Thursday, July 23, 2009

It's not about the birth certificate

And while this blog entry's title comes under the category of "NO SH-T SHERLOCK" I do feel some clarification is in order.

More and more of the 'traditional' mainstream media - AKA Fox Not-News, Lou "I'm a Populist So Let Me Rage Against Furriners" Dobbs, Glenn Beck (*this* is traditional???), Sean Hannity (idiot never finished college: he lost his college radio gig for being a homophobic bastard), of course Rush Limbaugh and that ilk - are ranting about Obama not having a real American birth certificate, that he wasn't born in Hawaii at all but secretly born in Kenya and smuggled back in an elaborate ruse, and that because he wasn't born here (in order to cover the argument about his mom's citizenship status, these Birthers are also arguing she's a fake!) he violates the Constitutional requirements for being President. Well, that's one conspiracy theory: there's a handful of variations on this. Basically these 'Birthers' are claiming Obama's not legally President.

From a comment I made on a Washington Monthly thread regarding this stupidity:

This needs to be said: even if Obama and/or the State of Hawaii releases his actual birth certificate (ADDED: The Short Form has, with the caveat this is merely an official copy of the original long form. The long form from 1961 remains with the hospital in Hawaii and they don't discuss its contents due to privacy laws), there is every likelihood the Birthers will (STILL) claim it's a forgery. After all, this is a massive conspiracy that's been planned from well back in 1960, isn't it?
This is what "they" planned back in 1960 (who "they" are is obvious: FDR's worshippers): Get a white woman impregnated by a black Kenyan visiting the country (ADDED: Better yet get her pregnant in Kenya and have the baby born there, then sneak the child into Hawaii and get a forged certificate). Raise the boy in a Muslim school in Asia for a few years, but pretend he's really Christian. Ship him off to a liberal college, and then move him to Chicago so he can hang out with discredited 60s bomb-making hippies. Trick potential GOP opponents into being sex-crazed (even with drop-dead gorgeous blonde wives who make Trekkie geeks drool) or just-plain crazed (hi, Mr. Keyes!) to ensure the plot's success. Also trick the Republican leadership into massive spending deficits and a wasteful overseas war in Iraq that distracts the country from more necessary targets (Hey, Cheney, caught Bin Laden yet???), along with massive governmental incompetence allowing our financial institutions to collapse at the right moment (two months before the 2008 Election) to ensure this questionable person gets elected into the White House. And then that covert Kenyan Candidate gets to DESTROY AMERICA (as long as America hasn't already been destroyed by massive Republican-built deficits, strained military resources, lack of health care to 1/4 of the nation, and insane gun-toting wingnuts shooting up churches, cops, and museums).
All that massive subterfuge, all those pieces needing to be placed all the way back in 1960... I'm amazed that conspiracy worked to perfection almost 50 years later. Wow. Whoever planned this has (or had) enough foresight to play the Lotto with some success, you think?
Somewhere in the universe Occam is laughing his ass off.

And so, this isn't about the birth certificate. This is about the Far Right refusing to accept the 2008 election results. This is about the Far Right refusing to wake up from their fantasy-based world (where Bush and Cheney and Rush are GODS, where terrorists possess nukes and the French are cheese-eating surrender monkeys, where there's an endless supply of loans to pay for massive war expenses and unending tax cuts) and re-enter the Reality-Based community (where everything's been broken by 8 years of Bush/Cheney self-serving incompetence and the whole world hates us for warmongering and neocon arrogance). This is about the Far Right thinking it's 1993 all over again and they can attack Clinton for every half-baked rumor coming out of Arkansas, only now it's 2009 and they think they can attack Obama for every fully-baked rumor about him. Facts don't matter. Truth don't matter. Even having the courts throw their cases out for sheer stupidity don't matter. All that matters is ATTACK AND WIN.

This is as close to my Obama Shoelace Hypothesis as the Far Right has gotten... so far. And while for us sane people - the ones who recognize the simplest explanation is the most likely one, that Obama was born in Hawaii complete with certificate and local news announcement - this borders on ridiculous, we can't afford the luxury of laughing this off.

You see, these Birthers are basically claiming that Obama isn't American, therefore he isn't President. They're trying to get soldiers in the military now to disobey orders, wilfully inciting our troops to acts of insubordination (doesn't directly fall under treason as defined by law, but may be considered seditious). And the more these Birther crackpots talk about Obama as un-American and "Destroying the country", the more likely they're gonna push those at the lower ends of their mouth-foaming rage gatherings into acts of violence. We've already seen that happen too.

These wingnuts are gonna get more people killed. All because they won't accept the facts (official state documents, dated newspaper clippings), all because they won't accept the simple truth their conspiracy 'theory' is too complicated to be real, all because they won't accept the reality that a majority of Americans voted for Obama and want him to succeed.

No comments: