Chris Matthews: Signs of Desperation

In this video, Chris Matthews tries to bait a Dallas organizer of the Tea Party movement into saying something crazy and fails mightily. It's a bit funny to watch his desperation in jumping from topic to topic, looking for a hole - birtherism, Texas secessionism, etc.

At one point he demands that the gentleman, Philip Dennis, own up to who he voted for in 2000 and 2004. He then goes on to try a game of gotcha, suggesting that this man is a hypocrite (a mortal sin of the Left) because he voted for the man who doubled the deficit. Let me help you out here, Chrissy.

The Right voted for W in 2000 because they believed he was a good conservative who would limit spending, cut taxes, etc. That was in 2000. When he became POTUS, he began to show that he was truly a big government conservative. And then 9/11 happened and a war followed. Contrary to Chris Matthews, there's no such thing as a deficit neutral war unless we begin stealing money from the countries we invade, something we do not do.

In 2004, in the middle of a very hot war, conservatives had a choice between a big government conservative who was leading the nation during wartime and a Europhile, leftist who had never demonstrated any desire to cut deficits, taxes or anything else except defense spending. Who were conservatives supposed to vote for?

Trutherism vs. Birtherism

I was thinking about this as the beliefs of Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar, come to light. For those who do not know, he was one of the founding members of a Truther Commission and also one of the signatories of their petition demanding that Congress look into the Bush's role in 9/11. Just to be clear, they weren't just curious if the Bush administration was involved, they were asserting that as a truth that needed to be uncovered.

So, which is worse? Birtherism is the belief that Obama is not eligible to be President of the United States because of a technicality - some believe that Obama was born in Kenya and that although his mother was a citizen, she may not have spent enough time as an adult in the US before travelling overseas and giving birth to Obama in Kenya. They believe that there has been a conspiracy by a number of people to keep this secret - several at his birth which would have included family members, several in the state government of Hawaii when they found out and Obama, when he found out. In the end, they believe that it's a conspiracy of dozens to trick the system.

On the other hand, what do truthers believe? At the most extreme, they believe that the Bush administration, the US military, members of state and local government, private citizens as well as the Air National Guard conspired to set up the murder of 10s of 1,000s of American civilians. I say 10s of 1,000s because that was the goal.

So, these dozens (?) of conspirators all agreed to collaborate in this murder because they all believed what? It's ridiculous to argue.

They all believed in the W administration? Really? 8 months after a horribly divisive election debacle there were a huge number of true believers who wanted to support mass murder?

They all believed in the need to invade Afghanistan, a country that 80% of Americans still cannot find on a map?

They all believed in the need to invade Iraq and take its oil? Something we still haven't done?

They all believed in taking down bin Laden - a man that 90% of Americans had no knowledge of before 9/11?

So, Birthers vs. Truthers. I, of course, am neither. That said, who's got a more implausible theory? Who's more nutter? I will go with Truthers.

Imagine the Reaction

If Van Jones was a birther!! If so, then that would have been something the Washington press corp could have spent some time on when the guy was put in this position. Nah, he's just a truther like 35% of the Democratic party.

Good Reminder

David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner wrote a piece to remind us all that the Democrats were just as unwilling to believe the worst about their President prior to 2009 as the Republicans are today.

Twenty-eight percent of Republicans believe President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and 30 percent are "not sure," according to this poll.

But before liberals begin to smirk, here's a poll from 2007, in which 35 percent of Democrats said that President Bush knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks, and 26 percent were not sure.

Although many on the Left are happily running around trumpeting statistics that show many Republicans are being taken in by birtherism, many on the Left were more than willing to believe that Bush and his administration were behind the attacks of 9/11.

Now, I don't believe that Obama was born anywhere other than Hawaii and it's highly improbable that Obama was not a naturally born citizen of the US. That said, there is something on the birth certificate that he doesn't want disclosed which only serves to feed those who believe in birtherism. Obama could have authorized its release but has decided against it for now. Yes birtherism is silly and will likely do nothing but harm to a cause that needs to focus more on repelling Obama's leftist legislative assault than on trying to prove an infant Obama was being shuttled across the globe.

Update: Realized I didn't finish my thought! Yes, it's silly but Obama could put all of this to rest by releasing the long-form birth certificate. Bush, on the other hand, couldn't prove that he didn't attach C4 the load bearing columns of WTC buildings 1-7.

Good on National Review

For those who remember their history, it was National Review under William F Buckley that did an invaluable service to Conservatism during the 1960s by making a concerted effort to break from the John Birch Society movement. The Birchers, founded in 1958, held some outlandish views - calling Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower Communist sympathisizers were among their more famous proclamations.

Well, today National Review again puts common sense ahead of insanity with an editorial that attempts to put the Birther speculation to bed:

Much foolishness has become attached to the question of President Obama’s place of birth, and a few misguided souls among the Right have indulged it. The myth that Barack Obama is ineligible to be president represents the hunt for a magic bullet that will make all the unpleasant complications of his election and presidency disappear.

...

One of the unfortunate consequences of this red-herring discussion is that there are plenty of questions about Obama’s background and history that we would like to have answered. In spite of two books of memoirs, there remain murky areas in his biography. And when it comes to those college transcripts, count us among those who’d love to know whether Dr. Bailout ever took an advanced economics class and how he performed in it.

Barack Obama may prefer European-style socialized health care. He may consider himself a citizen of the Earth and sometimes address his audiences as “people of the world,” as though he were born not in another country but on another planet. Like Bruce Springsteen, he has a lot of bad political ideas; but he was born in the U.S.A.

Birther Facts?

I don't get the birther thing from the perspective that Obama is somehow not eligible to be POTUS. It doesn't seem like there is any concrete evidence to suggest that Obama is not a natural-born citizen.

Place of Birth

Kenya

• If Obama was born in Kenya, then the fact that his mother was American citizen is covered under 8 U.S. Code Section 1401(g) which states:

(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person.

• If somehow his mother invalidated the clause by not being in the country for 5 consecutive years, it does not matter now. If she jetted off to Kenya for 2 weeks while pregnant with Obama, that's not going to get Obama removed from office no matter how hard some wish it might.

Hawaii

• If Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 as the child of a British subject and an American citizen, then he had dual citizenship. His campaign has admitted that.
• Now, that might be a point for debate - should we have a President who once held dual citizenship? Unfortunately for those who believe it's important, it wasn't raised. It's a moot point now - unless, in 2012, we debate whether being a British subject at birth is what made Obama a socialist :)

The relevant Constitutional clause reads as follows:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.