RIP Jesse Jackson, whose life and career you will be reading about in all the usual media outlets. FYI, I met him at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2001. (There were no camera cel phones or selfies at the time, so I asked one of the young students accompanying JJ on the Mediterranean beach to take a picture of us, but maybe she just pretended to, in any case when the pix were developed the photo did not show up.)
Nine years later, in July 2010, as the Obama birth location was raging, the reverend was part of one of the longest posts on this blog in 22 years, The JournoList Issue No One Is Bringing Up. (A shorter summary, from the 2016 election campaign, is The 4 Key Facts About Obama's Birth Certificate Issue that Nobody Tells You.) The following is an extract from the one of those key facts, the point being that when have a father from a foreign country (Kenya) and when you have spent a major part of your youth abroad (in Indonesia), it is far from racist, twisted, and/or simply abnormal — whatever the color of your skin and whatever the name of your party — to be asked to provide reassurance of your birth place and who you swear allegiance to.
Indeed, since then, it has transpired that two presidential candidates, both of them white, have been born abroad.
Imagine, if in 2008, someone raised questions about John McCain, pointing out that he spent a lot of his youth outside the United States. Indeed, it turns out that the senator from Arizona was born in Panama. What if, in 2016, someone raised questions about Ted Cruz, pointing out that he seems to have spent a lot of his youth north of the border? And, indeed, it turns out that the senator from Texas was born in Canada. (Still, it turns out that both men qualified, or qualify, as natural-born citizens and thus as U.S. presidents — as, presumably would… Barack Obama (!), even if he indeed had been born abroad!)
3. A Dispassionate Examination of the Facts, of the Nutjobs, and of Obama's Youth
May we be allowed to examine this issue — what MSM outlets like The Economist want us to dismiss instantly and categorically as "the absurd “birther” controversy" — fairly, coolly, and dispassionately?
[Update: Not until April 2011 did the White House finally release Barack Obama's original birth certificate.]
Let us find out to what degree it is demented, ludicrous, and/or offensive to put into doubt the Hawaiian birth of Barack Obama — a man who has complained that he can't spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead (something no one has asked him to do and thus turns out to be a(nother) straw man of his)…
Why are there some Americans who doubt the narrative that Barack Hussein Obama was not born in Hawaii, or elsewhere in the United States? After all, noone ever doubted that George W Bush was born in the United States or that John Kerry or Al Gore or Bill Clinton or Bob Dole or Ross Perot were born in the United States.
So, isn't this proof that only Obama's color is the only reason for these nutjobs, these racists, these birthers, to claim, preposterously, that Obama was born abroad — or that he is a Muslim, or a socialist, or indeed a communist?
But then, again, neither George W Bush nor John Kerry nor Al Gore nor Bill Clinton nor Bob Dole nor Ross Perot had a foreigner for a father (or for a mother) nor did they spend numerous years of their childhoods abroad — many years, if not most, of which were in a Muslim country.
Should Allen West, or JC Watts, or Thomas Sowell [or Herman Cain, or Ben Carson] run for president, noone would ask where they were born or demand to see their their (original) birth certificate as proof. But perhaps that is because those black men are Republicans (proving thereby that conservatives are biased)?
Hardly. That is because those African-Americans (emphasis on the "Americans" part) are known to have grown up in the United States and are known to have had parents who were not foreigners — certainly not at the time of their birth (i.e., if either of the parents was born abroad, he or she had become an American citizen by the time of his or her famous offspring's birth). And indeed, it is the same for left-leaning blacks (as it is for whites, left-leaning of otherwise).
Recall that Jesse Jackson tried running for president twice (in 1984 and 1988), and although he did not manage to become the Democratic Party's candidate, noone suggested that he was born abroad,and that for the simple reason that the Greenville, SC, native did not have a foreigner for a father (or for a mother) nor did he spend numerous years abroad. [Nor did Herman Cain or Ben Carson have to deal with such charges in their respective elections about a quarter century later, be it by Democrats or by the supporters of their GOP competitors.]
Similarly, it is unlikely that Al Sharpton (who grew up in Brooklyn) would ever be asked for his birth certificate. Neither Baptist minister would be likely accused of being a Muslim, although both might very well be described as socialists, or as communists — and that, for reasons that, in the final analysis, are pretty valid…
… But in the event that Jesse Jackson, or Allen West, or Bill Gore, or George W Bush should be asked for their birth certificates — what is the big deal? Provide the (original) birth certificate and put the controversy behind you (and behind us — behind us all) … The very fact that they (i.e., the promisers of an era of transparency) refuse to provide something so simple, as James L Lambert points out, and get the controversy over with, once and for all, tends to be — whether you like it or not — suspicious.
After all, Barack Obama is not being asked to provide his tax statements or medical records (both of which actually turn out to be the norm for politicians to provide to the public and each of which is a far more intrusive document than a simple statement about an infant's birth location), nor is he being asked to provide some sort of far-fetched Jim-Crowe-era certificate, such as, say, the birth certificate of a grand-parent.
Besides, there are many basic things that a president, that any president (whatever the pigment of his — or her — skin), owes his populace, i.e., the people who are his "masters"…
… to believe that an American citizen (whatever the color of his skin) born to a foreign father who lived much of his childhood abroad may indeed have been born in a foreign country turns out not to be that far-fetched at all.
Indeed, the difference between the Truthers and the Birthers is that in the first case, we are being asked to believe that 1) hundreds, if not thousands, of government officials were approached with a view to conspire to kill thousands of their fellow citizens, all (or most) of them innocent civilians, that 2) hundreds, if not thousands, of government officials agreed (apparently without a moment of hesitation) to conspire to murder thousands of innocent civilians, and that 3) none of these hundreds (thousands) of government officials has ever had a single, even fleeting feeling of remorse, or let the cat out of the bag, say while having too much to drink (no remorse?) during a Saturday outing to a local bar.
In the second case, we do not even have a conspiracy, but basically one single man hypothetically telling a falsehood — although it might even be termed a lie of omission — a lie about what offhand is a personal matter, but has turned into the only thing (allegedly) keeping him from power (Update: The New York Times' Double Standard on Conspiracy Theories).
Most damning of all, when you pause to think of it, the castigators' proof — if it can be called that — all lies in one fact (beyond the recently released certificate of live birth): and that fact is that Obama is a man, a person, a saint whose word should never be doubted, who is capable of no lying, no evil, no chicanery. If he tells you that, say, he is a Christian, then how dare you deny he is a religious man?! How dare you imply that he is a Muslim?! How dare you state he is a socialist?!
The person who ridicules the "Birther" theory as inane has no more proof than the born-in-Hawaii skeptic of where Obama was actually born [or didn't have any more proof until over two years into Obama's presidency]: his only argument — beyond the contention that the certificate of live birth and the newspaper clipping are incontrovertible proof that are not, can not be, fakes, bureaucratic mistakes, or misinterpretations — is the indisputable "truth" that Obama is someone whose honesty should not — should never — be questioned. (Whether in regards to his private life or to his political plans for America's future.)
[Update: As it happens, we would learn in 2012 (over four years after Obama was first a candidate and over three years after he entered the White House) that a "New Book Raises Questions About Obama's Memoir" (The New York Times' Michael Shear) and that, indeed, it turns out that Obama's memories were a "fantasy (like most of the President's own memoir)" (The Daily Mail). Adds Toby Harnden: "'Barack Obama: The Story' by David Maraniss catalogues dozens of instances in which Obama deviated significantly from the truth in his book 'Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance'. The 641-page book punctures the carefully-crafted narrative of Obama’s life."]
[Moreover, as Lloyd Billingsley writes, there does seem to be quite a number of snags, significant or not (the reader will have to decide that for himself), in the former Barry Soetoro's past:Clinton factotum George Stephanopoulos, one year ahead [at Columbia University in the early 1980s], and Matthew Cooper of Newsweek, a year behind, had no memory of the future president there. On that score, the pair had plenty of company.
Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party candidate for vice-president in 2008, was in Obama’s 1983 Columbia political science and pre-law class, the identical course of study, and graduated on the same day. As Root told Matt Welch of Reason, he “never met him in my life, don’t know anyone who ever met him.”
In similar style, class of ’83 Columbia grads included a group of 25 lawyers, a doctor, several engineers and other professionals living in Israel. “Not one of us remembers Barack Obama . . . from our undergrad years, nor do we know anyone else who does,” explained Judy Maltz.]When you think about it, it might be less worrying that some do not believe Obama was born in the United States (because of the circumstances linked to his entire childhood, much of it abroad) than that some are utterly convinced he must be born in the United States (because the Chicago pol is allegedly a sainted figure who can do, who can say no evil, who is incapable of or of lyingor of falsifying documents). Again, remember the desires of some of his followers who want(ed) the constitution to be changed, only so Obama could win one election after another and end up, in one way or another and in the best of all possible outcomes, as (de facto if not de jure) president-for-life? Let me ask everybody a simple question: Who is the truly terrifying fanatic, here?
… There have been rumors that Obama may have attended college as a "foreign student" and that his book editor listed him as born in Kenya. Even if they are piddling issues, occasionally proven false, the point has nothing to with Obama per se. (As Breitbart states, "It is evidence — not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.") The point is that the mainstream media never bothered to devote even a minute to investigate the issue (or the strategy behind the different public personas); only new online media (Breitbart and Snopes) did so.
Here comes the kicker: the so-called "Birther" charge (whether brought by a Democrat or a Republican) was never a charge leveled primarily at a man called Barack Obama or, for that matter, against a member of a minority or a person of a particular race.
It was a charge against the media.
Indeed … the "birther" charge was, and is, an entirely justifiable charge against the mainstream media. It was never about birth certificates per se. It was about the double standards that the MSM demonstrate again and again, first, between a Republican and a Democrat, and, second, between the other members of the Donkey Party and the media's preferred (i.e., its "dream") candidate.
… It was not by accident that the title of my "lengthy, in-depth, and dispassionate examination of the facts, of the nutjobs, and of Obama's youth" was The JournoList Issue No One Is Bringing Up.
No comments:
Post a Comment