We posted the link to Jon Stewart eviscerating the whole birther thing and Lou Dobbs the other day. Now comes some great video from Huffington Post of Mike Stark trying to get some GOP Congressmen to comment. What. The. Fuck. Come on, these guys are supposed to be the grown ups running this country and not only can some of them not give an honest answer to what is a ridiculously easy question, but some of them actually run away or hide to keep from having to answer. What the hell is that about?
And by the way...there is no controversy. Obama has produced his birth certificate. And Liz Cheney's thoughts aside, he has provided all the documentation he CAN provide. While those batshit crazies want to argue that a "Certificate of Birth" is not the same thing as a birth certificate, guess what: It's all you can get if you were born a Hawaiian citizen. Why? Because Hawaii went electronic in 2001 and paper documents were destroyed.
I have to point out two complete dipshits in this video. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) actually goes into what appears to be the Congressional Book Store (who knew they had one, just like middle school) and pretends to look at pens in an apparent attempt to wait out the camera crew. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) literally runs from the crew and calls the interviewer "the scum of the earth," but not before refusing to say who he is or what district he represents. Classy. And these people decide important shit, folks. Oh and Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), the guy who wouldn't give an answer because he was "focused on health care issues." Well...he was actually focusing today on a resolution demanding President Obama apologize for calling the Gates arrest stupid (despite the fact that it was and despite the fact that Obama has already apologized).
I will give it Rep. Tom Franks (R-AZ), who apparently was the only one who would give Stark a straight answer admitting his office had gotten that info, looked into it and come to the conclusion that the President was in fact born in Hawaii. Congratulations, Arizona. You have a Congressman that is not a complete pussy.
The interesting thing about all this, is that House Democrats today presented a non-binding resolution to celebrate Hawaii, that also pretty clearly declared Hawaii as Obama's birthplace. It passed the House 378-0., with several prominent Birthers (including the Birther bill sponsors) voting Yea.
So is this a sign that this stupid shit is dead? Or is the vote/straight answer contradiction indicative of a party that increasingly appears to be nudge-nudge, wink-wink instigating this crap?
6 comments:
Not so fast my friend. I take exception to the characterization of Tom Price (my representative) as a dipshit, and to this whole episode in general.
Are you seriously giving credence to this idiot Mike Stark running around ambushing congressman a la TMZ, stalking them in the shadows and then pretending he’s got cred by dropping Huffington Post as if it were a serious media outlet? If I were an elected official I sure as hell wouldn’t give this guy the time of day. Hell, if I were ME I wouldn’t. This is such an obvious hit piece with trademark Michael Moore editing and one of the lamest excuses for credible journalism that I’ve ever seen.
As for Tom Price, he was misidentified as the first “running man” in a scene which should be a lot more of an embarrassment to Stark than it was to the subject, who was actually Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho). Neither rep is a so-called Birther and thus had no business even being in this sham of a video. Price was the guy running up the Capitol steps to catch a vote according to his spokesman. You can accept that or not, but either way I agree with the assessment of Stark as scum because of the way he is attempting to create an illusion that misrepresents reality, with the intent of duping people who might base their votes on this kind of nonsense. It’s Moore Light.
I would also question your contention that Price “refused to say who he his or what district he represents” on the basis that the video is edited and thus we have no way of knowing what he did or didn’t say that got left on the cutting room floor.
Price is a straight shooter, who you might recall was last seen making comments that irked Rush Limbaugh. If he was mischaracterized in this video then how many others were? I give him credit for not wanting to be a part of such an obvious ruse.
Last comment: this whole birther thing is utter nonsense and most people, including most Republicans and conservatives, know it. There’s plenty of real issues on which to oppose Obama (like, pretty much everything) to waste time on this crap. I understand that highlighting the lunatic fringe of the other party is SOP in politics though- the 9/11 truthers come to mind, so this is a good target of opportunity for the left. But it’s just a counterproductive issue that would be in the Republicans’ best interest to put to rest once and for all. And let me add that I would do so in a more effective manner than by responding to ambush videos which will ultimately be edited to make them look bad.
Danny, I'll stand corrected on Price with this issue if it isn't him. But I don't think a lot of him, because the man is a trained doctor who has routinely voted against science by voting against further exploration of new stem cell lines. And he gets no big ups from me simply for dissing Limbaugh. That would be like me giving you ups for liking Guiness. Everyone should and all sane people know it.
I still think it's ridiculous not to be able to answer what is a simple question that every logical person knows the true fact on, but then again, most national politicians are ridiculous. But it doesn't take bad editing to make you look like s schmuck running and/or hiding from a camera crew. That shit was not CGI. And how hard would it be to simply answer? You give them more ammo by not.
How can you write off the whole Birther crap as lunatic fringe, when the ridiculous bill has numerous politicians as co-sponsors who refuse to publicly refute the lunatics' conspiracy?
Sorry, but at some point, the GOP owns this crap unless they shut it down and they are not shutting it down. I mean every party has their crazies who even make it into office, but last I say, there were 17 co-sponsors on that bill. That's scary. The folks who appear on national tv, who are supposedly rep'ing the GOP wink-wink, nudge-nudge on the issue. If they don't stomp out crazy, they can't feign frustration when they are identified with it.
I mean, Price has accused Obama of dividing the nation, when he's a member of a party who tolerates and humors this retarded shit to fuel animosity amongst Americans.
One of my favorite scenes in recent memory is the scene in Band of Brothers where the medic arrives to find the wounded guy and the officers gave him too much morphine. The medic proceeds to dress down the officers and finishes with, "You are officers...you should know better." I wish some of our Congressmen would heed that same call and acknowledge their responsibility to stomp out the nonsense so people would focus more on the real problems. But I also wish I could grow Acapulco Gold in my backyard. Neither will be happening anytime soon (although we can hope the latter will in the not to distant future).
BTW, Stark did it again recently and this time, Rep. Roy Blount (R-MO) is shown of film saying, "What I don't know is why the President can't produce a birth certificate. I don't know anyone else who can't produce one. And that's a legitimate question."
Blount's office said he was quoted out of context, so FireDogLake released the unedited video where Blount says he does not have any reason to believe President Obama was born out of the US. But then he proceeds to give the quotes above. And therein lies the stupidity of this whole thing. Blount admits the truth, then fudges it up some, so as not to alienate the idiots.
This is why this mess won't die.
Oh...and by the way, one Congressman CITED Lou Dobbs as in giving his answer. Lou fuckin' Dobbs as a cite. I wonder if I could get away with that in court...
Maddow just did a piece about how when some of the left-wing crazies started making this same kind of noise about John McCain (who was born in the Panama Canal Zone) when it became apparent he was going to get the GOP nod, Obama, Clinton and the Democratic Chair of Judiciary Committee all intro'd legislation that included language saying McCain was a natural born citizen.
They didn't want their party being taken over by the nutjobs. And that's the problem. Our nation works best with a real argument over real issues. Unfortunately, there's only one grown up sitting at the table right now.
Come on man, Obama and Clinton didn't do that to preserve the sanctity of their party. They did it because they WANTED McCain to be the nominee. You think they wanted to face a viable GOP candidate?
And where were they when the likes of Cynthia McKinney was running around with her 9/11 conspiracies? She was the rep in my district before the voters finally ran her out of town. You think Tom Price doesn't look real good to me after that?
All I can say is that I'd take a long hard look at that grown-up sitting at the table, because it's really just another kid with a stack of books under his ass.
Yeah...McKinney was stupid (although you can't deny that Congress should have gotten involved in investigating Tupac's murder. For christsakes...they investigated steroids in baseball).
But last I heard, wasn't she a now a member of the Green party, b/c Democrats voted her crazy ass out? You care to wager on whether that's going to happen to most of these Republicans fanning the flames of this retard fire by sponsoring the Birther bill?
At the end of the day, a large part of the base of the GOP believes in this kind of fairytale crap and not in rational thought. That's frightening.
I can tell you right now, if I had a big trial going, I want the judge to be SMARTER than I am. I don't like walking into a courtroom knowing I am smarter than the judge. Why? Because it doesn't matter if you're Einstein, if you have to convince Goober of what is right, people suffer.
So I guess I would have to ask, what books are the kids sitting on?
As to Hillary and Obama wanting to go against McCain, as a pretty involved and aware Democrat the last few election cycles, I can promise you that we all shed tears when Romney and Rudy fell by the wayside. At the time, McCain seemed like a worse matchup for Obama. Of course, that was before we all saw that McCain was a bitter, petty man who would sell his soul for the Presidency.
If you really want to know who I think would have been the best, it was Huckabee. But I knew he would never get the nod, because he was basically talking populism and there's no way the big business money at the heart of the GOP would let that happen.
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