Myth. Screwy idea. Embarrassment. Paranoia. Off-base. Baseless. Dishonest. Vicious. Disgusting. Dangerous. Fringe. Conspiracy mongers. Wing nuts.
This is how The Dallas Morning News describes the phenomenon of the "birthers," the name given to those who believe that Barack Obama somehow isn't eligible to be President of the United States because of their insistence, against all evidence, that he was really born in Kenya, not Hawaii; or because his father was Kenyan and that makes him not a natural born citizen of the US; or because he lived in Indonesia as a child and that somehow forfeited his US citizenship; or maybe because he is really a socialist Muslim terrorist. Whew!
The Dallas Morning News, like many before it, debunks the myth:
"Never mind that Hawaii has confirmed Obama's 'certificate of live birth' as a valid birth certificate. Never mind that a birth announcement was printed in a Hawaii paper in 1961. Never mind that the U.S. Supreme Court last year dismissed a legal challenge to his citizenship."
Don't expect facts to stop the birthers. Last week, Michael Landauer, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, pointed out that "attacking Obama myths is hopeless, I'm afraid." His Wednesday blog posting has now attracted 123 comments, many from birthers reiterating their debunked myths, as if repetition alone has now cemented them as fact. Friday's DMN editorial quickly attracted 101 comments of its own.
Expecting the birthers to come to their senses is probably hopeless, as Landauer fears. But the DMN reserves some criticism "for those who should know better to fuel this paranoia." Agreed. All of us ought to save our breaths arguing with the birthers themselves and focus our criticism on those who exploit the birthers for partisan advantage, the "elected officials who seem most interested in playing to the worst instincts the political fringe has to offer."
So far, Texas' own leading politicians seem to be keeping a safe distance from the issue. That's something, I guess, but they really ought to show some statesmanship on this issue. As the DMN editorial puts it: "There should be more politicians ... who say what needs to be said - the truth."
10 comments:
Some people just simply cannot accept as fact that the President of the United States is a black man with an Arabic (read "Muslim") derived name. The root cause of this, of course, is racism, but venues like the DMN are reluctant to point that out. I wonder why.
Lee Gibson, racism may be behind some of the conspiracy theories, but racism can't explain conspiracy mongering in general. Remember the conspiracy theories that Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks and the conspiracy theories that Clinton was behind Vince Foster's suicide? Conspiracy mongering seems to be wired deep in some people's brains. Racism is, too, but it's a separate circuit.
I didn't say that racism could explain conspiracy theory in general. I merely said that it explains this particular conspiracy theory. Which it does.
It is unfortunate that the conspiracy theory attacking the first African-American President happens to be about his birth, his parents, his ancestry. It boils down to a claim that he's not one of "us." But if it wasn't his birth certificate, it would be something else the conspiracy mongers would latch onto. The birth certificate is just a convenient pretext. The undercurrent of racism might feed the conspiracy theory, but without any racism, we'd still have some conspiracy theory or other.
This whole 'the only reason anyone doesn't like Obama is because deep down they're a racist' thing is in itself is a conspiracy theory...and one I'm kind of getting tired of.
(I will acknowledge there is some validity to it, but I doubt it's nearly as much as everyone thinks)
Anytime people do not get their way they start grasping at threads. And threads to one group are chain links to another, remember Bush/Gore? To me that was silly, to you both, I bet it was valid.
"Anonymous" at 7/28/2009 10:37 AM, I'm with you. Racism is unnecessary to explain conspiracy theories, even this one. I didn't bring it up. I have no interest in turning this comment thread into a discussion of racism.
You ask, "remember Bush/Gore?" I remember the election of 2000, but I don't know what it has to do with the current topic.
Submitted without comment:
"Obama-Haters Becoming Increasingly...Racial In Their Rhetoric"
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obama-haters-becoming-increasingly-racial-in-their-rhetoric.php?ref=fpb
Lee Gibson, our country's original sin of slavery still reverberates today in racism, but nutty conspiracy theories need no such explanation. Nuttiness, like weeds, sprouts from fertile soil and barren soil both.
So what I'm wondering here is: Why hasn't anyone brought up the rule that says 'If you're born to an American Citizen, you automatically get American citizenship'. Isn't that true? If not I've been wrong about it for a long time.
But if that is true, and his mother was a US citizen (which as far as I know, is the case), it really doesn't matter where Obama was born.
Of course I'm of the opinions that all these birthers are just whiney extreme right-wingers who are still upset that their candidate didn't win the election.
Sherri, the legalities are subtle. The key requirement is a Constitutional one. A candidate must be, not just a citizen, but a "natural born citizen." What does that mean? There are lots of opinions, there are even cases where Congress has weighed in on the question, but so far, in over 200 years, the Supreme Court has never had to offer its own opinion on what that phrase means.
But something that all rational people accept is that Barack Obama, having been born in the US state of Hawaii, meets the Constitutional requirement.
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