Posted on 07/28/2009 10:22:30 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
In 2005, when I was working as a speechwriter in the South African parliament, a far-left faction of the ruling African National Congress spun a yarn that accused the leader of the opposition, the intelligence minister, and the Mossad of colluding to frame Jacob Zuma, the faction's chosen presidential candidate.
Intelligence agents loyal to Zuma bugged the opposition's parliamentary offices and produced a bogus document that they claimed was a transcript of Internet chats between Zuma's supposed opponents.
It was all nonsense, but the conspiracy theory galvanized Zuma's supporters, who soon pushed him to the top of the ruling party and the country, trampling the rule of law in the process.
Here in the United States, the conspiracy theory that alleges that President Barack Obama faked his American birth is likewise troubling. Rather than propelling Republicans to power, however, the "Birther" theory is being used by Democrats and their media allies to isolate and undermine the opposition.
Though some of the wonderful "facts" people have been led to believe about Obama are demonstrably untrue (he is still often referred to, for example, as a former "law professor"), the fact of his American birth is not one of them.
The test is not simply whether there are doubts, but whether those doubts are reasonable. That is a test the Birther theory failed long ago. Perhaps its proponents ought to have had their day in court, but that probably would not have helped their cause, nor convinced the most determined among them to abandon it.
The media has cast Birtherism as a conservative phenomenon -- and it is fast spreading among conservative activists -- but it was originally a Democrat obsession. The most prominent Birther, Philip J. Berg, is a Democrat who backed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary. Other rumors, such as the infamous and non-existent Michelle Obama "‘whitey' tape," were also weapons in the Democrats' internal struggle.
In the same vein, left-wing pundits claim the Birther thesis reveals latent racism in the Republican Party. But it was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who made race an issue in the 2008 campaign. From the Obama campaign's charges that Hillary Clinton was the Senator from Punjab, to the Clinton campaign's leaking of a photo of Obama in Somali garb, right up through Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" comment and the whole Jeremiah Wright affair, it was the left that remained obsessed with race and identity politics.
The Birther theory is likewise an artifact of left-wing squabbles. Conservatives who are tempted by the Birther theory should ask themselves why the mainstream media is now so interested in the story when they were so reluctant to give any attention to the allegations during the 2008 campaign (when, if true, they might have made a difference).
It's not because there is any fresh evidence to support the Birther thesis, but because the Birther thesis has again become politically useful to the left.
Since Obama took office in January, his supporters have sought to entrench his power by creating controversy around one conservative after another. The first target was Rush Limbaugh, whom Obama himself singled out. Then they revived the smear campaign against Sarah Palin. The Birther controversy is the latest incarnation of this strategy, which aims to taint all Republicans by association with a discredited libel.
And too many conservatives have been eager to take the bait.
There are two reasons why so many find the Birther theory compelling. One is the opaqueness of Obama himself. There is much about our president we still do not know.
For example, throughout 2008 the media showed little interest in Obama's connections to the underworld of Chicago politics, regarding Hillary Clinton's references to fraudster "slumlord" Tony Rezko as mere fear-mongering. When the Blagojevich scandal exploded in December 2008, many journalists were quick to accept Obama's assurances of innocent naïveté.
Other details about the president's past remain hidden or suppressed. Obama has never, for example, provided a convincing explanation of why he disposed of his papers from the Illinois State Senate, or how he managed to lose the thesis he wrote at Columbia. He sometimes fibs about essential details of his personal life -- such as where he met his wife -- and offers inauthentic projections of empathy with ordinary folk, such as references to arugula or memories of "Cominskey Field."
The Obama team also has a habit of releasing information in cryptic drips and drabs, and Friday-afternoon document drops. During the campaign, he suddenly revealed that he had taken a trip to Pakistan in 1981 -- a voyage he had not alluded to in either of his two memoirs -- and his staff only belatedly acknowledged his authorship of an unsigned Harvard Law Review article on abortion.
The candidate who promised transparency has been anything but transparent, feeding the suspicion that drives the Birther theory.
The other reason the Birther theory has caught on -- particularly among conservatives -- is the weakness of the Republican opposition.
Despite the GOP's success in slowing down ObamaCare, Democrats still have a huge majority in the House, a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate, and a White House that is aggressively expanding its executive power. One Republican leader after another has stepped down or been tarnished by scandal.
Many Americans -- including some who had convinced themselves that Obama was a moderate -- are eager for a way to stop the runaway left-wing agenda of Obama and Nancy Pelosi's Congress. In the absence of strong Republican leadership, some find the Birther theory a compelling, if desperate, solution.
Yet it is ultimately a self-destructive one -- not just because it is almost certainly false, but because it contradicts the essential spirit of the conservative movement.
The philosopher Robert Nozick distinguished between two approaches to political thought: the "invisible hand" and the "hidden hand." Those who embrace the "invisible hand" believe that people, given the freedom to make their own choices, tend to achieve social goals without being forced to do so.
Sometimes the invisible hand fails, and strong central leadership is needed. But as a general rule, free markets and civil liberties have worked well in promoting human progress. They have certainly proved better than the alternative, in the form of state control, which has produced only poverty, war, and misery.
"Hidden hand" thinkers, by contrast, believe that everything is controlled by unseen forces -- not spiritual but human in nature. Socialism thrives on such ideas, including the notion that big business is constantly manipulating all of us to feed its insatiable greed -- an idea that Obama and much of his left-wing base subscribes to quite openly. In fact, socialism depends on conspiracy theories to justify its war against personal liberty, to blame for its inevitable failures, and to cover up its own very real machinations.
The real "conspiracy" in American politics is the way in which special interest groups loyal to Obama now have unfettered access to power and public money. The unions that ran themselves to the brink of insolvency by giving millions of dollars to Obama and the Democrats, for instance, are being handed taxpayer bailouts and huge shares in companies newly acquired by our rapidly-expanding government, the better to begin the cycle anew.
The answer is to expose this corruption, to fight for policies consistent with American values of freedom, and to win elections again -- not to waste time and resources on political alchemy.
The Birther theory is, in effect if not in intent, a gift to the Obama administration, bequeathed by the indignant rump of the Clinton effort and now deployed against the Republican opposition. It is also deeply corrosive of the spirit of liberty that conservatives bring to American politics.
That is why conservatives and Republicans should reject it -- and dismiss with contempt the media's effort to hang it around our collective necks. There is enough in this administration to oppose on the merits -- or lack thereof.
All 100% accurate. And any citizen who doesn’t possess a healthy amount of curiosity about the absence of those documents has to be either brain dead or bought off.
Orly Taitz addressed that problem recently in a letter to a number of Congressmen. I doubt that they’ll look into it but at least they’ve been informed.
(Cursed with Second Sight.)
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I am the second son of a second son, does that mean I have “second sight” or just that I will never be first in line for anything?
I asked myself this exact question. Why, at that particular moment was the media hyperventilating about Obama’s qualification for President?
I decided the timing was everything. When a judge gave Major Cook legal standing to force Obama to prove his natural born citizenship status, the DOD withdrew Cook's orders and Obama put a hit on his job... Cook is suing Obama under whistle blower protections and the media wants to discredit him and the case before that case comes to light.
So all this screeching is to cover up the man behind the curtain. The GOP has distanced themselves from the idea of their responsibility to verify qualifying documents so they don't have to worry about all these “kooks”, right? So why are they so damn worried?
The article is spot on and I’m glad an arch-conservative publication like American Thinker has finally weighed on this.
Obama isn’t going to be removed from office via the “birth certificate” issue. It isn’t going to happen. It’s a done, finished issue. Let’s move on to things we can actually have an influence on.....like stopping ObamaCare and cap and trade.
The problem is getting into the US. I've been thinking coming back through the Bahamas would have worked ~ with no passport at all.
They fully understand the value of the "fringe stories".
So, rephrase it, why is he allowing folks to drag his ears, which he inherited from his mother, through the mud?
Only Leftwingtards ever refer to “ARCH” anything anymore.
People keep asking why BO hasn’t released the damn document and suppose it’s because there is something so damaging in it that he can’t afford to.
It’s articles like this and the responses to them in a gazillion threads on FR which provides a glimpse of another reason why.
He’s been able to force a wedge between the conservative right. Where those who don’t thing there’s any substance to the claims view the ‘birther’s’ as a crazy bunch dragging the right into the dead end of glassy eyed conspiracy theories whilst those who do believe the others have been bought off or have ‘jumped the shark’.
Don’t believe me? Things have taken a wierd turn when Anne Coulter or American Thinker are no longer trusted conservative sources on FR. I’d consider a million bucks as chump change if I cold sow the same chaos in the left.
cold sow = could sow
(nothing to do with the temperature of a pig).
Whenever there is this much flak even if its coming from both sides of the aisle - there's something there. The real facts are: There have only been 2 Presidents in the history of our nation who sealed all of their records from public view -- Obama and Chester Arthur. Chester Arthur was later found to be ineligible to have held the office and he knew he wasn't eligible -- thus he covered up as much information as he could and in some cases destroyed records, unfortunately he didn't burn all of them. With Obama not only has he sealed the circumstances of his birth, he's also sealed a whole lot more that are usually tradition to release -- not just the birth certificate -- everything. You have to explain that.
IMO: The 'conservatives' (and I now use that term loosely) who are jumping on the bandwagon against 'birthers' are in political 'cover up our butts' mode. They had the opportunity to vet this man just like the lib media did and failed, miserably. They also had the opportunity to demand in Congress that he prove his qualifications before certifying the election and failed, miserably.
Not ONE of these now proven to be fake conservatives stood up and issued a protest after the electoral college. So now they're going to go down along with the Messiah and naturally they don't want this covered, they want it suppressed. No surprise to me.
This birther stuff can only make conservatives look bad.
But, they have been warned.
Too bad.
His non-Messianic scores would prove he had no business at Columbia, none at Harvard Law, Harvard Law Review was bogus, his Presidency of the HLR a gift, and this Magna Cum Laude at HLS beyond comprehension. So too would it be obvious that someone with modest SAT scores didn't write those books. The lack of any legal work, writings and scholarship would be explained. Obama would be exposed as the empty suit, a front man propelled along at every turn by cleverer lefties.
Once the birther army gets Obama to cough up the BC, the next target should be the SAT scores.
It's looking like some of you guys at the Obama "truther site" just don't get it ~ and BTW that's not surprising.
I still am not sure if the turncoat minor “conservative” pundits are acting like puppets for Obama due to fairness doctrine threats or GOP party RINOs worried about a race war because they know O is ineligible. A lot of smoke and fire for supposedly a dead story. Obama's goons are going mental to kill this. This nonsense that we should back off because it is hurting conservatives. So we will remain hostage to the liberal newsmedia and we will be their serfs. Screw them. Cancel your sat and cable TV. There is free web TV you can watch to repalce it. We have the power if we use it.
I'd suggest we just leave the mambypambies alone for a bit though and keep our eye on the real object ~ the GD Democrats and their threat to murder every man woman and child in the country. That's definitely got to be stopped
Well, the establishment media is not holding anyone hostage as has been shown with conservative majority power in the recent past and in the public’s large self identification as conservative. For a lot of people when the media get so hysterical, they ask more questions and seek more information. Most people know the media is biased.
The establishment media “win” when they run a hysterical disinformation campaign while it lasts and then conservatives just move forward on radio, the internet and in life talking over their heads about facts and issues, unhindered by the spin and hate.
Yep.
A lot of good it did them too. /sarcasm.
Well, turnabout is fair play.
I suppose, though in this case it doesn't seem very rational to copy a failed strategy formerly employed by our opponents.
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