House of Eratosthenes

Gov. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, who befriended President Obama’s parents when they were university students here, has been in office for less than three weeks. But he is so incensed over “birthers” — the conspiracy theorists who assert that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya and was thus not eligible to become president — that he is seeking ways to change state policy to allow him to release additional proof that the president was born in Honolulu in 1961.

The document I consider definitive, a birth announcement from a Honolulu newspaper in 1961, is not mentioned in this story. To me, this is much more satisfying as “proof” than that certificate-of-live-birth. And so if a “birther” is supposed to “assert that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya and was thus not eligible to become president,” then I’m certainly outside of that. That’s a good thing to see.

However, the precedent that was established when Barack Obama was sworn in, without presenting anything more concrete than that pink paper, is awful. It’s simply unacceptable. And now that I’ve been exonerated as a not-a-Birther, I can state for a fact that you’ve got people who are not Birthers, agreeing that this is the case. Regardless of where Barack Obama was born, our nation has started something here that it shouldn’t have.

Furthermore, people-who-are-not-Birthers — me — are rightfully offended, on behalf of those Birthers, by passages like this:

But on the matter of the birthers, Mr. Abercrombie grew serious. “I’m going to take care of that,” he said, though he acknowledged that they would be difficult to convince. [emphasis mine]

As popular of a recurring trope as this is, is there anyone anywhere who is being fooled by it?

In the middle of a presidential campaign in which Barack Obama became a walking pop-culture fad, the hottest out of any since Cabbage Patch Dolls, Hawaii started up the printing presses and churned out a fresh pink document that was supposed to mean something. I’m sorry to whoever is frustrated by those who would like to see more than that, but it’s just a logical request to make. Obama’s refusal to consent is what defies reason.

And, it bears repeating…the question about precedent is an important one. The President’s precedent. What, in this country, do you have to present before you’re sworn in? Is it a sliding scale, that depends on how popular you happen to be? Shouldn’t we all agree that that would be un-American and wrong?

“I certainly hope by the fourth year of our administration that we’ll have dealt with this burgeoning birth controversy,” the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters last year.
:
[Abercrombie] is angry about legislation in several states that would require presidential candidates to document that they were born in this country. A similar bill died in Congress last year.

“My thought was, ‘Wait a minute, why didn’t you ask me, my friends in the national Congress, the House of Representatives?’ ” he said. “They know me, they know that I was here, but they didn’t even bother to have the courtesy to do that, which is disappointing to me, because it is very difficult for me not to conclude that bills like that are meant as a coded message that he is not really American. My thought is, rather than get into some kind of argument or play into that mentality, why not just simply try to authenticate this and let the facts speak for themselves?”

This story really tells you everything about democrats you need to know. Let me paraphrase:

Here we are in “our fourth year,” we’re always right — at least WE think we are — and oh so popular, at least we used to be. We’ve tried smearing, we’ve tried sneering, we’ve tried bludgeoning and browbeating. And still these crackpots insist we haven’t presented any real proof just because we haven’t! Obviously, they’re never gonna go away no matter what.

So hey, purely as an afterthought…in our fourth year…let’s try maybe arguing the point based on facts. Or, at least, announcing that is what we are going to do.

Meanwhile, here the rest of us sit ready to start 2011. Barack Obama — and this is not the name He has been using for His entire life, for a long time He was Barry Soetoro — is finishing up His second year as our nation’s chief executive. How many reasons are there for us not to be ringing in the new year, staring, whether we like it or not, at the “long form” released by Obama? The one that rolled off the printing presses during some year other than the one in which Barry became a rock star? Why should that paper not be a public record now? How many reasons…none. Not a single one. But anyone who notices that and points it out, must be a loon. Because He Whom Oprah Called Brill-Yunt is so dang popular.

I’ve thought for awhile they need a new word to describe people like me. Like “quasi-Birthers” or “neo-Birthers” or “penumbral Birthers.” I consider the matter to be proven, Obama was born in Honolulu. The time and logistics required to travel to Kenya and back in 1961 — it just doesn’t add up. People would know, and they’d remember. The birth announcement in the newspaper would not exist…

…but when I see stories about how nutty those Birthers are, I end up thinking Obama and His most ardent supporters are the ones laboring under a pathological illness. They’re calling the other side nutty, just because that other side has not awarded them with the benefit of the doubt they think they deserve. Apparently, they aren’t able to cope if the benefit-of-doubt matter is decided any other way; their cogs slip out of the machinery completely.

Neil Abercrombie, Beacon of Sanity Imagine what it is like to go through life with this expectation you place on other people to believe whatever you have to say about anything…whether you know what you’re talking about, or not…just sort of automatically dismissing whoever so much as harbors a residual question about what you have to say. Imagine that. Let’s subject this one to the “Freeberg house sitting test” shall we? Who do you want taking care of your house while you’re on vacation for a week. Some spoiled brat who works for Obama, and was able to fool his mother into think he was putting the cookie back in the jar — and demands that intellectual deference out of anybody & everybody he meets since then, and from here on? Or, one of those whack-job Birthers who thinks Obama was born in Kenya because Obama hasn’t released the long form?

Considering the low magnitude of effort Obama would have to put out to release the form, I’d opt for the Birther. I’d even let him duplicate the key. And I’d sleep like a baby, unless you’ve got something else on him. The slobbering Obama fan who can’t handle anybody questioning him about anything, I don’t think I’d even want that guy to know what zip code I’m in.

How about these other people? Have you seen a picture of Neil Abercrombe, this beacon of sanity? Yeesh. New York Times columnists who talk about “the Birthers” with descriptions that could fairly fit a single individual person, but dissolve into puddles of illogical silliness when you describe a faction of people unified by a single idea…like…”they’ll never be convinced no matter what.” How about politicians who talk endlessly about meeting the challenge of diversity, overcoming our divisions, unifying ourselves, and then seeking to marginalize anybody who doesn’t think the way they do? How about slobbering Obama fans who say they’ll be on easy street now because Holy Man is going to pay their mortgage and put gas in their car?

If any of those people found out where I live, I think I’d move.

But the birther-apologists interest me the most. To them, you’re a nut if you don’t believe every single thing they say. Even if they know nothing of the subject matter they seek to discuss. Robert Gibbs, for example, seems older than he really is because he brandishes an ability to equivocate and lie that is typically not mastered until the passionate liar reaches his early fifties. He’s a full decade younger than Obama. And here he is derogating the competence of people who doubt what they’re told about his boss’ birth, as if he was there! He’s given a story to pass on…he passes it on…gets some resistance, and he can’t handle it.

These are the people who are going to stop wars from happening, and keep the missiles in their silos, with their refined diplomatic skills?

This is their negotiating tactic. The other guy does what you want, says what you want him to say, thinks what you want him to think, or else you call him crazy. It would appear they have none other.

Just ponder the ramifications of that for awhile. And Happy 2011, everybody.

Hat tip to Memeorandum.

Update: You know, it occurs to me: Barack Obama is a skillful, practiced speaker and in a certain way, He is a positive role model for young men wondering how to cope with life, who might be lacking in any other lodestar they could follow. Other than those two things…everything I “know” about President Obama, is something I don’t really know. Except for the unflattering stuff (those items, for the most part, there is substantial evidence to back them up here & there).

I “know” He was born in Honolulu, not Kenya, because swarms of angry Obama zealots and New York Times columnists are ready to send some ridicule in the direction of anybody who offers something else.

He has said “I just think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody” and “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” But don’t worry, He’s not a socialist…I “know” that He isn’t a socialist…because someone is ready to make fun of me if I think He is one. I don’t really have any other way of knowing He isn’t a socialist.

He’s just ramrodded through a START II treaty that has Russia’s best interests at heart but not America’s. But again, I “know” He is loyal to America…not because of any hard evidence that tells me so…but because someone is ready to call me a whackadoodle and a kookburger if I believe that He is not.

He is a Christian and not a Muslim. Now, I really don’t care about this one way or the other. But how do I know He’s a Christian? Because He went to Jeremiah Wright’s church, of course! But of course that would mean He’s also an anti-white bigot. But no. He went to Jeremiah Wright’s church for twenty years to listen to all the Christian-ish sermons…but was snoozing through all the America-bashing sermons. Yes to Christianity, no to America-hating, because Obama was coincidentally tuning out at all the right times. Again, how do I “know” this? Because someone’s ready to ridicule me if I believe anything different. I don’t have any other reason to “know” such a thing. None.

This seems to be the situation with every little thing I “know” about Barack Obama. At least, the positive stuff. There’s no time to get to the evidence, because the people who stopped learning to do critical thinking while they were still in middle school, or the hippie zealots like Abercrombie, leap in to press the peer-pressure smackdown and hurl their invective about how offended they are, and contaminate the debate before we get to evaluate the hard facts. And so the facts get walled off and sealed out, because the Obamapologists have to have the first word as well as the last one.

And it’s the other guys who are fanatical.

At some level the minds of the left know they to not want to see the birth certificate.But whatever embarrassment the certificate would reveal, their minds, as always, are well prepared to move to the next lines of defense, not to contrition. Obama’s qualifications are the original Dream Act.
- xlibrl | 12/25/2010 @ 11:15
My main beef with the “birther” thing is that any theory that depends for its factual basis on Hillary Clinton not having her electoral rivals investigated colonoscopically (so to speak) is a non-starter.
- Rich Fader | 12/25/2010 @ 14:05
I disagree with a lot of the left on this. They COULD stop this. It wouldn’t be hard to prove. The “birther” want to see the long form birth certificate not the shorter “certificate of live birth” Notice, I have clue as to the validity of one over the other.

My bigger problem is not the birth certificate but:

I want to see his university transcripts. After the way that the press drug G.W. Bush’s academic record through a fine tooth comb I want to see Obama’s. We’ve never even to my knowledge seen a copy of his diplomas. I don’t believe he actually graduated. I don’t think he passed the bar exam. I think he failed to finish university
- Fai Mao | 12/25/2010 @ 19:38
Are we *still* talking about this, two years into the Obama Administration?

Look, folks, I dislike the Ditherer-in-Chief as much as the next conservative, and there may or may not be merit to this “birth certificate” business.

Here’s my question. Let’s say that the so-called “birther” movement has raised valid questions, that something IS rotten in Denmark, er, Indonesia, er, Hawaii…WHEREVER….and that the president really is hiding information that would prove he isn’t eligible to hold the presidency by way of not being a “natural-born US citizen.” Let’s assert that for a moment.

That said…..what then? Assume it all could be proven to everyone’s satisfaction. Does it mean we get to toss him out of office and invalidate all bills he’s signed in that time? Roll back the stimulus-part ninety, TARP part whatever, ObamaCare, and the rest? And then hold another presidential election? There’s no precedent for this anywhere in US history.

My point. It’s a dead issue. We’re going to have to get rid of him at the ballot box. It’s the only way. I doubt very much we’d even be able to impeach him anytime between now and 2012, assuming enough “high crimes and misdemeanors” could be dredged up to bring formal charges.

I think we need to move on and focus our effort on getting behind a candidate who will swiftly end his hopes of re-election. This birther stuff is making us all look foolish. We are the ones who told the Left, “Enough about ‘weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.’ Even if you were right about President Bush lying through his teeth from the get-go, the fact remains that we ARE there and we need to finish this.”

I’m just tired of it, I guess. It’s pointless.
- cylarz | 12/25/2010 @ 23:34
This is psychological warfare from the Left: withhold information, squash information, control information. The BC is inconsequential and they will stall on this as long as possible until a fever-pitch is attained. At that point they will release it with a righteous sneer and say, “See! You idiots, there’s nothing to be concerned about. You’re all racists!!!!” And the fantasy-media will troll the line everywhere and won’t we look stupid?

But they can’t play fair and win, so every opportunity to obfuscate, twist, or render the truth unrecognizable plays to their ends –if not specifically on target, certainly in persistent hammering of the target’s outer edges.
- JoanOfArgghh | 12/26/2010 @ 07:23
Well, they can’t have it both ways.

If they’re thriving on the controversy, they’re going to have to work to keep it going. Which I think is what Gov. Abercrombie is doing here. What’s been going on over on the Birther front lately? Anything? No, nothing…the only significant event occurring lately is that Abercrombie’s term is starting. So they have to work to keep the controversy going, and if they have to work at it then eventually they’re going to look like it, so they won’t be able to portray themselves as valiantly trying to make it go away.

The alternative is that they’re sincere when they say it’s a problem that someone, somewhere is doubting this truth that cannot be proven one way or the other, because of Obama’s obstinance. And if it’s a problem that someone somewhere is thinking a certain thing, or failing to think a certain thing, then that makes them control freaks and they’ll eventually have to look like that. What’s their solution? Re-education camps? Extermination?
- mkfreeberg | 12/26/2010 @ 07:48
Apparently, their plan is to keep doing things in secret. Your next post answers your own question. It’s a matter of economy, too: if we keep living, the government will tell us we’re getting a tax cut.
:o)
- JoanOfArgghh | 12/26/2010 @ 10:27
It’s all of a piece — Obama’s birth, his religion, his policies, His everything. It’s fitting, really, that His supporters call Him “sort of God,” because in a fundamental sense, He is who He is. By fiat. YHVH has spoken, and that is enough.

It all boils down to this: Obama is the avatar of liberalism, and the one bedrock tenet of liberalism is that liberals can never, ever be wrong. About anything. EVER. “Bush was AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard! We have proof!!!! Errrr….whatsthatyousay? Those memos are obviously clumsy forgeries? Well it doesn’t matter, because they’re fake but accurate!! Yeah, that’s it! Fake but accurate!!”

That this was, and still is, considered an acceptable rebuttal on the left tells you everything you need to know about them. (Seriously: try it sometime. Corner a leftist and ask him how he can ever trust the media again after those memos. I’d bet the farm and junior’s college fund you’ll get some version of “fake but accurate.”)

Somebody at Daily Kos, or The Nation, or wherever it is that their hivemind decides these things, has sent down The Word: Obama was born in the United States. Therefore it’s heresy to even admit to doubts. There could be video of him being born in Kenya, signed and notarized by the UN Secretary General, Greenpeace, and Noam Chomsky, and he’d still be “born in America.” These are the same brilliant legalistic minds who have interpreted “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” as the Founders being in favor of draconian gun control laws; a niggling little matter like geography is child’s play to them.

As to why they keep “the controversy” going….

My current Unified Theory of Leftism is that they’re engaged, as commenter Rob so brilliantly put it in the “Palin Haters” thread, in the ongoing project of constantly trying to make High School come out right several decades after the fact. These days I envision the typical leftist as the captain of the high school debate team — coddled, entitled, and clever, but ultimately not nearly as clever as he thinks he is, and who is starting to sense this somewhere deep down. Obama’s the closest they’re ever going to get to dating the prom queen, and so even the slightest suggestion that he’s not perfect in every possible way is going to result in hysterical denials. Assume the mentality of a spoiled 14-year-old, and lots of leftist actions start to make a lot more sense…
- Severian | 12/26/2010 @ 15:44
[…] pathetic. Hawaii’s new governor announced at Christmastime: Gov. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, who befriended President Obama’s parents when they were […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 01/21/2011 @ 20:56
[…] pathetic. Hawaii’s new governor announced at Christmastime: Gov. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, who befriended President Obama’s parents when they were […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 01/21/2011 @ 20:56
[…] controversy was aroused years ago, and then re-aroused by Obama’s friend as a publicity stunt a short time later, I reviewed both sides, couldn’t see proof one way or another, and at some point became […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 01/11/2022 @ 06:04

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So Does This Make Me a “Birther”?Saturday, December 25th, 2010

So Does This Make Me a “Birther”?
Saturday, December 25th, 2010