The left-wing blogs have been so completely overrun in the Brown-Coakley campaign that they have resorted to making up a phony “birther” controversy in an attempt to gin up a controversy before Tuesday.
Blue Mass Group has released a very tightly edited 15-second clip of Scott Brown which they are trying to spin into a claim that Brown is a birther. First, here’s the clip:
It is impossible from those few seconds to tell what the interview was about, what the context of the couple of sentences was, how the issue of the age of Obama’s mother came up, or what the completion of Brown’s point was. This editing has all the signs of a hatchet job, which is reflected in the spin.
Blue Mass Group titles its post “BMG Exclusive: Scott Brown thought maybe Obama was born out of wedlock.” There’s no story there, so everything is couched in maybe’s and might have beens, including the punch line:
I mean, maybe Brown really didn’t know, and was just expressing the fact that he was unsure whether Obama’s mother was married. But why would that possibility even be in his head?
That’s a story? But it’s all that was needed for fellow travelers to chime in to try paint Brown as a birther.
Dave Weigel wrote, in a post titled Scott Brown: Hey, Maybe Barack Obama Was Born Out of Wedlock:
But the liberal BlueMassGroup blog has found a video that reflects rather poorly on GOP candidate Scott Brown, in which he joshes with a TV reporter, in 2008, about whether Barack Obama was born out of wedlock.
TPM followed up with a similar theme, Does Scott Brown Think Barack Obama Was Born To Out Of Wedlock Mother?:
Check out this video, courtesy of Blue Mass Group, in which, after praising Sarah Palin, Massachusetts Senate hopeful Scott Brown appears to suggest he thinks Barack Obama was born out of wedlock — a false claim which has been advanced frequently by members of the ‘birther’ movement.
John Marshal of TPM also did a post, linking to the other TPM post quoted above, which comes right out with the birther accusation, Birther Before His Time?:
Part of the arcana of the ‘birther’ movement is the claim that Barack Obama’s parents were never actually married, and that Obama was born out of wedlock. In a TV chat show appearance back in 2008, Scott Brown suggested that he also didn’t think Obama’s parents ever got married and that Obama was an out-of-wedlock child.
AmericaBlog chimes in “apparently it’s another conspiracy theory surrounding Obama’s birth. It’s troubling that Brown, who is the GOP candidate for Kennedy’s Senate seat, is perpetuating these theories, and even laughing while putting them out there.”
There’s nothing there, yet the screams of “birther” are being made in a desperate last minute effort to smear Brown based on “maybe” this or “maybe” that. Indeed, Jonathan Chait sees this line of attack as the key to a Coakley victory.
How about this, and I don’t mean “maybe”: The people spinning this nonsense are desperate because they have nothing good to say about Martha Coakley and they are afraid that the majority of people in Massachusetts feel the same way.
Update: Look Who’s Claiming Obama’s Mother Was Not Married
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Related Posts:
Coakley’s Disgusting Rape Mailer
Brown Massacres Coakley Online
When Martha Dissed Teddy
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Comments
This is simply the M.O. or Camp Obama. They did the same to Bill and Hillary…. took comments out of context and made rediculous, racially toned accusations. So, why would they *not* do that to Brown.
I hope people can see through it this time. Because, quite frankly, I find it to be getting stale.
You know, it's interesting. I'm not sure that Massachusetts voters are going to respond well to this sort of Chicago-style approach. The people I've spoken with are really turned off by the negative ads and the lies being told. New Englanders are refined and very reserved as a whole, and this is actually working against Croakley, not for her.
I hope they keep it up, they are losing votes with every new lie, every new idiocy, every new attack.
Hey Professor..
we PUMA democrats are on this story as well.
Perhaps you can post this link here for your story:
"dont-blame-scott-brown-michelle-obama-said-barack-was-born-out-of-wedlock"
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/dont-blame-scott-brown-michelle-obama-said-barack-was-born-out-of-wedlock/
–his own wife said it! Scott Brown is just repeating what the First Lady has already said ON RECORD!
Fuzzy Slippers: "refined and very reserved"–these are the people that elected Ted Kennedy–what–8 times? And Kerry five?
I have met many people from New England and find them nice people, although usually reflexive leftists. However, there are many leftists that are not cartoon characters like the Kennedys.
My theory is that it is something in the water.
and also… PLEASE spread the link I post to any and every site that spreads this latest nonsense about Scott.
use the Michelle Obama's own words against the nonsense they are spreading on behalf of Coakley.
–a PUMA democrat for Scott Brown!
It proves the utter desperation and grasping at straws… Coakley is on the ropes and their inane lies just makes her look even worse.
They have jumped the shark…
Rich, lol, thank goodness I don't drink the water!
Yep, utter desperation. I saw this yesterday. Thanks for the nice roundup debunking these idiots.
The clock is ticking, the actions of the failing candidate ever more desperate. And useless.
It's getting to the window of GOTV now. And all the energy and fire are with Brown.
Heaven help us, Obama will be adding to his legacy of defeat in NJ, Virginia and now Mass Tuesday night.
Do what you can folks to help our Republic supporting Brown now.
Looks like one of the shameless leftie Obama acolytes over at the Associated Press is now doing his part in spreading this slime.
In a brand new My Way News story about the President coming to the Bay State to campaign for Coakley — "Obama makes last-ditch attempt to save Senate seat" a story which, by the way, was just released within the hour (at 1:14 pm), they included the following unsupported paragraph at the end of the story:
"In the closing hours of the campaign, Democrats pressed to make the case that Brown is not who he claims to be. They cast him as a far-right conservative funded by "tea party" supporters and they highlighted a TV interview from 2008 in which Brown seems to suggests that Obama may have been born out of wedlock."
And following that paragraph, is this pertinent information:
" . . . Associated Press writer Glen Johnson contributed to this report."
Three guesses who added the "birther" paragraph!
There is simply no more openly partisan, leftie reporter in the nation today than Glen Johnson. Just Google his name, and check out some of his stories from the 2008 campaign.
Come to think of it, does that mean that Michelle Obama may not be who she seems to be?
Surely she cannot be a "a far-right conservative funded by 'tea party' supporters" just because she stated that his mom was "very single" when he was born.
Can she?
If you want some context to the video, you could instead link to the 1:44 version that is easily found on youtube.
My bet is that you could probably even find a transcript for the whole show without too much difficulty.
But in what context could his statement imply anything BUT the idea that he questions the fact that Obama's parents were married when Obama was born. The real question is, why would he doubt that and where would he get that idea?
Come on Prof! Put your thinking cap on and solve this mystery.
nylund154, you seem to have missed a key point here. Even a cursory reading of the comments in the thread, above, such as the one by Tim at 10:30 am, would have revealed the obvious to you. Or, you could have read Prof. Jacobson’s update, posted more than half an hour before you fired off your comment.
The posts here expose a pathetic attempt by obviously angry and frustrated allies of Martha Coakley to try and smear Scott Brown, by falsely claiming that he must be some sort of extremist nut case — a "birther" if you will – a claim based on a brief video clip from back in 2008, during which there was a verbal exchange between Scott and an interviewer. In it, we can plainly see that Scott Brown expressed a bit of uncertainty (and nothing more) about the interviewer's emphatic assertion that Obama's mother was married at the time of his birth.
All Scott politely said in response to the reporter was, "Well, I don't know about that." He could have told the reporter, "No, you are wrong."
She apparently was.
The best proof of that is a statement from a speech given by Obama’s wife, Michelle, in early July of 2008, at a roundtable discussion at the University of Missouri-Kansas City as was duly reported on July 10th in MSNBC's "First Read," in an article entitled, "MICHELLE OBAMA TALKS FATHERHOOD."
Here was a quote from that article, quoting Michelle Obama. Or, you can watch the actual video of the talk as posted by Jacobson in his update:
His own mother, she said at the beginning of her remarks, was "very young and very single when she had him." And, Obama added, he has observed his wife's attempts to reconcile motherhood with her career aspirations.
" … very single … "
Oooooops! I'd say Scott was correct and the reporter was not.
So, who are the "birthers" now?
I'd say the clowns who tried dishonestly to turn this into a controversy.
I am practically positive I remember that Obama's father already had a wife back home. Doesn't that rule out a marriage to Obama's mom?
Um, Scott Brown may have been uncertain, but the plain truth is that Obama was born out of wedlock. This is not some bizarre "birther" theory; it's the undisputed truth. So where does this leave Josh Marshall and all the others who think only a kook would even suggest it?