate even on the fringe of the Democratic party who was running on the believe that Bush was "in on it".... ONE.

One? There's more than one. I believe there were quite a few Democrats at the state and local levels who embraced the idea wholeheartedly, and and at least two towns that I remember in New England passed "truther" resolutions. But among federal candidates, that's easy: Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., for starters. She actually accused Bush's father of causing 9-11.

There were several others who merely flirted with trutherism in order to harness the goodwill of the ignorant masses on the Left. Take, for example, our current Secretary of State, who appeared on the Senate floor on May 16, 2002, holding up a New York Post headline that misleadingly suggested President Bush knew about 9-11 in advance. Senator Clinton also gave a speech playing up this headline and suggesting that there might actually be something to the idea:

"The president knew what?....My constituents would like to know the answer to that and many other questions, not to blame the president or any other American, just to know."

I don't believe for one second that Hillary is actually a truther. Her speech is the equivalent of, "Well, I believe the president was born in Hawaii, but I don't see why he doesn't end all doubt by showing us his birth certificate. If he has nothing to hide, then he should just release it."

What's even more hysterical about Smith's post is the number of left-wing commenters who make his point for him by defending truther-ism.

Are truthers and birthers equivalent? Yes, in most senses, but no in one other. Birtherism is a misguided theory about Obama which, even if true, does not allege that he is partially or wholly responsible for the murder of thousands of Americans. In fact, if the birthers were correct, it wouldn't even be Obama's fault. That's why the truthers are, in fact, far more unhinged than the birthers.

Birtherism is a misguided theory about Obama which, even if true, does not allege that he is partially or wholly responsible for the murder of thousands of Americans.

That's only because Barry hasn't had the opportunity to do so yet. It was his handler Rahm Emanual who said, “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.” Why is it so difficult to accept the fact that these creeps would cause a crisis to get what they want and get their perverse kicks doing it. Its been done throughout history. Julius Ceaser wrote manuals on how to go about it. Its the height of childish naivety to think that America is immune from history. Thinking that "it can't happen here" is exactly why our country is in such dire straits.

RE: We’re not asking for birth certificates for Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson or Charlie Rangel, so it can’t be about race.

There is NO Constitutional requirement for Congressmen to be Natural Born citizens, so Rangel does not have to prove anything other than he is an American Citizen.

Now, if Al or Jesse were the official POTUS nominees, they have to prove that they’re natural born citizens ( that goes for everyone else, regardless of race or color ).

I’ve always thought that the key is understanding what the term — NATURAL BORN means.

It has been argued that two conditions should apply as originally understood by the framers :

1) You must be born in the United States or its territories.

2) Your PARENTS (both father and mother ) MUST BE AMERICAN CITIZENS AT THE TIME OF YOUR BIRTH.

So if this definition of NATURAL BORN is right, the Birth Certificate issue is only one aspect of it. Even if the Long Form Certificate shows that Obama was born in the USA, Obama must show that his FATHER was an American Citizen AT THE TIME OF HIS BIRTH.

The difference is so startlingly clear that even the dumbest journalist or pundit can figure it out, with perhaps just a little prompting for the slowest dimwits of the bunch. Why, even the imbecile pundits at Politico are capable of grasping it. In fact, even the dumbest of dumb Democrats are capable of figuring it out (and that is quite an assertion, because so many feeble-minded people are Democrats).

Which explains why they are so afraid of acknowledging it.

In the case of the "Truther" conspiracy theories, proving or disproving them conclusively would require many thousands of pieces of evidence, testimony by engineering experts, demolition experts, and scientists; searching through unknown and unknowable repositories of confidential memos and transcripts and NSA call intercepts, foreign intelligence agency and diplomatic documents; testimony from perhaps thousands of individuals, depositions and trials and cross examination, and more. There's little chance of that happening, which is why "Truthers" can expound their wild ideas forever, with no chance that they can be conclusively put to bed. Absence of evidence means nothing to "Truthers" - they will happily claim that realists must prove a negative, which is an impossible standard to meet.

Whereas proving or disproving "birther" theories may require only the production of a single document, and it's not some mysterious or apocryphal or esoteric document that government authorities claim does not exist and therefore should not be expected to be found and produced, rather it is a document which is attested to and alleged by government authorities to exist, one which is secured in a well-known location and which can be revealed to public scrutiny as a result of what would be the voluntary action of a single, well-known and easily-identifiable person, who just so happens to be "the most powerful man in the world", one who is alleged to have graduated from arguably the most prestigious law school in the world, one who undoubtedly has been or should have been exposed to the legal concept of "the best evidence".

Is that really so difficult to grasp?

The obvious answer is that no, there is nothing difficult about it, which is why the "birther" theories have such traction. It also explains why "they" are so afraid of the "birthers" and of Trump. It explains why "they" will go to extreme lengths to discredit the "birthers" by attacking and ridiculing them and those who dare to expound on their theories, desperately doing anything and everything humanly possible to stifle them, that is, except to do the one thing that would prove or disprove them.

Does the long-form birth certificate exist? If so, does it contain any information that would be damaging to Dear Leader? Or, if not, is Dear Leader simply withholding it as part of a grand "rope-a-dope" strategy to discredit his opponents? (Frankly, as evil as Obama is, I haven't seen any evidence to point to him being smart enough to conceive of, let alone pull off, such a strategy).

You have noticed that the Obama Media and his Republican Buddies never speak to this.

I think of the absurdities of Politically Correct rules that were established regarding this President, like being called a “racist” when using his middle name, or not referring to Obamacare as Socialized Medicine, or being labeled crazy for questioning the almost complete lack of documentation of this guy's past, and I can't believe how easily manipulated much of the public is.

By owning the MSM and most courts, the Democrat Party not only controls the agenda, it also keeps the intimidated Republican Party in check. There is no traditional right and wrong. There is only right and wrong as defined by the Left. Not even the Constitution applies anymore, unless it's needed to forward the agenda.

It's a dangerous place we're at.

Good article. I'd also add that there were far more truthers among mainstream Democrats than there are birthers among mainstream Republicans. The ultimate truther, Michael Moore, was given a front-row seat at the DNC in Boston back in 2004.

Did the chairman of the DNC ever denounce trutherism, the way the chairman of the RNC did a couple weeks ago?

I'd also point out that there's not a a single GOP elected Federal officeholder (at least not one of which I am aware) who embraces birtherism. There were more than a few Dems holding Federal office who, at the very least, toyed with trutherism.

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