The conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump is doing damage to Republicans by raising the birth certificate issue. I think it’s way too early to tell, but it is just as likely that Trump is doing major damage to Obama.
Obama may be winning in some circles, but the polling indicates that increasing percentages of Americans — including substantial percentages of independents — do not believe Obama was born in the U.S. or are unsure. I’ll have more on the polling tomorrow, but you never hear about the numbers for independents, you only hear about the numbers for Republicans.
Hint, go out to dinner with four independent voters; then try to guess which one of them thinks Obama was born elsewhere. Because if the polls are accurate, one of them does.
Worse than that, the release or not of the original birth certificate now has become a test of wills. The dispute has morphed from “where was he born” to “why doesn’t he just release the damn thing, we have to do it.” It has become a metaphor for the overall image of Obama as viewing himself as above the rest of us, as reflected in his now-famous line about people in small towns clinging to their guns and religion.
When even the MSM pesters Obama’s Press Secretary with such a question (see here starting at 1:30), Obama has lost the message.
This ends badly, regardless. Either Obama releases the birth certificate and is seen as capitulating, or he continues to refuse and is seen as hiding something by increasing percentages of voters who have tuned out the mainstream media’s defense of Obama.
Am I wrong?
Update 4-27-2011: Capitulation? So far no link at Drudge, but if true this would confirm that Team Obama recognizes that the birth certificate issue has gone from tactical tool to strategic nightmare. Added: now there’s a link, but so far no copy of the document. Added, here’s the White House link, looks like a 1961 copy of a Certificate of Live Birth. Somehow, I don’t think this will end things.
See my updated post, Obama Releases “Long Form” Birth Certificate?
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Related Posts:
The Bizarre “Birther” Intellectual Dance
Obama’s “Birther” Strategy Has Backfired
The Worst Thing For Obama About Trump On The View
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USA Today/Gallup ‘Shock’ Poll: Only 38% of Americans Believe Obama Definitely Born in US
April 26, 2011
Most of the chatter seems to be coming from the reporters and then the bloggers who link to the reporters' articles.
I know quite a few people who are interested in this issue, but it's not the most important one with them. Most of us are far more concerned with the loss of our freedoms and security and the daily rising cost of living. And those are the people who still have jobs.
Beck thinks the BC issue is irrelevant and that 0 loves it as a diversion. On his tv show tonight, Beck talked about how violent and unsafe our borders are, how illegals can waltz into the US without problems. And yet, ironically, the government is going to make it more difficult to get a passport to leave: State Dept. wants to make it harder to get a passport
Where, oh where are the WikiLeaks people when we could use them! It would end the problem for Obama without him having to look like he gave in… right?
I think you're right. I think birtherism is the dumbest issue this side of the Confederate flag controversy, I think he was clearly born in Hawaii in 1961 but still I wanna know what he's hiding on there. Hillbuzz had a theory that since he was adopted by Lolo Soetoro, his name on the on the certificate was Barry Soetoro and he never bothered to change it back. Good a guess as any!
It doesn't matter WHERE birth occurred. By the facts already admitted by Obama, he was born British, of a British Subject father. As such he is not a natural born Citizen, and not eligible. If the well known reason for the requirement of a natural born Citizen to serve as chief magistrate and Commander In Chief was to prevent foreign influence (see Jay's letter to Obama in 1787, and Federalist #68) then how is it possible that one born British could be eligible?
No, you are not wrong in that Trump is doing major damage to Obama's reputation. Anybody who could just "laugh off" birtherism before now due to being uninformed, now must confront the fact that most of this man's life is closely guarded, and that most people have no idea who he is, or what he stands for. When this rock is finally lifted up, I expect to see fat roaches, squirmy bugs, centipedes, and rot. More than that: what do do about an ineligible POTUS's 4 year fraudulent term of destruction in this country, when in fact the man was never eligible in the first place. Based on the US's constant unwritten policy of referring to precedent, rather than OUR CONSTITUTION, I expect that even if he is outed as being ineligible, that will just start an era of ANYONE being able to become POTUS. This will certainly lead to Manchurian candidates of every shape and size, guaranteeing this country will see a POTUS charged with the destruction ("transformation') of the US within my lifetime. I personally think his handlers knew he was ineligible from the very beginning, and will use this man's ethnicity to force in a precedent that anyone can be POTUS. When the truth comes out: that is when the real fight begins.
1. Am I wrong?
While you're not wrong, I suspect you mean that Trump is doing major damage to Obama.
2. As another William put it:
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious.
3. None of which will matter if there is a reasonable facsimile of an economic recovery in 11/12. Iirc last month's leading indicators were up significantly, and the stock market just had a good day.
I live in Oregon.
There are no "independents" only Democrats & Greens
The Donald is taking no prisoners and I think the a lot of people are noticing that he is one of the few around saying what he honestly believes. I didn't really have an opinion on the "birther" issue before Trump, but have now seen enough to question why Obama doesn't release everything if there really is nothing there. It doesn't make any sense. I also resent all the media pundits and politicians of both stripes who think the issue is beneath them, as if there is an obvious logic to not question it.
It's not just the birth certificate but ALL of his records. We know they can be found hermetically sealed in a jar on Funk & Wagnall's front porch at a specific address but even THAT information is being barricaded from the public.
At first, it might have been argued that the "birthers" were obsessing about a trivial point but because of the effort and expense devoted to barricading this information, the issue has become "the lady doth protest too much".
If you really want to see how absurd the MSM protection of Obama has become, watch Robert Deniro's illogical and rambling criticism of Trump and how the media treats THAT like it is profound wisdom while treating Trump's logical and reasonable position as being crazy.
No, you are not wrong. Trump is getting hit by the MSM (notice he never brings up the issue, and says often that he doesn't want to talk about it). They naively believe that this will help their guy, making Trump look ridiculous (remember, ridicule is their chief weapon). They are instead making the One look elitist, as you said, and making people think – a dangerous thing – something that most people did NOT do before voting back in 2008.
The Donald is a celebrity. He is what today's electorate crave: an entertaining TV celebrity running for office. Many voted for Obama because he seemed like a celebrity – as a RNC ad noted in 2008 – and he was "cool."
Trump is famous; he has his own TV hit show. He will dominate (whether he's right or not on the issues) because people are drawn to his celebrity. And they believe him. He is, after all, the cold, heartless man who declares, "You're fired!" to some of the best and brightest every week.
In Obama's own words: "….the only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide….” (here is a video clip link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGfEzLlcO_s ; not sure what the orig. source is….)
By writing an EO sealing ALL his past records, belittling and berating anyone who asks about his past, and conveniently forgetting that McCain (as well as others) had to show their records (I believe the Senator from IL was the originator of Res. 511 back in 2008), Obama forces logical, rational people to think, and then to ask: what is he hiding?
The constitutional standard for proof that one is qualified to be president is now "I believe" that Obama was born in Hawaii. Popular consensus has replaced irrefutable evidence of proof. Faith has replaced reason. The new Dark Ages.
I think Trump is damaging Obama with more than just the birther issue. He's willing to say repeatedly to anybody who will listen that Obama is the worst president ever. When people hear that often enough, from someone with a brand name that everyone knows, I have to believe it's going to have an impact with the segment of the population who don't pay attention to politics but who still bother to vote.
The other thing Trump is doing is that by being as bombastic as he is, he's making other Republicans stop cowering and being afraid of the MSM who are out to protect Obama. He is emboldening them. For example, last week Allen West referred to Obama a "low level socialist agitator". When he was later asked if he wanted to retract it, he said he stood by the statememt. Last night on Greta, Romeny highlighted Obama's failures.
So far, I think Trump is good for the Republicans and bad for Obama. I just hope he stays at it and then decides not to run as the primaries begin.
"We know they can be found hermetically sealed in a jar on Funk & Wagnall's front porch at a specific address but even THAT information is being barricaded from the public." –Pasadena Phil
You bet your sweet bippie!!! Very interesting……. veeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrryyyyy interesting…….but stupid! That era keeps popping up, what with Alinsky, Cloward & Piven…. Obama thinks he can play the race card forever; the MSM thinks they can CYA for him forever, too. That makes them "stupid" to me. There is nothing wrong with asking why – what is there to hide?
Most transparent administration – evah! Not.
What's really amazing is to find out that a basic tenet of the qualification for holding the Office Of President is NOT codified into law. Given that, it is amazing that there is not a universal move to FIX that – regardless of whether or not it affects Obama – and to hear pundits proclaim that it is wrong to "force" him to PROVE he meets that basic qualification is astounding. No matter who it is – ALL candidates should have to prove it. It's amazing it is even in question.
That said, Trump's assertions are in full public view on the supermarket tabloids this week – so every single American is seeing the headlines, yes, Trump is doing damage to Obama. That national dialogue will be had. No one else could have done it. His gravitas has even the shrews on The View mewing rather than biting.
Would he be a good President? Maybe he would – and even if he was mediocre, he would be a thousand percent improvement over Obama. I'd vote for a Pet Rock over Obama.
And, it isn't really about the Birth Certificate alone, it's that "As WND has reported, besides Obama’s actual birth documentation, the president has refused to release his Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association, baptism records and his adoption records." (quoted) Trump has plenty of material to last the next 18 months.
No, you are not wrong.
The press is shaming those who raise the birther issue
and Trump is too "criticism adverse" to care.
So what others would not speak its name, Trump now does utter.
Though not with a peep but a shout !!
When my kids were little I used the art of distraction to keep them from getting into mischief. My instincts say Obama is doing the same thing with the American public, because if people were not chasing a birth certificate, they would have to investigate a more serious threat to Obama. He is native born because he was (apparently) born in Hawaii, but he is not natural born because only one parent was a citizen when he was born.
If you have the patience to watch the whole video linked below, it cites historical sources for the above remark, including Dr. David Ramsay in 1789 ("The Nature of Citizenship"), Rep. John Bingham (OH, 1862), father of the 14th Amendment, and Supreme Court Justice, Hugo Black, in Duncan vs Lousiana (1968).
Video: Obama Admits He Is Not A Natural Born Citizen
http://jeffersonsrebels.blogspot.com/2011/04/video-barack-obama-admits-he-is-not.html
Trump would appear to think this is a good line of attack, for he's raising the stakes: "I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."
And as I recall there's … curiosity about who paid for his education, most especially at Harvard Law.
Orly Taitz and Trump have been in contact lately…and he knows about the other aspects regarding Obama's legitimacy such as (from Orly today):
Great news!!! I was granted oral argument in yet another case, in New Orleans. If you are my supporter in LA or neighboring state, call me at 949-683-5411 … I was granted oral argument in a second case. I kept it under wraps for as long as I could, but Obama supporters already got wind of this and posted the pleadings, so I can announce it.
As you know, First argument is in Pasadena, ca,May 2, 2011, 9 am 9th Circuit court of Appeals Courtroom 1, 125 South Grant Street, Pasadena CA . This is a case,where I represent former U.N. ambassador Alan Keyes, 10 state representatives and 30 members of US military
Second case is in New Orleans, Eastern District of Louisiana, 500 Poydras str. Room C-151, New Orleans, LA 70130., May 11, 2011, 11:00 AM
Proposed Amendment:
>>>Any person born to an American citizen, who has been out of the country for no more than 4 years, shall be a native born citizen of these United States.<<< May not settle Obama's status, but it would help problematic births in the future. 🙂
There sure are a lot of people out here who believe that Obama was on a foreign student scholarship at Occidental College. Pothead too.
Professor, I have to disagree that it is conventional wisdom that Trump is hurting Republicans. I think that is only conventional wisdom among the establishment who do not want to touch this subject with a 10 foot pole. The Republican establishment know that if they go there, they are simply going to be labeled "racists" by the DNC goons.
Obama's refusal to deal with this situation, taking the stand that releasing his COLB first, on DailyKos, and then on his own website, seems arrogant to some. Add to that his refusal to be open and transparent about other aspects of his life and you have a man who appears to be so egotistical that he thinks he doesn't have to answer to those that elected him. This arrogance will not serve him well.
Even Chrissy Matthews, with his tingling leg, asked "Why doesn't he just release the damn thing?"
More and more Americans are beginning to wonder the same thing. Just give the State of Hawaii permission to release his "birth record" which they claim they have on microfilm.
Erica
Even if both parents are alien, so long as the child is born in US territory he is a native born citizen of the United States. Brush up on the subject.
Obama, who campaigned on having the most open and transparent administration ever – but won't let anyone see the most basic documents about him.
"but you never hear about the numbers for independents,"
As one of those registered independents, if you had asked me in 2008 was Obama born in HI, I would have said yes, now I'm not sure.
And the fact that he won't release his long form BC, yet in 2008, Mccain was sued in court because he was born on a navy base in Panama, and so congress had to pass some legislation to say Mccain was constitutionally legitimate to run is stunning.
And even more stunning, the person who co-sponsored that piece of legislation was Obama, yet Congress said nothing about Obama.
And now I hear that CNN has declared it has "settled" the issue. Really? so we should all just be quiet and sit down because CNN has declared this issue resolved? They never asked the basic question, why not release this simple piece of document?
hell, why even have courts then, let CNN just declare something to be true and then we should jsut abide by it.
Trump is not doing damage to the repubs, he is giving a spine to the opposition to Obama, real opposition, I am not a repub, in fact I voted for Howard Dean in the 2004 primaries and then for John Kerry (yea I know… I know)
But either we are a nation of laws or we are not.
I don't need some damn newstation feeding me some lies, Trump is 100% correct, he produced his long form BC within 24 hours, why can't Obama? heck, Trump will even pay for it, heck we can take up a collection to pay for it.
And the college records, sounds to me like Trump is going to be releasing his soon, why the hell won't Obama?
No one has a clue who the heck Obama is? I sure don't!
I just found out Obama and his wife both lost their law licences years ago, why? I sure don't know? Is this even true?
Maybe CNN will tell me that's a settled matter as well, maybe they are too busy attacking Trump and defending their candidate for 2012.
If this man had any respect for the US military, he would be eager to settle this issue to show he is consitutionally legitimate to hold the office of CIC, of course this is the same man who believes, as he said, that "the US military is killing civilians and airraiding villages".
In 2008, I was very certain he was born in Hawaii and I made fun of the "birthers", now I have serious doubts he was born in Hawaii, call me a "birther", if following the US constitution makes an american voter a birther, call me a birther then.
and GO TRUMP!.
Not wrong, but I'm not sure "capitulating" is the word here. He wouldn't be seen as capitulating, even to his more rabid admirers–many of whom are also calling for him to put the matter to rest. He can't not release it. That much is clear. It's just a matter of when . . . and what's on it.
The birther issue was always a decoy celebrated by Obama, because he could ridicule those with doubts.
The real issue is all the other records, associations, and information that he is hiding, and which the Media has done such an inadequate job on covering, if not actively participating in the coverups.
One suspects that his "brand" was that he was the smart guy, which he ran and got elected on, but the nonexistant school records would prove just the opposite; that he is nothing but a glib smooth empty suit. He fought hard to protect his "brand", and the birth certificate was just a tiny piece of it.
It may be a non-story now. He's spent the last two years proving to us how incompetent and useless he really is.
mythusmage said…
Erica
Even if both parents are alien, so long as the child is born in US territory he is a native born citizen of the United States. Brush up on the subject.
~~~~~~
Dear mythusmage: If you will RE-READ my remarks, you will see that I stated Obama is a NATIVE born citizen. However, he is not a NATURAL born citizen for reasons cited by authoritative sources. If you would watch the video, you might understand the difference in the two kinds of citizenshhip.
Here is a great ad:
An American citizen is being hired by a new employer and must produce documentation of citizenship. One such acceptable form is your birth certificate.
Juxtapose the person being hired producing his/her birth certificate next to President Obama being hired as our President without any documentation required.
Trump was/is a Clinton supporter and he is a liberal. He is damaging Obama not on the birth certificate issue per se but on his obsession with hiding his past. No one trusts a person who is obviously keeping a secret while at the same time denying he is keeping a secret. Basically Trump is calling Obama a liar and Obama responds by…lying via obfuscation. It's called the appearance of impropriety. Liberals should know this theme, they used it ad nauseam in the 80s.
Trump is not going to be president, he is just clearing the way for a draft of Hillary Clinton at the Dem nomination convention because by that time the Obama brand will be severely damaged.
Right now, Hannity is covering the college missing transcripts showing Trump videos. And earlier today, Pat Buchanan brought up the same questions while accusing MSNBC as being outright tools in helping Obama covering it up.
This Trump thing is NOT going away. It is quickly taking on a life of its own. It's like the Kennedy/Bush/McCain amnesty bill. At first, 80% of Americans supported amnesty. But once they learned what the issue was about, the numbers flipped and the Bush/McCain ended up orchestrating two major electoral disasters for the GOP in 2006 and 2008. Same here.
Whether the O is natural born, declared Muslim, or is a de facto bastard child on his birth certificate, Obama's contempt in not putting this issue to rest with incontrovertible evidence as he seals documents at great expense from the American public, has finally become a (post-racial America) legitimate issue.
Right-to-know and crusader journalism may be passe among the really smart leftist thinkers these days if Dems are in power, but Barack needs to bow to truth, not to Mecca or Gaia, if he wants a shot at a second term. We rubes are finally catching on to Obama's convenient inconsistencies and doublespeak logic with the support of a fawning, sycophantic, submissive, collaborating and complicit press.
Imho, no matter how we play the Trump card, we gotta thank Donald for the end game.
Robert has hit the nail squarely on the head. it is about the Precedent! if he can manage to get away with this for four whole years of illegitimacy then the whole house of cards comes down. and even aside from that, how do you unwind four years worth of illegitimate actions? especially after all the blatantly unconstitutional things he has done anyway? how in hell can this be fixed?
", and which the Media has done such an inadequate job on covering,"
America has long ago lost it's Media. What we currently have is a whole lot of leftist Propaganda Readers reading whatever the Democrats or Communist hand them, and a very few others who basically try to avoid upsetting the leftists. The only truth is coming out of the Blogs.
The only way to get something that is not 1
Obama is preparing to run as a victimized black man in 2012. That is why he recruited Al Sharpton and attended that Shiloh Baptist Church with another racist pastor for Easter. And today, Travis Smiley on PBS predicted that 2012 was going to be the most racist election year in history.
It's like the old joke, "Other than THAT, what did you think of the play, Mrs. Lincoln?". The GOP is completely missing the "Lincoln hits the town" story as they continue tut-tutting as Trump takes the fight to the "enemy" where he is most vulnerable.
lgstarr: don't you mean 125 South Grand Avenue, Pasadena CA?
I think you're wrong and I have a conspiracy theory to prove it.
I don't think Mr. Trump is a "Chump". I think he still thinks Obama is the greatest president in history, contrary to his recent proclamations. I think his new found Republicanism is a ruse and He and Mr. Obama have conspired together to perpetuate this birth certificate controversy in order to convince people that Mr. Trump is just another brainless babbling birther. Add to this "Trump's versatility of convictions" and the other three independents at the dinner table will soon conclude that Mr. Obama is the better of two evils. Do the math and apply it to the 2012 election.
The Republican Party best find someone other than Mr. Trump as its 2012 presidential nominee. Otherwise, it's another four more years of Mr. Obama and a country full of "conservative chumps".
Here something else to look into ….why is it his mothers passport records records from 61 to 65 just disappear ….POOF
So, we know nothing about Obama other than what he deems it necessary to tell us…all records are sealed and off-limits to us lowly riff-raff. But now, Obama's State Department is implementing means by which to extract years of deeply private information from citizens who wish to procure a simple passport.
The irony of this is at least knee-deep…
It goes beyond the birth certificate. As Trump has pointed out, there was no release of school transcripts.
Obama promised change. Michelle told us we would all need to sacrifice. Now Americans are seeing the change and paying the price.
Now they have questions and increasing want answers.
I think the college transcript issue is the weak link in the Obama life history chain …
just like his basketball prowess which has never been tested in any organized play ever … in the case of his transcripts he has been tested and frankly based on his work ethic in the White House I have no doubt he was an average student …
My suspicion is that Obama is not certain himself where he was born and regards his mother and grandparents to have been devious enough that he does not want whatever document Hawaii holds to be subjected to the same scrutiny as was Dan Rather's Texas Air National Guard memo.
You're right on the mark.
I have recently thought that Trump is playing the role Paul Begala played in eariler elections — that of an attack dog, spitting venom while Clinton kept his cool. And you are right, he is taking big chunks out of Obama's hide.
Even CNN and the morning shows are giving him a forum. They just can't help themselves. He is fun to watch and he pulls up the ratings.
The White House is having fits. They can't stop him and Jay Carney isn't up to controlling the mess.
I think you're dead wrong on this one, Professor. The birther schtick and Trump's latest — suggesting that Obama was "a bad student" so how did he get into Harvard Law School — may get Trump 20 percent of early GOP primary voters but it can only do harm. First, it will harm the GOP selection process and second, it will provide a foolish distraction, which will be encouraged every minute of every day by Obama's cheerleaders in the MSM, from the powerful attacks on Obama that can and should be made with respect to Obama's failed economic growth efforts, his failure to create jobs, his determined resistance to serious spending cuts, his historically weak and weak-kneed foreign policies, and of course Obamacare. Every day spent talking about Trump's nonsense is a day's opportunity lost to hammer Obama on the many issues on which he will lose.
Voters by and large still LIKE Obama personally, and huff and puff all you want about, these Trump attacks will be viewed as personal attacks by swing voters.
What's more, Trump is laying open a line of counterattack, against him and even other GOP candidates. What questions might be asked about Trump? Apart from his serial marriages, business failures, shady practices, egomaniacal publicity seeking, repetitive public changes of position on just about every serious issue and inconsistent fealty to the GOP, my favorite question for Trump is this:
What was your draft status during the Vietnam era when millions of men your age served, given that you graduated from a military high school in 1964 and from UPenn in 1968. In 1968, when you were 22 and did not enter upon any graduate or professional training, you should have been drafted. If you were nit, why was that?
The issue is not whether or not he was born in Hawaii, but rather what information on the full birth certificate he doesn't want disclosed. The same goes for his educational records. Was he a brilliant student or did he coast through on affirmative action?
I'm an independent, and mostly sure that Obama was born in Hawaii. But if a pollster called me and asked if I thought he was born outside the U.S., I'd say yes, because as controversies go, this one is just so endlessly fun and funny.
I donned my hazmat suit and sauntered over to DU to see how this was playing. The birth certificate issue has been squashed, as you get *tombstoned* if you bring it up, along with the $1mil he has paid in legal fees to not produce it. Not so as respects the college records. Several people are hearing this for the first time, (thanks to Trump), and they are not sure how to respond to their naysayer friends on Facebook. Answer from fellow DU'ers? "They are racist"; "they want to do away with affirmative action". Not one single tangible response other than deflection.
So I say, keep it up Trump!
The main good Trump is doing is breaking through the media omerta on the vacuum of information about Obama. As many now know, there are many unknown basics about his life, basics we have known about every other presidential candidate in my lifetime. Obama is supposedly spending "millions" to keep from divulging the birth certificate. I doubt that, since I find it hard to believe it would even be possible to spend "millions…doing what? There are no lawsuits, etc. But he is obviously hiding something, and he will have to continue the mystery man act that Trump is blowing the lid off or show the certificate, in which case we see what he is presumably hiding, whatever it is.
The main harm Trump is doing is further trashing whatever dignity is left in running for President. Sure, it's great someone is finally able to say some of these things about Obama. But Trump is using the same mouth on Obama he used on Rosie O'Donnell. It's vulgar and unseemly. And he will at some point start using it on fellow Republicans, and then we will not all be so charmed.
Obama was a lousy student in College with poor grades and a mediocre IQ who got into Harvard on affirmative action. This is easily surmised by looking at Obama's own auto-bio, noting the honors he didnt get (national merit scholar), and looking at his behavior and performance lately. Bonus Conclusion: Obama has a 116 IQ …
http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2011/04/26/barack-obama-has-a-116-iq/
This crashes right into the liberal narrative of Obama as a super-smart guy. That phony narrative wasn't true and is wearing thin.
What we DONT have is Obama's college records / grades, SAT scores (as Bush has), etc. That is telling. The narrative would be bust by the records/grades, he'd be exposed as an affirmative action admission, so Obama keeps them under wraps. The liberal media protect his lack of disclosure by accusing anyone who questions the phony narrative of being a racist.
Trump is scoring direct hits by exposing the lack of proven facts behind the Obama campaign narrative.
I have been wiling to accept the lack of the long form certificate, but now I am with the "We have to submit long forms to get a passport, why doesn't he just do it?"
I am from North Dakota. We are plain and sensible folks. A lot of my friends feel the same way.
Is this not a Law based blog ? Plainly, the only means for proving an event is to present the testimony, or signed record, of those who had witnessed the event. All else is inadmissible hearsay. So, please, let us hear no more silly talk about what people “believe” or don’t believe. This is not a matter of religion
And what about the Social Security number that the media and even Trump at this point ignores ??
I would venture to say that you have valid points. I would like to see it.
But he is hiding something. Something that can damage both himself and the Office of The President. That office that he so readily abuses.
Something is not right.
@Mythusmage
Still trolling that birth certificate position, huh? Ask yourself, "If there is nothing to this whole birth certificate thing, why does the momentum keep growing rather than going away?" If the law is so clearly stated, and it obviously points in Obama's favor, why is a billionaire like Trump able to level these kind of accusations, and not get laughed off the public stage? There MUST be something there, huh buddy? Ya think??? Ignorance is not an excuse. If you are going to post, do it competently, or be quiet.
It's not so much the birth place as the birth name/parentage, on the one hand, and the record sequestration, on the other. Hiding is lying. Lying is the issue with this crowd and its figurehead. Birth place and name/parentage and life/education records are epiphenomena of lying. Trump is calling the crowd/figurehead liars. He is right. That is their core posture. They are self-promoting liars. Everything they say and do is a lie. His saying so does not make Trump a worthy presidential candidate. It is Trump hammering the Clinton's opponent and opponent clique where it hurts them decisively. Everyone should be hammering those liars where it hurts them decisively, namely that they are liars, every word and pixel they emit. But not, I would add, should everyone do that for the Clintons. For the nation, yes. Expose liars as liars and they are history, melted witches and warlocks. It is not difficult because everything liars say and do is a lie. These liars are generous to a fault in providing examples of their lying. Daily, sometimes hourly they show themselves as self-promoting liars. They oblige with examples of their deformity. That is who they are and what they do. That and that only. Drive that point panoptically and they are quits. And keep always in mind that they cannot rely on the ultimate resource they need to maintain their position. Not even Assad can, an ally of this liar-in-chief and claque occupying the White House.
nope, I don't think you are wrong Professor.
In this climate of pain … PAIN at the pump, PAIN at the supermarket, voters are ripe and ready to blame someone ….. the someone they see 'in charge' ……
now, if some Qs start getting asked about this 'someone' ….. they might want to join the bandwagon too, to pile on the someone perceived as causing the PAIN …. thus:
'heck, why doesn't the POTUS show us that stuff …. is he tryin to HIDE something?'
YEAH! may it be so America!
President Barack OPAQUE Obama, transparency is not thy middle name pal.
*__*
It is not where he was born… it is the status NATURAL BORN CITIZEN. Please stop confusing native born with natural born.
My cousins are native born citizens of the USA but they are not natural born citizens and cannot run for POTUS because their mother was an Australian citizen when she gave birth.
Taking Østupid at his word about being born in Hawaii, he cannot be NBC because his father was a Kenyan, a British citizen, with no intention of becoming an American citizen. His putative father passed on British citizenship at birth. This means that he is a DUAL citizen and is therefore not NBC.
I think you're dead wrong on this one, Professor. The birther schtick and Trump's latest — suggesting that Obama was "a bad student" so how did he get into Harvard Law School(?)–Mainstream Democrat
Among mainstream Democrats, the phrase "affirmative action" pops unbidden into mind. And worse for Obama next year,his record that we the voting public can see outs him as mediocre and in no way one of the deserving but shortchanged by generations of racial discrimination for whom AA was intended. Worse yet for the agendas of the Democrats' two out-of-the-mainstream wings, their left wing and their far-left wing, Obama's perceived free-riding on AA is making more and more genuine mainstream Democrats willing to conclude that the time for AA programs is ending, they ought to be retired and victory over Jim Crow declared.
[Trump] will harm the GOP selection process
Agreed, but only if Trump enters the GOP primaries. For now, the most he's doing to affect the GOP race is flushing out GOPers who are afraid to speak Truth to Media and fear their own shadow.
[Talk of Trump as a candidate] will provide a foolish distraction, which will be encouraged every minute of every day by Obama's cheerleaders in the MSM, from the powerful attacks on Obama that can and should be made with respect to Obama's failed economic growth efforts, his failure to create jobs, his determined resistance to serious spending cuts, his historically weak and weak-kneed foreign policies, and of course Obamacare. Every day spent talking about Trump's nonsense is a day's opportunity lost to hammer Obama on the many issues on which he will lose.
I disagree. Not about Obama's failures that you've listed – most every mainstream Democrat not only knows about them but feels them painfully and personally – but that at the present time Trump is a distraction. Rather, Trump is a challenge to Obama from a direction previously thought to be unchallengeable.
Voters by and large still LIKE Obama personally, and huff and puff all you want about, these Trump attacks will be viewed as personal attacks by swing voters.
Naah. The "My kid's birth certificate is necessary to sign up for Little League but Obama doesn't have to show his to be President?" sort of questions aren't "personal attacks" – except among the DU and dKos fanbois, and they're not "swing voters."
What's more, Trump is laying open a line of counterattack, against him and even other GOP candidates. What questions might be asked about Trump? Apart from his serial marriages, business failures, shady practices, egomaniacal publicity seeking, repetitive public changes of position on just about every serious issue and inconsistent fealty to the GOP,
This is why my mainstream GOP friends don't fear a Trump campaign this fall.
Still, suppose it does happen. Change "GOP" to "Democrat Party" and "serial marriages" to "serial adulteries" and all of that could have been (and was, actually) aimed at Bill "Slick Willie" Clinton in 1992. Yet Paul Tsongas wasn't the Democrats' nominee that year, was he?
[M]y favorite question for Trump is this:
What was your draft status during the Vietnam era when millions of men your age served, given that you graduated from a military high school in 1964 and from UPenn in 1968. In 1968, when you were 22 and did not enter upon any graduate or professional training, you should have been drafted. If you were nit, why was that?
There's at least two problems with your fave question. (1) It's 2 questions. (2) Not every 22-year old American man was drafted in 1968.
But since you raise the issue of the draft, why can a born draft-dodger like Hillary Clinton be taken seriously as a President and Commander-in-Chief? Or, on the other side of the nature-nurture divide, Bill Clinton?
"What's really amazing is to find out that a basic tenet of the qualification for holding the Office Of President is NOT codified into law."
Rose, that qualification IS codified in the law. The Constitution is the law.
Trump is doing the GOP a big favor. In at least two ways.
First of all he is re-raising these questions about Obama… his birth and education… that still linger in the back of many voters' (Dems included) minds. Reinforcing them, if you will.
Second.. he is acting as a foil against which the GOP can field a more "moderate" or "reasonable" candidate.
Anyone who thinks what Trump is doing is bad for the GOP is .. well, an idiot.
The elaborate attempt to sequester much of Obama's official past will at some point unravel. But that will be the least of his problems. As gs noted "None of which will matter if there is a reasonable facsimile of an economic recovery in 11/12". Gs thinks the economy is getting better, another leftist delusion. In 2012 the economy will doom Barack Obama.
I have thought for a while The Donald is a stalking horse. No way is he going to submit to the disciplines and exposure of an official candidacy. But a stalking horse for whom? Possibly, Obama (see Sowell on Trump). Or is he the first American grandee to strap on his suit of armor, grab his lance, mount his destrier and ride out for Sarah la Plebeya.
DrJim77 these days everything is matter of religion and of belief. Look at SCOTUS. The left comprises a toxic religious stew of Marxism and environmentalism. Relativism a basic tenet. They believe among other things, as gs indicates, that the economy is getting better. The patient is dying and $5 gas will make the patient better.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, this is the spring of our discontent. Gas prices head inexorably toward $5 per gallon. Grocery shopping induces sticker shock; cereal packages shrink and coffee prices double. Money buys less and less and the average worker is stuck between zero interest rate CDs and real inflation of around 10%. Crony capitalism is on display as the chairman of GE, a huge conglomerate that pays zero taxes while racking up billions in profits, is embraced by Obama to head the White House Council on Jobs. GE gets most of its profits overseas, simultaneously reduced it US workforce and increased it overseas.
So how does the MSM react to this malaise? It labels Americans are spoiled children. It points to the price of gas in Europe where taxes bring the price of gas to nearly $10 per gallon and tells us that we are wasteful and wanton. It tells us that the White House has nothing! Nothing!! Nothing!!! to do with the price of fuel in the US and demands that all news stories covering the subject contain that information. This new bit of MSM insight was discovered once George Bush left office and will be promptly discarded should a Republican ever reclaim that office.
While Americans are paying through the nose for gas and food, the MSM will claim that inflation is pretty near zero and use the “official” government statistics to prove it; a statistic that conveniently omits the price of gas and food from its numbers, but does include the declining price of iPads. If only Americans could do without fuel or food but instead ate computer chips, the world would be just like the government describes it.
The election of 2012 is on and if you thought the MSM was in the tank for Obama last time, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Last time all they had to do was airbrush out inconvenient baggage like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. This time around they have to white out the entire US economy, 2 ½ wars and the ascendency of Islamofascism in the Middle East. It’s a much bigger task because Obama’s no longer a Rorschach blob, a blank screen on which people could project their hopes, but someone that the American people have begun to know and loathe. Its task is now much bigger and you can expect them to go nuclear. Tavis Smiley at PBS has already begun to prepare the battle space.
Trump is doing us a favor.
This contretemps suggests to me that Mr Trump understands the power of his media presence–just as Mr Obama thought he did–Agree that Mr Trump is really making inroads in Mr Obama's public image and the MSM seems powerless to stop it–All in all a good thing. Mr Obama lies, Mr Trump probably lies as well–except Mr Trump has even better media coverage than does Mr Obama (read for example Dana Milbank's egregious article on Mr Obama's intellect and "complexity of thought" in the WAPO editorial. Inside the beltway folks will read Milbank's dreck, many more american's will see mr Trump in the "celebrity media.
“As a friend noted on Facebook, Obama’s popularity is falling so fast that Kenyans are now claiming Obama was born in the United States.”
Drudge:
OBAMA TO SHOW LONG FORM BIRTH CERT
Well, The Donald accomplished something.
CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH
mythusmage said…
Erica
"Even if both parents are alien, so long as the child is born in US territory he is a native born citizen of the United States. Brush up on the subject."
Wrong. "Native Born" is not "Natural Born". Native born simply means born in the US. Natural Born means born in the US of 2 US Citizen parents (or 1 unmarried US Citizen mother). That is, one born with no foreign allegiance.
The pdf looks like the certificate was faxed to the White House and they, in their ham-fisted way, decided to add the cross-hatch pattern behind it.
As far as form and content (of the black portion), it looks right.
I’m now more convinced that Obama was born in Hawaii than I am that OJ did it.
On the other side of this … all those court cases costing how many millions of dollars. The man has no sense of the value of a dollar because it’s always somebody else’s dollar that he is spending.
He gave in to the lunatic wing of the GOP…wait.
He gave in to the Lunatic Fringe of the American population. I'd like to think this would make the loons STFU about it, but hey. He's a black man. And he stole their white house from them.
Deluuuuuuusional.
Just watch, now that the President has, mistakenly, bowed to pressure placed on him by all the loony right-wing racists and those who are disingenuously courting them, they will reframe this saga as an affront to "state's rights". After all, the evil federal government broke state laws dictating how and who can view original Hawaii birth certificates. Surely arms were twisted, undue influence used! There is really just no way to win with these people.
This doesn't end things? What do you suggest, a time machine?
The really committed birthers won't believe it. But at least the rest of us can get on with discussing all those things that are really wrong with Barack Obama.