Birther

Breitbart Birther Exclusive: Obama Born In Kenya – Or Not

Posted by on May 17, 2012 at 5:34 pm. 36 Comments :

The kids at Breitbart News, or as I call them, the Breitbrats, are giddily wallowing in their “exclusive” discovery of “evidence” that President Barack Obama is indeed a secret Kenyan usurper to the American presidency.

Breitbart News

That’s right. Now it finally comes out. “Obama’s Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: ‘Born in Kenya'” This is front page news at the Breitbrat site. And why not? It proves that the President is an illegitimate occupier of the White House. Maybe now the Breitbart Tea Partiers can revoke health care and make all the tax cuts for the wealthy permanent while expanding offshore oil drilling and outlawing abortion and gays.

Except that, for some reason, the article heralding this monumental news is prefaced by an editorial disclaimer saying…

“Andrew Breitbart was never a ‘Birther,’ and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of ‘Birtherism.’ In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.”

Hmmm. That sort of contradicts the whole point of the article. Or rather, the article contradicts the whole point of the disclaimer. Either way, it reflects the amateurish efforts of the Breitbrats as they endeavor to smear Obama regardless of whether their assertions make any sense.

The article by Joel Pollak is an unfocused rambling of accusations that lead nowhere. He aimlessly recites the content of a pamphlet that is promoting the clients of a literary agency that includes a young Barack Obama, and he bores readers with his description of the typography, as if it had some special significance. Then he seeks to impress with his questions directed at individuals associated with the agency, except that he doesn’t get any actual answers. And all the while he insists that his examination of the evidence that Obama is Kenyan isn’t really an attempt to suggest that Obama is Kenyan.

Perhaps even worse is a follow up article by Breitbrat John Nolte who begins his harangue by stating that…

“Never once have I doubted that President Obama was born in Hawaii. There’s no way in the world that little constitutional issue would ever have got past the Clintons during the 2008 Democratic primary. Now that we’re clear on that…”

So the only reason he discounts the claims that Obama is not an American is that Bill and Hillary would have told him if it were true. He does not discount them because they are demonstrably false and that documentary evidence is readily available. The big problem, as Nolte defines it, is “the abject failure of the mainstream media to vet” Obama, and this clipping from a twenty year old pamphlet is proof of that even though he denies that the pamphlet proves anything. Still, Nolte considers the existence of this pamphlet as proof that the media has fallen down on its duty to investigate the President.

Let’s look at that claim a little closer. Nolte is saying that the media failed because they didn’t discover and report on a pamphlet that Nolte concedes means nothing. So according to Nolte, in order for the media to have done their job properly, they should have published this story about a meaningless blurb in an old pamphlet that has zero significance to Obama’s identity. Seriously. Nolte goes on to ask “what will the humiliated media do?” But I still can’t figure out how they were humiliated if the pamphlet, by Nolte’s own reckoning, is not indicative of anything.

Not to be deterred, Nolte insists that “there are plenty of follow-up stories here; plenty of questions to ask and reporting to do.” But the only questions he suggests are “If it wasn’t a mistake, let’s ask why. If it was a mistake, let’s ask how.” But he just finished making repeated assertions that it was a mistake and that he is certain that Obama is an American citizen born in Hawaii. That leaves the only question to be how the mistake was made. I think the answer to that would be “Who cares?” It was just a mistake. And the media cannot be regarded as irresponsible for not reporting that a mistake was made twenty years ago on a promotional pamphlet that was never distributed to the public.

Nolte and Pollak need to make up their twisted little minds as to whether this is a trivial error that in no way reflects on the President’s lineage, or it is proof that the Birther conspiracy has been revealed. And via their repeated declarations, they obviously believe that Obama was born in Hawaii and, therefore, this pamphlet has no news value and the media are blameless for not harping on it – the way the Breitbrats are.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

For the record, a real journalist actually did what journalists do and contacted the person responsible for the pamphlet. Taegan Goddard then reported that Miriam Goderich, of the literary agency that produced the pamphlet, issued the following statement to Political Wire:

“You’re undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”

Case closed. Except for all the hysteria that still embroils the infected brains at Breitbart News and their fellows in the Birther community. And the ghost of Andrew Breitbart rolls his eyes.

BIRTHERS GONE WILD: New Obama Conspiracy Theory Tests The Limits Of Idiocy

Posted by on March 20, 2012 at 1:42 pm. 89 Comments :

If you thought that the psychotic lunacy of those who still believe that President Obama is not an American citizen had reached its peak, you have obviously underestimated just how severely demented this crowd is. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, these acutely fixated cretins cling to their fables and even expand on them ad absurdum.

Jerome CorsiThe latest addendum to the Birther Chronicles comes from (where else) Jerome Corsi of WorldNetDaily. Corsi is the loser whose book “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” was published just days after the White House released the long-form copy of his birth certificate for which the looney right had been clamoring. Corsi begins his WND article by asking…

“Did the parents of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers help finance Barack Obama’s Harvard education? Did Ayers’ mother believe Obama was a foreign student? And was the young Obama convinced at the time – long before he even entered politics – that he was going to become president of the United States?”

All three of those questions were answered in the affirmative by a retired mail carrier that Corsi interviewed. Allen Hulton, claims to have had the route that serviced the home of Tom and Mary Ayers, the parents of former Weatherman, Bill Ayers. Hulton told Corsi…

“One day, Mary came to the door when I came up to the house with the mail,” he remembers. “After a greeting, she started enthusiastically talking to me about this young black student they were helping out, and she referred to him as a foreign student.”

Hulton went on to say that he recalled Mary telling him the name of the foreign student, which he later forgot, but said that it sounded African. So that pretty much settles it. A mail carrier remembers a customer on his route thirty years ago talking about a student with an African sounding name. If that isn’t conclusive evidence of Obama being supported by the parents of a domestic terrorist, what is?

Setting aside for the moment that none of this can be proven because Mary Ayers is deceased, it also makes little sense from even the most conspiratorial perspective. The implication is that there was some connection between Obama and Bill Ayers’ parents, and that the whole family was part of some anti-American cabal. However, Thomas Ayers, Bill’s father, was not exactly the model of a revolutionary extremist. In fact, he was CEO and chairman of Commonwealth Edison, the largest electric utility in Illinois. Ayers also served on the board of directors of Sears, G.D. Searle, Chicago Pacific Corp., Zenith Corp., Northwest Industries, General Dynamics Corp. of St. Louis, First National Bank of Chicago, the Chicago Cubs, and the Tribune Co. A socialist subversive if there ever was one. Hulton even described him as having “a Marxist viewpoint.” Of course, just like all the other board members of giant, capitalist corporations.

But this conspiracy theory is just getting started. Corsi continued his tale with an allegation that Obama had confessed to being complicit in a plot to usurp the presidency. When Hulton asked the student about his plans for the future, he was taken aback by the response:

“He looked right at me and told me he was going to be president of the United States,” Hulton says. “There was a little bit of a grin on his face when he said it – he sounded sure of himself, but not arrogant. I know how people will say things because they have an ambition, but it did not come across that way,” Hulton says. “It came across as if this young black male was telling me he was going to be president, almost as if it were the statement of a scientific fact that had already been determined, as if his being president had been already pre-arranged.”

Indeed. Who could dispute that account straight from the horse’s mouth? And it surely is not suspicious that Hulton is claiming that Obama casually disclosed the treasonous scheme of which he was an integral part. It is perfectly reasonable that Obama would spill the details of this conspiracy to a complete stranger. All of the attempts to overthrow the American government that I have clandestinely participated in always encouraged us to tell people we had never met before exactly what we were planning. (Oops. I may have said too much).

The Birther conspiracy has always been an exercise in idiocy. Despite having never had any basis in fact, it required its adherents to believe that the whole thing began as a plot to usurp the presidency of the United States. And now the Manchurian part of the scheme has been articulated out loud. They really do believe that Obama was created in a Kenyan petri dish, grown to adulthood in a communist laboratory funded by George Soros, handed a fictional resume and a pre-programmed Teleprompter, and escorted to the White House by some alien power that had the ability to hypnotize a majority of the American voters.

Seriously, these numbskulls are certifiable. I suppose the First Amendment protects their right to say astonishingly stupid things, but out of concern for public safety, they should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery, drive cars, or otherwise engage in activities that could bring harm to themselves and others. If they can’t be committed, I hope at least that they get the medical and pharmaceutical treatment they so desperately need.

[Update:] A follow up at WND, with no byline, was posted alleging that there is now a “full-blown media cover-up” of this ludicrous story. As evidence they cite this article, so get ready for some incoherent rightist rhetoric in the comments (they’ve already begun).

WND chief, Joseph Farah writes that this story was “deliberately spiked” by the mainstream media and even that “Big time talk-radio was tipped off on the story, as well – in advance. They didn’t bite, either.” Gee, I wonder why. Could it be because it’s insane? Farah, however, consoles himself with the fantasy that…

“…millions got the first-person, eyewitness evidence that Barack Obama was helped through Harvard by the family of domestic terrorist Bill Ayers back in the late 1980s.”

Farah obviously has a very low threshold for what constitutes evidence. In this case it’s a thirty year old memory of a brief and trivial conversation that is uncorroborated and didn’t even affirm what the source alleges. But that’s enough for the dimwits that read WND.

Bill O’Reilly Books, Then Bumps, WorldNetDaily Birther

Posted by on August 3, 2009 at 12:57 pm. 7 Comments :

Joseph Farah is the editor of the uber-conservative WorldNetDaily. He is also one of the chief proponents of the Birther Conspiracy that holds that Barack Obama is not eligible to be president because, they hysterically allege, he isn’t a U.S. citizen. This thoroughly caramelized nut case for reversing last November’s election has been debunked repeatedly, but continues to be peddled by dogged rightist reality deniers.

Now, the WorldNetDaily is reporting that their leader, Mr. Farrah, was all set to appear on The O’Reilly Factor until his list of demands was rejected by Bill O’Reilly himself. Here is the list as printed at WND:

  • Though a sober and civil discourse is always welcome, shouting is not;
  • No other guests on during the segment with Mr. Farah;
  • Discussion to be limited to the facts of the story;
  • Accurate, approved description of Mr. Farah and news organization he represents;
  • Screen ID chyron to be approved by Mr. Farah.

If this account is true, then O’Reilly retracted his invitation to Farrah because he objected to constraints on his freedom to shout at people and distort facts. But just the fact that a right wing web editor felt it necessary to itemize a list of criteria that included no shouting, stick with the facts, and chyron approval, for a right wing TV host, is pretty delicious irony. Even O’Reilly’s natural allies don’t trust him.