Betsy DeVos Disaster

[JimL]

CP would have you think that protesters are rioting and the smashing windows is happening all over the country. There is protesting going on all over the country right now, yet there is little evidence of rioting and blatant destruction going on at those protests. When there is such activity at protests it is not at all evident who is doing the rioting. It could, such as in the recent case at Berkley, be outside infiltraters, it could also be non participators taking advantage of the situation. But none of that matters to CP, it just makes CP feel good to paint a picture of Liberals as all being immoral bad people, and all conservatives as good.

[Sparko]

CP would have you think that protesters are rioting and the smashing windows is happening all over the country. There is protesting going on all over the country right now, yet there is little evidence of rioting and blatant destruction going on at those protests. When there is such activity at protests it is not at all evident who is doing the rioting. It could, such as in the recent case at Berkley, be outside infiltraters, it could also be non participators taking advantage of the situation. But none of that matters to CP, it just makes CP feel good to paint a picture of Liberals as all being immoral bad people, and all conservatives as good.

Every one of these riots on the news shows liberals smashing and screaming and destroying. If they don't want that reputation, they shouldn't be doing it. It isn't CP's fault for pointing it out. Or maybe you could call your buddyies at CNN and ABC, etc and tell them to stop covering the riots so much?

[Bill the Cat]

[Sparko]

They should have offered her a coupon for a free chicken dinner.

[Cow Poke]

CP would have you think that protesters are rioting and the smashing windows is happening all over the country. There is protesting going on all over the country right now, yet there is little evidence of rioting and blatant destruction going on at those protests. When there is such activity at protests it is not at all evident who is doing the rioting. It could, such as in the recent case at Berkley, be outside infiltraters, it could also be non participators taking advantage of the situation. But none of that matters to CP, it just makes CP feel good to paint a picture of Liberals as all being immoral bad people, and all conservatives as good.

What a steaming load of horsie poo --- I have NEVER said all liberals are immoral bad people, and all conservatives are good.

That's dumber than beetlepoop.

[Meh Gerbil]

One thing is clear to me when looking into the origins of this nonsense... it was not just the Clinton campaign that immediately recognized the birther rumors as silly and counter productive. The first appearance of the notion was actually on some conservative discussion sites or blogs, and most people there ALSO responded immediately that the notion was silly. Birtherism was always pushed by the lunatic fringe, whether you are looking at the the left or the right. That's why it did NOT get picked up and used EITHER by Clinton in the primaries or by McCain in the presidential campaign.

I think you've done a nice job handling the facts.
I think you've walked away with a poor interpretation.

He didn't release his birth certificate until the rumors were well under way.
Given that citizenship is a requirement to be a US President I think it is well within the rights, if not the duty, of US Citizens to ask for proof.
The early skepticism wasn't quackery - it was the opposition doing exactly what the opposition was designed to do, that is, vet the candidate.

I would agree that skepticism after the release of his birth certificate was unfounded - at that point it went off into lunacy.

The only reason I'm making this point is that it is fun to disagree with you.
You're such a stickler for details and honestly, the sloppiness of other posters is boring me to tears.

[stfoskey15]

We certainly didn't pitch fits in public, smash windows, loot, riot, disrupt meetings, cause mayhem.... your team is showing they can't even manage or control themselves, let alone government.

Violent protests are a step above whining, IMO.

[Terraceth]

What I find a little odd in all of the "birther" stuff was that no one seems to have used the opportunity to notice how goofy the whole "natural born citizenship" actually is. All this babble about whether a particular person was born in the US or not, but no acknowledging of the fact it's a downright silly requirement to begin with.

[KingsGambit]

What I find a little odd in all of the "birther" stuff was that no one seems to have used the opportunity to notice how goofy the whole "natural born citizenship" actually is. All this babble about whether a particular person was born in the US or not, but no acknowledging of the fact it's a downright silly requirement to begin with.

It's understandable why the requirement would have been originally put in place, as it was far from clear whether the new republic would survive long term.

[Tassman]

Rioting and smashing windows negates the "other man's protest". Every single time.

• Edited by a Moderator •http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blo...d-to-discredit

But, that said, it's what's being protested that's most important.

[sylas]

I think you've done a nice job handling the facts.
I think you've walked away with a poor interpretation.

He didn't release his birth certificate until the rumors were well under way.

Given that citizenship is a requirement to be a US President I think it is well within the rights, if not the duty, of US Citizens to ask for proof.
The early skepticism wasn't quackery - it was the opposition doing exactly what the opposition was designed to do, that is, vet the candidate.

I would agree that skepticism after the release of his birth certificate was unfounded - at that point it went off into lunacy.

The only reason I'm making this point is that it is fun to disagree with you.
You're such a stickler for details and honestly, the sloppiness of other posters is boring me to tears.

Thanks!

I'm not sure what "interpretation" you mean, though. I am interested in tracing an accurate history, and that's pretty much all. I don't want to burden that with any additional interpretation or use it as a cudgel on one side or another. My main interest is quality of argument for a case. I (try to be) a dangerous ally, and make an effort to be as hard on bad argument from people I agree with as with people I don't, as instances show up.

Anyhow! In the course of looking into this I've found some useful information that really does go into the origins and development of the birther movement with great detail, from people who have their primary interest as the movement itself, and not using the history to beat up anyone else -- other than the actual birthers, of course.

It will be worth another post, and the good thing about it is that it is a positive case for something useful rather than just refuting bad arguments.

I don't actually agree that the early birther stuff has any excuse. It was always far fringe conspiracy thinking without a leg to stand on. Obama's published biography was already well known and the various ideas floated (birtherism and the secret Muslim theory) were always silly and flew in the face of a heap of readily available documentation and history. Anyone needing a birth certificate was either incredibly lazy, or was already committed to the notion that there was a massive coverup and falsification of documentation. And so it proved: release of the birth certificate only gave prominence to a tiny fringe and made it worse, it seems. Here's what I have on the history.

History of birtherism

My major source here is Loren Collins, an attorney from Georgia who carried out a detailed examination of birtherism. He was actively involved as a debunker of birtherism through a blog, barackryphal. The blog ran from December 2008 through December 2013. He then considered publishing some of his research as a book; the scope of this project extended and the end result was the book Bullspotting (subtitled: finding facts in an age of misinformation); the focus of this is basically "how rumors are started, and the rhetorical techniques and logical fallacies often found in misleading or outright false claims".

The potted history of birtherism is available at The Secret Origins of Birtherism; which is a Sept 2016 rewrite of two blog posts he wrote in June 2011 under the same title.

He looks at two things. How did birtherism start, and how did it get prominence.

How Birtherism started

His research in the actual origin of birtherism is, I believe, a superb bit of sleuthing. He does not just look for the earliest instances of questioning Obama's place of birth, but tracks who cites what and how the birtherism actually came about. He identifies some of the same articles I mentioned previously; but he also tracks how they came to be written. Some of this is speculation on the relationships between articles, but the connections make good sense in the light of phrasing and timing.

Skipping straight to the conclusions. This timeline is a paraphrase of a timeline at the conclusion of the cited article by Collins.

• There are pre 2008 instances in which Obama is said to have been born in Kenya (and once in Indonesia). These are not origins of birtherism. As Collins puts it:
  
• 
  In Feb 29, someone posts a legal hypothetical question on the law blog The Volokh Conspiracy, asking what would legal implications if Obama had been born in Kenya. It was not a claim or question of the origin of birth; it was a genuine question on legal implications of birthplace, using a counter factual hypothetical.
• 
  On Mar 1, someone posts at "FreeRepublic" that they "heard" Obama was born overseas. The details are a match with the Feb 29 hypothetical. I cited this FreeRepublic post previously. I noted (and Collins does as well) that members of the forum came down pretty hard on the author for being a nutcase.
• 
  On Mar 4, "Alan Peters" posts at his blog that Obama was born in Kenya, using pretty much the same story.
• Nothing much happens, for a bit. Alan Peters tries to stir the pot again on Apr 3, with a repost of an older "Laundry List of Lies", to which he adds the birther idea from his Mar 4 blog as a kind of addendum. This new expanded laundry list does get picked up on a few websites.

Summarising his conclusions as to the origin of birtherism, Collins puts it thus...

Source: Loren Collins

Thus, before it was a rumor that gave birth to a fringe movement [...] Birtherism was borne out of nothing more than a legal hypothetical. No family confessions, no stories out of Africa, no investigative reporting, no Hillary Clinton campaign sabotage. Just a mere thought exercise about citizenship law, turned into a malicious rumor by an anti-Muslim blogger.

© Copyright Original Source

How birtherism got prominence

Alan Peters did not actually have lot of reach. This first formulation of birtherism -- the idea that Obama was born outside the USA in spite of his publicly known history -- remained a tiny fringe. No one else was pushing it, other than some emails circulating the "Laundry List" around a few people. Birtherism seems to have started with Peters, but it needed something more than this to have any prominence. This "more" has considerable irony.

Subsequent events.... Alan Peters' "Laundry List of Lies" got passed around a couple of websites. Then..


Note that Geraghty was not trying to spread the rumour, but squelch it. He knew that birtherism was nonsense and had the rosy notion that release of the birth certificate would fix it. His online National Review article was Obama Could Debunk Some Rumors By Releasing His Birth Certificate.

Unfortunately, what he achieved was to give prominence to to a tiny fringe. Collins tracks how pretty much overnight, the birther idea started to get links, comments and traction. A notion which had had a handful of links and comments over the past three months suddenly went into overdrive. Hardly anyone had heard about this previously. Now it was in National Review. And as we now know, release of the birth certificate didn't help in the slightest.

Clinton campaign connection

To get the dates in perspective: Clinton conceded the democratic primary on June 7 and immediately threw her full support behind Obama for president.

I don't want to focus too much on debunking the stupidity rogue has been posting. Blumenthal is, as I point out, a dead end. The documentation of what he asked Asher doesn't even mention birther notions. People can argue what was said off the record; but whatever was said, we KNOW that the proposed investigation was to be wide ranging and the points that were singled out in writing for investigation were connections with Obama's father, and with political aspirations of Obama's cousin. More importantly, we also know nothing came of it. So the whole thing boils down to unfounded speculation that Blumenthal was active somewhere ELSE (all with no documentation) where he actively helped spread birther rumours and this is what gave birtherism prominence. That's the same level of shoddy thinking that gave rise to birtherism in the first place. It's going to sell with people looking for an angle to smear Clinton by association. It's not going to sell with people who have a focus on accurate historical investigation of birtherism.

The cases of Clinton campaign staffers forwarding emails is muddied somewhat by the fact that there were distinct instances. Two cases (I believe) involved "Obama was a Muslim" emails in 2007, one involved an email including birther notions sometime in 2008. None of this was endorsed by the campaign, and none had much impact or prominence.

The one real connection is that one of the individuals involved was Linda Starr -- who went on to be very active in birther circles and particularly in the "PUMA" movement... but AFTER the Clinton campaign had ended. PUMA was (honest!) "Party Unity My Ass" and was a group of die hard Clinton "supporters" who continued to try and get her on the ballot after she had conceded the primaries and thrown her own support behind Obama. Quite a revolting group, frankly; soaked in the wildest sort of conspiracy thinking.

These guys were very active in the early birther movement.... but their prominence came AFTER the Clinton campaign had ended. Linda Starr was (I think; the documentation on this is thin) active as a birther before the Clinton campaign had ended, but did not achieve any prominence until the PUMA "campaign" which was, of course, directly opposed to Clinton's own support for Obama. The very lack of any documentation (in contrast to a rich paper trail for material actually published on the web) speaks to how the Clinton campaign cannot rationally be credited either with originating or with giving prominence to birtherism.

The PUMA group can and does show some Clinton supporters jumping on the birther bandwagon after it had its big shot in the arm from exposure in National Review; but all in stark contrast and indeed direct opposition to Clinton's own campaigns which were by that time as an active supporter of Obama for president.

Cheers -- sylas

[Raphael]

IIRC an early edition of his one book had on the back cover blurb that he was Kenyan or born in Kenya (that was written by a publisher trying to improve sale though, and not Obama) which helped fuel the conspiracy theory.

[sylas]

IIRC an early edition of his one book had on the back cover blurb that he was Kenyan or born in Kenya (that was written by a publisher trying to improve sale though, and not Obama) which helped fuel the conspiracy theory.

Yes, this happened (with some changes in detail); it's one of the pre-2007 instances listed by Collins (The Secret Origins of Birtherism).

The error was not mentioned in birther writings until 2012, when it was discovered and listed at a Breitbart website. Even then it was not used at Breitbart as an argument for birtherism; though it was apparently picked up subsequently by birthers. So it comes very late to the party, and doesn't stand helping fuel the movement. It's rather used late in the day when the movement was well past its heyday.

The error was not actually in any of Obama's books (he had two major books published before becoming president, I think). It was an error in an author bio within a small booklet having a number of brief of bios of prospective writers, written in 1991, and used for circulation within the publishing industry. If it had actually been on a book cover Obama would have picked it up, one would suspect...

Snopes has more detail: A 1991 literary promotional booklet identified Barack Obama as having been born in Kenya. (rating: true).

Cheers -- sylas

[Meh Gerbil]

I don't actually agree that the early birther stuff has any excuse.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that point.
I cannot get a passport or a driver's license without presenting a birth certificate.
Given the Constitutional requirement and that everyone else in the US has to present one I don't think it is out of bounds to ask a Presidential candidate to do the same.

My only skin in this game is the right to check.
Other than that the whole thing was probably little more than a tempest in a teacup.

[Sparko]

• Edited by a Moderator •http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blo...d-to-discredit

But, that said, it's what's being protested that's most important.

Three people isn't a riot, Tassman. It is a mugging.