Some may find Jim DeMint, a conservative Republican senator, an unlikely defender of Barack Obama. But in this case, the defense of the president is warranted. Birthers are rearing their ugly heads again, all five of them, and the mainstream media happily jumped in to take advantage of them to make all conservatives look like birther conspiracy theorists as well. And so, DeMint has stepped up to tell everyone to give it a rest.
On Monday, however, the South Carolina Republican found himself defending Barack Obama from the fringier elements of his own political party: the conspiracy theorists who insist the president was not born in the United States.
“I may have disagreements with [the president] on issues,” DeMint told the Huffington Post. “But he is my president, he deserves our respect, and we need forget that nonsense …
“He is not only a citizen,” he added, “he is our president.”
Jim DeMint is exactly right on this issue. Look, when I first heard all of the birther conspiracy talk, I was mildly interested. And sure, given everything that Obama is doing to our country, it would certainly be a relief if it turned out that he’s not a citizen, wouldn’t it? He’d have to step down as president. Unfortunately, my birther friends, that’s just not going to happen. Like it or not, Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States. This whole thing would’ve gone away had he simply demanded that Hawaiian officials release the original documents. But then again, he might be loath to do so, simply because it still wouldn’t satisfy the birthers. In any case, a Hawaiian official, Dr. Chiyome Fukino has even come out to try to put an end to this nonsense… for the second time.
In an attempt to quash persistent rumors that President Obama was not born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, Hawaii’s health director reiterated this afternoon that she has personally seen Obama’s birth certificate in the Health Department’s archives.
“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai’i State Department of Health verifying Barrack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago….”
On Oct. 31, Fukino originally tried to put an end to the belief among so-called “birthers” that Obama was not born in the United States and thus was ineligible to run for the office of president.
Obama has released a certificate of live birth, which birthers said was forged. There are two statements from Hawaii Department of Health officials corroborating his certificate of live birth. Yet the birthers won’t shut up about the ridiculous meme, because Hawaii won’t release the “original” records.
Jim DeMint is right. There are plenty of things we can criticize Obama for — plenty — but he is, in fact, a natural-born American citizen. To attack him for this, of all things, is indeed disrespectful and the birthers need to give it a rest, if for no other reason than to stop smearing conservatives with this idiocy. The mainstream media and Democrats are happily gobbling this up, using it to make all conservatives look like conspiracy theorist loons. So let’s just give it a rest, hmm? It’s not the first time the conservative movement has had to part ways with the crazies on the fringe. In 1962, William F. Buckley, Jr., along with other conservative leaders, said buh-bye to Robert Welch and the John Birch Society because they were running their mouths about Dwight Eisenhower being a secret communist agent. They didn’t want the loons to speak for the conservative movement, nor did they want to be associated with such crazies. So, when dealing with this whole birther movement, ask yourself: just what would William F. Buckley, Jr. do? I think we all know that he’d tell the birthers to get lost. So let’s do just that and put an end to this ridiculousness.
Hat Tip: Hot Air
BobV says: I agree.
I never much cared on this issue. I figured either A) he was a legit citizen, B) he had covered his tracks well enough that there was enough ambiguity to sneak in or C) his lawyers were ready to contest that law on some obscure ruling from the 1800s that had nothing to do with it. Either way, he wasn’t going to run if there was a possibility of being ineligible. Obama may be terrible at leading, but he seems pretty astute at politics.
And it just makes the right (even though only a minority are doing this) seem as petty as the left did with the whole “Bush stole the 2000 election” spiel (that they are still doing BTW).
This is a not a winning argument. Obama will be president for the next 3 and a half years. Start working on getting him out in 2012.
Actually, the issue has gone beyond the mere question of whether Obama is a natural-born citizen. When questioned, he provided a document that is not legally useful even in the State is was issued, and has spent over a million dollars to keep a certified copy of the legal document from being seen.
As I wrote in a comment at RWN:
The problem with letting this go without definitive, physical proof, which appears to actually exist, rather than having been lost or destroyed some time in the past (as has been claimed elsewhere), is that if someone later comes along who IS NOT a natural-born citizen, and gets people to lie for him, we’ll just meekly accept it.
Even if there are other witnesses who claim otherwise, like certain of Obama’s relatives do.
Even if it’s only on principle, the Hawaiian Department of Health needs to be forced to produce the actual document, to prevent such a thing from happening in the future.
The real issue is a straw-man argument. I myself doubt the existence of even a single “birther,” as an incarnation of the caricature that’s been foisted upon us: Middle-aged white guy in a wife-beater shirt living in his momma’s basement, forming conspiracy theories, been shown a zillion times lots of hefty evidence of Obama’s Hawaii birth that he should find convincing, but he doesn’t, because his gears are stripped.
I don’t know anybody like this. Furthermore, I find it really suspicious that this “birther” stuff has a pulse to it, and the systolic pressure just so happens to be conveniently timed as Obama’s approval rating crosses the 50% mark and heads South just as He has a health care bill bottled up in Congress that nobody likes.
I think they’re talking about me.
But I don’t fit the classic definition any better than anyone else does. I’ve never once had a serious doubt that He was born in Honolulu. Waynell is correct, though, if we consider the matter proven when it isn’t, the precedent would be terrible. And most damning against Obama, when you consider the negligible cost involved in producing the original copy that would be a simple routine transaction for any ordinary mortal running for President, there’s no rational reason for Him to be skirting the issue like this.
Personally, I think we have a Hawaiian-born American citizen in the White House who’s shrewdly seized on a birther-boogeyman to be hauled out of the closet, with a willing press as an accomplice, any time he needs a distraction from the b.s. he’s trying to foist upon an unsuspecting slumbering nation that’s just starting to wake up. Which is lately just about every two weeks. He won’t spend the $22 to produce the slip of paper you & I would’ve produced a long time ago, because He doesn’t *want* this issue to go away. But there isn’t anyone at any address outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. keeping it around. I’m speaking generally; I know if you look carefully enough over a large enough area, eventually you’ll find a kook or two. But overall I’m pretty sure my theory is correct.
It is a waste of time. I blogged on the initial lawsuit. I refuse to give anymore time to it. There’s enough real problems with Obama to be concerned about.
ModDem says: Morgan K Freeberg
Your theory doesn’t really hold up. You say he won’t pay the $22.00 to produce the piece of paper. However, the State of Hawaii only supplies the piece of paper that you can now see on the internet. So if Obama was to send for a new certificate he would get the exact same one you can see on the internet. And if he did get it and showed it the birthers would still think it was not real.
You may be correct that Obama wants the story to hang around because it does make the Conservatives look foolish.
However, very very few Republicans are backing away from the story.
Check these two videos in which a guy ask Republicans to answer a simple yes or no question: Was Obama born in America?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1o1p_ly7Yw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib74sVFDtTs
After watching this I think you would agree that these Republicans don’t want this story to go away either. Which is just odd. How do they benefit from this? I say they are not answering because they are convinced the greater number of voters who support them don’t believe Obama is a natural born citizen.
ModDem,
You need a cooler head to keep you on topic. I will volunteer for this.
There are three distinctly separate issues here, and you won’t find them on my page because I find the timing of this latest outburst as suspicious as all holy hell, and refuse to contribute to it. But anyway, they are these:
1. Is Barack Obama constitutionally eligible to serve as our President?
2. As a charismatic and adored Higher Being on a historically unprecedented scale, is Obama skating by with shenanigans in providing less than the level of proof that would be routine for a blander President?
3. Does the typical “birther” possess offensive character defects? Extremist, obsessed, fanatical, irrational, et cetera.
I would refer you to the Best of the Web feature of today’s online Wall Street Journal, by James Taranto, no friend of the birthers. In fact, he’s suffering the same delusion as you are, that a) we’ve been offered some concrete evidence that answers #3 in the affirmative, and b) if that were the case, this would have some solid bearing in answering #1 and #2.
To repeat my original point: Straw man. I don’t personally know of these fanatical “birthers,” I see no reason to correlate anyone’s personal doubts about Obama’s eligibility with intrinsic wild-eyed zealotry. In fact, to me, it still looks the same as what it has always been, with every issue across the board: Hardcore left-wing extremists use social scorn to bludgeon strangers into believing what they, the hardcore left-wingers, want everyone to believe. It’s just in this case it seems to be something that’s almost certainly true, that Obama was born in Honolulu.
That doesn’t make the tactic any more honorable though. It doesn’t even make it legitimate as a rational argumentative maneuver. Quite to the contrary: Those who have the skills to logically puzzle out things like this, to substantially separate the knowns from the unknowns, really have no reason to use any other method. The social-ridicule angle is a tell-tale sign that the ridiculer is using emotion over reason, because that’s what he’s accustomed to using. It is what children do.
As far as the “Hawaii only supplies the piece of paper that you can now see on the internet,” that’s a falsehood. The truth is a little bit more complicated than that, and it has been muddled up with some overexuberant and inaccurate pro-Obama reporting. It’s that Jim Barbrady “Move along, nothing to see here” mindset getting a little bit out of control. Check it out…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574320190095246658.html
ModDem says: Morgan K Freeberg
I completely agree with the link you provided. It is spot on. But my argument is that there are a lot more Republicans than Cassy or you seem to acknowledge who believe Obama is not a citizen. A new poll found that an astounding 42% of Republicans believe Obama was not born in America. Whoa!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/31/new-poll-less-than-half-o_n_248470.html
The WSJ you linked says Obama wants this story to hang around. Yes, he does. Wouldn’t you? But he is in no way fueling it. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t said word one about it [publicly] since last year. And his press secretary has spoken of it when the question has come up. Who is fueling this is World Net Daily, some crazy woman name Orly, and Alan Keyes as well as the [liberal] media [FOX news too] and right wingers like Lou Dobbs, many right wing blogs, as well as a few Republican members of congress who want to pass legislation that future Presidential candidates provide full birth certificates. Now why would they want to pursue this legislation if it is not in their interest somehow?
I will completely agree there are left wing crazies out there. But there are crazies on both sides. There are crazies in every single political movement and party that has ever existed in the history of mankind. [As well as religious movements]. So to me the issue isn’t who is crazier or who is using emotional blather etc, etc. They ALL do. I am simply saying you have some nuts in the Republican party who don’t think Obama was born in America. Are they dumb for thinking this? I think so, yes. I’m glad you aren’t one of them.
…as well as a few Republican members of congress who want to pass legislation that future Presidential candidates provide full birth certificates. Now why would they want to pursue this legislation if it is not in their interest somehow?
Well then it’s settled, I *am* a crazy birther. Because I’d vote for that legislation in a heartbeat, as would reasonable person familiar with the facts of this issue, in my opinion.
Look at it this way: Up top, Cassy has a post about this House Resolution to recognize Hawaii as Obama’s birthplace. Meanwhile, Taranto, at the end of the column I linked, says…
The Honolulu Advertiser reported yesterday that Okubo and her boss, Chiyome Fukino, both confirm that Obama’s original birth certificate still exists. Fukino says she has seen it and that the information matches the now-official electronic records reflected on the certificate Obama has released.
So why doesn’t Obama release the original certificate? …[T]he real question is: Why should he? The demand has no basis in principle and would have no practical benefit.
The release of the obsolete birth certificate would not “resolve the issue” to those for whom it is not already resolved. They claim without basis that today’s birth certificate is a fake; there is nothing to stop them from claiming without basis that yesterday’s is as well. [emphasis mine]
So these “birthers” are demanding to see a paper certificate that does, in fact, exist; and it’s being kept under lock and key for no better reason than “You’re such a nut, that probably wouldn’t satisfy you either.”
Back to my original point. What’s a simpler solution? Passing a House Resolution asserting unity on a question on which we aren’t really united, to make these nutty people go away…or…spending the $22?
This is America. We make up our own individual minds about what’s going on here. We don’t need our public officials or our pundits to decide things for us, and people shouldn’t be castigated for retaining their skepticism about something that hasn’t been proven to their satisfaction. What should be castigated, is this practice of lowering the threshold of proof for threadbare, nebulous and just-plain-bad reasons like “Aw c’mon, it’s a done deal, people think you’re nuts, now go away.”
If it’s such a done deal that it’s extraneous and redundant to spend a mere twenty bucks on the legacy document, then I say the House Resolution isn’t worth anybody’s time and shouldn’t be brought to a vote. That’s just simple logic. How say you?
ModDem says: Morgan K Freeberg
You are asking the state of Hawaii [and many other states too] to change their laws to satisfy a very, very few fringe people. Hawaii does not release original birth documents. What they have released is completely legal and legit. Anyone who does not accept that is not only beyond the pale but does not understand the procedures and laws that have been in place for years regarding such matters.
The thing that has to be addressed is WHY is there a controversy about Obama’s birth in the first place? Why after 43 men in the Oval office does this one man suddenly raise questions in some folks? Glenn Thrush at Politico asks the obvious question: “When do we start a serious dialog about the Birther movement being a proxy for racism that is unacceptable to articulate in more direct terms?”
I’ll add to that xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment gone wild.
This whole birther movement started with random anti-Obama emails saying he was secretly a radical Muslim whose middle name was actually Muhammad. That led to a few ignorant fools to then ask to see his birth certificate. When it wasn’t produced to their satisfaction they started claiming he was really born in Kenya. And it went from there.
I’m all for skepticism. But among some people good rigorous skepticism can turn into bad old fashioned paranoia. And thus are born conspiracy theories. To ask Hawaii or the President to satisfy the curiosity of a few idiots is asking too much. I hope you are not suggesting that this is part of some crazy plan that Obama and the Democrats have set up? Because you know then that means a new conspiracy theory has been born out of the ashes of another.
Hollywood couldn’t make this stuff up. #:^)
You are asking the state of Hawaii [and many other states too] to change their laws to satisfy a very, very few fringe people.
No, I’m asking Obama and the MSM to make a decision about whether the “Birther” phenomenon is meaningful. If it isn’t, quit pretending it is. If it is, pony up the $22.
Is that unreasonable? What’s this law you think I want changed?
The thing that has to be addressed is WHY is there a controversy about Obama’s birth in the first place? Why after 43 men in the Oval office does this one man suddenly raise questions in some folks?
Those 42 men who preceded Obama, for the most part, went by one name apiece their entire lives. Also, so far as I know in none of those 42 cases was there a piece of paper under lock and key somewhere, that wasn’t being shown — whatever evidence could be produced, was produced. Now Obama, on the other hand, for someone so egotistical as to have written two autobiographies when He hasn’t really accomplished much of anything, and had two years and $700 million to use to tell us what He thinks about every li’l issue, has left us with a rather faint illustration of who & what He really is. It seems to be His way to leave great gobs of questions unanswered…except in the minds of His most exuberant, fainting fans. The rest of us happen to notice, when we politely request substantial answers to things, all we get is a lot of snotty condescension that we must be racists for not climbing on board some bandwagon that’s already carrying everyone else around.
And that goes for every little question across the board. Like “how come He didn’t know what Jeremiah Wright was preaching if He went to that church for twenty solid years??” We never got an answer to that one, we were just told (like this week) that it’s a “teachable moment,” let’s start a “national dialogue”…and change the subject. Fast. Is He really a Christian? Again, all we’re told is that we’re flaming racists if we don’t uncritically accept whatever answer is most flattering to His Holiness.
His way of thinking is simply not complementary to a mindset that’s accustomed to finding out what’s *really* going on. He’s accustomed to not answering anything. You know, after awhile, it catches up to you. People start asking questions that aren’t being asked of others. It’s because you haven’t given them any reason to trust you.
I hope you are not suggesting that this is part of some crazy plan that Obama and the Democrats have set up? Because you know then that means a new conspiracy theory has been born out of the ashes of another.
No, I think it’s just another example of the democrat party doing precisely what they won’t allow anyone else to do, which is to make decisions to enhance their own benefit and minimize their own injury. In this case, invited to proliferate a fantasy that makes their opposition look ridiculous, they decided to go for it. Nobody ever asks them to prove a damn thing, and after decades of that cushy treatment they’ve adapted to it. Who wouldn’t?
I’m still a little doubtful that I’m one of these “birthers” people keep talking about. Forced to choose sides, I’d say He was born in 1961 in Honolulu. I’d also say He is a Christian, who believes in a Christian God, and in Jesus Christ. I’d bet money on those things.
Just not very much money…because I don’t really know either one of those things as a fact. All I see is a reproduced certificate, generated from an electronic record, which in turn was generated from a legacy paper document that exists now, that no one will let me see. And a bunch of people ready to call me a raging kookburger if I don’t uncritically commit myself to these “truths.” Well, it’s still good enough for me, but if it isn’t good enough for someone else I’ll not be faulting them for it.
Social ridicule is not proof. Period.
ModDem says: Morgan K Freeberg
The 42 preceding Presidents were never asked because when a white guy with a name like Woodrow Wilson says he was born in Virginia no one questions that. But don’t think their info wasn’t under lock and key. It certainly was with whatever state they were born in. If you lost your birth certificate and wanted a new one the original would, in fact, be under lock and key and you could never see it. That is part of my point. You would need to change the law if you wanted to see the original ‘real’ certificate. It is possible Obama lost his original and so when he ordered [or orders] a new one he would simply get the one you can see now on the internet. Hawaii does not release a long form. The short one is official. But birthers don’t want to believe it.
Now if you think people are asking to see his birth certificate because he has an ego and wrote two autobiographies you’re treading into the nutso category. If people still have questions about Obama’s beliefs and vision for America then ask those questions and challenge them in a logical arena. Don’t ask questions about his origin of birth. That is not valid anymore because all the proper documents have been presented.
BTW his first book was an autobiography his second was not; It was a book about his political beliefs and the beliefs he has about America. Why would you have a problem with that? I see you have a blog and you write about what you believe. Should we be skeptical of you because you aren’t somehow ‘experienced’ enough to write what you write? If you ran for office and won why would that be a bad thing? If the voters want what you have to offer then good for them. Right now they want what Obama has to offer.
My stance on this issue hasn’t changed much since December. here. Basically, I think that he should produce a long-form birth certificate (which is certainly available, contrary to what another commenter wrote; the twins born the day after Obama have them) and do what every single American has to do: prove eligibility for a job. If I need to haul out my passport for a new job (and go through a background check to be a lawyer or get a classified security clearance, which I’ve had), he should, too.
ModDem,
Are you sure about “Hawaii does not release a long form,”?
Look here: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/assets/gif/M1139416728.GIF and you will find two long form, released, 1960s era Hawaii birth certificates.
JW m says: I have to supply a birth certificate to get a driver’s license, why should he not have to supply a birth certificate to be president???? What is shown on the Internet is not even legal in Hawaii. At the time the Certificate of Live Birth was issued in Hawaii these certificates were issued to non-citizens. Why has Obama spent nearly $1milion to suppress all of his records?
Granted it would pose some very serious constitutional questions if he is unable to prove he is a “natural borne citizen”, but the question needs to be answered.
I guess the option is that none of us need to produce proof that we are citizens.
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