why it is not about the Birth Certificate. (Apologies if someone else has already posted something like this).

As has long been contended by the members of this board, this issue isn't about the Birth Certificate. If Obama released his "long form birth certificate" tomorrow, the issue would still persist. I certainly believe that to be true, and it is why I think Obama is wise to continue to ignore this issue.

There are several reasons I think this is true. First, the birther "foot soldiers" are complete morons and aren't interested in the truth. However, I view birtherdom as a place that is primarily filled with two types of people. There are the rank and file birther "foot soldiers" who are wild eyed reactionaries who lost whatever mind they had after the 2008 election and are very prone to suggestion (provided it fits their preconceived notions) and then there are the Generals, the operatives, who exist to stir these people up. As evidence of this, we have to take a trip down memory lane.

I am 32 and grew up in Southern Missouri on the Arkansas border. When Clinton was elected, small echos came out of the state of Arkansas about various conspiracy theories. These theories varied from the absurd claims that Clinton was running Cocaine out of Mena, Arkansas to the more legitimate "Whitewater Scandal" and eventually were expanded to include the death of Vince Foster. At first, these nut ball theories were on the fringe of society (and my AM news band), but "if you repeat a lie enough times"...... Soon they were national news items (well, some of them, Mena never really caught on).

Now, years later, we know the "Arkansas Project":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Project

was funded by Richard Mellon Scaife. While many people were involved in this orchestrated and funded smear campaign (to include, allegedly, Ted Olsen) two "veterans" of this are relevant today: Christopher Ruddy, a freelance journalist for one of Sciafe's papers who did most of the "journalistic" work, and Joseph Farah, who paid to have Ruddy's hit-pieces put into the Washington Times as advertisements. It's debatable if the "Arkansas Project" was successful or not. Clinton was re-elected. However, I believe the same template is being used today on the "birth certificate" issue.

In the late 90's, with funding from Scaife, Ruddy went on to fund Newsmax and Farah went on to fund World Net Daily, which currently employs Corsi who is well known to us all.

My belief is that WND's only interest in the BC issue is simply to cast doubt's on Obama's citizenship to create problems for the 2012 election. This is why they have a long track record of dishonesty over the matter. While this all sounds conspiratorial, it is in fact the opposite: it's politics as usual. They are running a smear campaign with the best thing they have: That Obama looks different and has a different background than most Americans. Their intent is not to win a court case, it's to cost Obama enough votes in 2012 to sway the election. I also would venture that there is some serious money behind their ventures (though perhaps not Scaife). In this light, the "foot soldiers" are considered expendable losses in their efforts. People like Taitz and Lakin can run amok and never really get anywhere (or get somewhere very undesirable like the Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth). Their existence is only relative to the operatives to keep this issue in the headlines and create further doubt about the legitimacy of Obama's citizenship and highlight that "he looks different than us".

In the end, this is about money and power. As it always it.

Anyways, that is my opinion on the matter. I can only speculate at this point. However, the truth always has a way of finding the light.

I'm with you, OG. And we've seen more names pop up than those you mentioned as well.

I figured this wasn't new information to you guys. I suppose it's not surprising that right wing operatives would continue to act in that capacity.

I am just curious if the truth will ever come out. I am also curious as to why people like Ruddy and Farah get away with such hatchet jobs.

This is exactly what has been happening and why it has been happening. People like Orly and Lakin are tools. I have long believed that the objective is not simply to prevent the re-election of the President in 2012 but also to disable him as a leader in his first term. It is conceivable that Orly Taitz actually believes that the President is not eligible to serve, but that belief was never necessary for her campaign to undo him as a leader.

Clinton's opponents thought that he had no right to be President, partly because he opposed the war in Vietnam; Kerry thus also had no right to be President. Any lie was justified in harming them. It was "the politics of personal destruction."

Why do they get away with such hatchet jobs? With both Clinton and Kerry, I think it was because there was a tiny germ of truth from which they cultivated a monstrosity of lies. Nobody spoke back forcefully enough. Indeed, journalists swam to the blood in the water. With Obama, I think it is because the campaign fell for the first sucker punch and posted that birth certificate to show that the President's middle name was not Mohammad. The game was on then.

I mean no disrespect by snipping your excellent post just to retain a single name. I generally only quote posts to include that bullshit in a post with which I disagree, and since your post did not include such BS, I have no need to quote it.

I just wanted to agree with you pointing out how much of our so-called free press consists of corporate whores and degenerates like Scaife, who spend millions and even billions of dollars to corrupt our media to spout their virulent lies. These people should be respected as much as people who figure out a way of turning a profit on spreading cholera and smallpox. They are enemies of humanity. 'nuff said.

IMO, Orly is too erratic to be in on the fix. She's a sideshow. Somewhere in this process are real lawyers that aren't putting their name in public. They also aren't going to go on a fools errand like trying to prompt a hearing over the merits of a legal document. They are doing the day to day work of keeping WND going.



Oh! I forgot to include the "Swift Boat" crew in my pseudo-conspiracy theory. You are right though, there always has to be a fraction of truth. I am sure someone was flying Cocaine into Mena, Arkansas.




http://www.salon.com/news/1998/04/cov_20news.html

But, I doubt Bill Clinton was involved anymore than any other state Governor is involved in the drug smuggling activity that goes on in their state.

I think this right wing smear machine is all connected. I wish someone would blow the doors off of it. Not just because I am a liberal, because it's bad for our nation. This is part and parcel of why American political discourse is in the crapper right now and why we are a nation of cynics.

Not at all. I agree. Look at the Koch Brothers (not saying they are involved either). Somewhere at the bottom of this is some serious money, there always is.

I also don't understand how someone like Scaife gets away with funding a smear campaign and is never held accountable for it either legally or by the public.

My theory is that the new "Arkansas Project" does not want attorneys involved who have something to lose. It uses incompetents and nuts whose disbarment or even imprisonment would cause the organizers no inconvenience whatsoever. Orly is completely expendable from their point of view, but in the meantime she is doing what they want: helping to try to disable or hobble the President.

Incidentally, I think there are several central players in the new Arkansas Project who have somewhat different motivations for making sure that the President cannot pursue his agenda or be re-elected.

Yes, this is a conspiracy theory. There really are conspiracies sometimes. At least mine do not involve Bavarian monks, Knights Templar, or Reptilians.

OG, you are seriously smart. Your patients are lucky to have you!

"New Arkansas Project". I like that. The "N.A.P."

Well think you. Honestly, I could be pissing in the wind. However, I am curious if, in ten years, we will find out that someone like Scaife was bankrolling all of this.

I mean Corsi is a dishonest, whore but the guy has a Ph.D. from Harvard.

He's no dummy, and I suspect it's no coincidence that he is one of WND's "journalists" on the birth certificate issue.

His ethics are for sale.

Yes, there are conspiracies, all the time, out in plain view but sometimes they are just too outrageous to sludg (believe).

Enron was a conspiracy.

Darryl Issa's recall of Gray Davis began as a conspiracy among the state's Republican leadership.

Don Siegelman's arrest and conviction in Arkansas was a conspiracy.

Tim Griffin, a Rove Protege, conspired with Rove in all kinds of underhanded political tricks. He's a Congressman now. He's been involved in a lot of shady things, too

Conspiracies don't have to be completely hidden or completely nut job. The Reoublicans conspired to deliver a Permanent Republican Majority to their corporate employers. That was what the K St Project was a out. Don't hire Dems in your lobby shops, only Republicans. It only appears to have failed, for now. They're still out to get us.

There are more than enough real conspiracies. Im not sure why they have to make all the other stuff up.

Actually, there is more Dem and Rep collusion going on behind the scenes than most of us know.

(removing my tin foil toque now)

Don Siegelman is Alabama, but you're right.

I have a friend -- a good person, with proper progressive leanings, but she tends to fall for conspiracy theories. She was the one who told me (very seriously) about chemtrails.

I've taken it upon myself to teach her how to research and de-bunk conspiracies, and I made her want to do it by telling her this:

"'They' come up with all these BS conspiracies so that, when there's a real one (and there are), thinking people will dismiss it as 'just another conspiracy theory.' That's why it's so important that you be able to tell the methods they use to create the fake ones."

That really resonated with her, and she has been bringing things to me to explain why she thinks something might, or might not, have something to it: "check my logic please ..." And she really is learning (and doesn't believe in chemtrails any more).

Or want to know. This is often advanced as one of the reasons for the formation of a third party.

Sometimes that collusion has worked to benefit the American people. Chris Matthews' Washington Post article about the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill speaks to that possibility:

I tend to think that 15 years ago many birthers thought that the Clintons had 30 or so people who could have damaged them politically killed.
And I find it odd that these same people would think that even though Bill and Hilary Clinton aren't above murdering people who got in their way that they would somehow either not bother to find out if Hilary's main rival for the Democractic nomination was not eligible or if they did find out that he was ineligible that they would do nothing about it.

And 15 years ago many birthers were denouncing the right-wing conspiracy lies and myths being spread about the Clintons.

And now they're dry-humping many of the same people who spread those lies about the Clintons.

How things change....

I have often expressed my skepticism about how many PUMAs really are PUMAs. I think most so-called PUMAs are just RWNJs in PUMA clothing. I know far more people who were leaning McCain who abandoned him for Obama when he made the idiotic decision of picking Palin as his VP than who switched their vote because of Obama getting the nomination. The overwhelming majority of Dems I know were going to support either candidate, including myself.

I started out as a Kucinich supporter, as I generally do, then switched to Edwards (yes I know I'm an idiot), and then preferred Obama over HRC, but would have supported either.

On which count?

(I know, we're comparing apples and olive pits.)

Possibly both, but I'd disagree with you on the first, and agree with you on the second. Edwards was certainly a "look at what I almost stepped in" moment for me.

If you don't get the olive pit reference: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=5352

He settled BTW.

The PUMA dumbasses (which is the only way I refer to them) are an interesting conundrum. I never really got the whole "Party Unity My Ass" line. I mean, it's not like the DNC pulled shenanigans to nominate Obama. He simply beat HRC. It was one of those things that didn't really make sense. I could understand acting like an 8 year old with the whole "I am taking my ball and going home" bit if there was some sort of smokey back room deal, but not only did that not happen, but Obama ran such a good campaign that there wasn't even the perception that something like that happened.

Which leads me to thank that, at best, the PUMA dumbasses are the leftovers from the Southern Democrats that didn't leave the party after the Southern Strategy (as most of them did) or the "Reagan Revolution" (which seemed to take the rest of them) or that they were really just bigots who were feigning the whole thing to try and tube Obama's election through whatever means possible.

BTW, I feel your pain. I voted for Edwards in the primary. I never bought what so many of my conservative friends said: "he's a total scumbag, just wait and see". I can admit that they were right, and I was wrong. That guy is a total d-bag. I think I'd prefer McCain to be honest.

I clicked on the link and got a:



Note the British spelling of the word "authorized".

Proof that our communist usurper administrator's parents were British citizens/subject to the crown and therefore is ineligible to run this board.

The only solution is to swiftly remove him from power and put Old Grunt's Narcissistic Personality Disorder in charge.

Edwards was a "Look what I almost stepped in" moment for me, too. Favorite son, and all that.

I have nothing but disdain for him now, but ...

... I still think he did save the world from President Hillary Clinton.

The Enquirer had already broken the Rielle story (Dec. 2007), but nobody believed them yet. He easily could have dropped out before Iowa.

Instead, he finished second. I suspect, without proof but I strongly suspect, that if he'd dropped out, most of his voters would have voted for Hillary instead.

And then there wouldn't have been the "shock the world" moment when Obama won Iowa.

If Hillary had won Iowa, she'd have wrapped it all up by Super Tuesday, just like Mark Penn planned it. And we'd have President H. Clinton today.

Thank doG I never had to find out if I would have held my nose and voted for her in the general election. And I didn't have to vote for Edwards in the primary, 'cuz he dropped out before my primary.

Still think he's lower than whaleshit at the bottom of the ocean floor. But I DO think he saved us from another Clinton presidency.

Yeah, if there was ever any doubt that Edwards was a conceited bastard, it was gone after the Enquirer was on to him and he didn't drop out. I agree about the HRC sentiments though.

Ironic that so many of us "Obots" didn't vote for Obama in the primary.