Sorry, go ahead and call me juvenile, but I'll continue to do so.

Most of the time I find it entertaining and some people come up with very clever variations. I think good ones show intelligence and creativity, like poetry.

I had hoped by my comment that "It's just so...." it would be clear that I was calling the behaviour juvenile, not the person engaged in it. Even the most mature of us (of which I am certainly not one) behave in a juvenile manner from time to time. I'm sorry if I wasn't as clear as I had hoped.



As with most things I get frustrated enough about to comment on, a big part of my disdain for the practice comes from having been on the wrong side of it for many years. From about the 4th grade until I graduated, outside of family, church and teachers, I was almost universally known by a play on my last name turning it into a word meaning "dog," usually delivered amongst the barking of the speaker's friends on the off chance I didn't get the point. (Things "improved" in college when the nickname of "Ozzy" - which bears no resemblance to my own name - was bestowed upon me because when I was drunk and had mascara running down my face, my friends decided I looked just like Ozzy Osbourne. Sadly, for me, that was a considerable improvement.)

I could care less what the 20% birfers nutjobs may say about the original BC. There is another 50%, including myself, that would love to see Obama's original BC, simply because it would confirm what we have been saying all along. And among that 50% are all the Independent voters who have only a sound-bite knowledge of the birfer claims, but still wonder in the deep crevices of their shallow brains, if Obama was really born in HI. If showing the real document could convince just 30% of the "don't know" voters that Obama is legit, it could determine the next election. I've had way too many perfectly intelligent but busy-with-their-own-lives independent voters ask me why Obama doesn't just release his original BC and end the question for them. They are not birfers - and they don't know the legalities of a COLB. But it would end any doubts among these sound-bite voters who will determine the next election. I think Neil Abercrombie realizes this too and I support any efforts he can bring to ending this issue entirely FOR THE MAJORITY of voters. Whether Obama agrees with Neil is an open question - I suspect he does. If he does not, he is IMO, a fool.

Agreed.

But that suggests to me that it should be released after the 2012 Democratic Convention, and possibly even after the presidential debates. A thing like that can't be too fresh in the voters' minds when they head for the voting booth ...

I would be comfortable with a man in his 70s who personally knew the President's parents talking about them as human beings. I think I know about as much about President Obama's parents as people as I do about the parents of any other president, mostly thanks to the President himself.

However, I would like to know more about the young man who ventured out of Kenya with the aim of serving his newly independent country through becoming educated, only to fall into disfavor and then hard into self-destruction. Did Barack Sr., a Luo, talk with Abercrombie about the pains and hazards that Kenya would soon face as a nation constructed out of many peoples? What was his vision for uniting a country that had been put together by force and then freed more by force than by British good will?

I would also like to know more about the remarkable Stanley Ann, whose life might be a model for other young men and women from the privileged countries who are eager to work in the developing world. She committed her life to the developing world in the most personal way, not remaining aloof as so many from the developed world have (including myself). Fifty years later we still need people willing to make that commitment. In fact, we still need both Barack Sr. and Stanley Ann to do some of the hardest work there is to be done. Maybe Abercrombie could inspire some to take up their mantle.

If Governor Abercrombie can tell a fuller story of these two remarkable people, who produced a remarkable son, I would like to hear that story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-boro ... 02149.html

It has been clear to me since this whole farce commenced, and most clearly since the inauguration, that it would be a disastrous precedent for a sitting president to respond to nut-cases like the Birthers by actually meeting any of their demands. To do so in a court of law (for example) would eviscerate the concept of standing and create a de facto "judicial filibuster" in which the resources of government were overwhelmingly spent defending from frivolous lawsuits which, as we have seen, could be filed by anybody with an ideological axe to grind. To do so more causally in the media would legitimatize what is by now a common (but false) RWNJ argument that "other Presidents release the records." Either would be a disservice to the office of the Presidency long into the future, and it is in my opinion vitally important to prevent.

As much as I would love to rub the "long form" in Birther faces, I am unshakable in my opinion that President Obama cannot be the one to do the rubbing, and anybody who manages the act must not do so at his bequest or with his approval.

So... I am rooting for Governor Abercrombie to figure out a way to do it... just as long as he cannot and does not say he did it "with Obama's permission."

Any way the Gov and Legislature could put out a bill commemorating the first Hawaiian Prez and with a viewing of the original LFBC by the Gov, celebrate with a ceremony, plaque, statue at Kapiliolani Hospital?

My guess is that they couldn't.

I don't see how, given the privacy laws.

I think they could do all of that, except for the LFBC part.

What eppy said, with the exception that I don't believe it should be done at all. Doing so is giving in to paper terrorists, and no president should do so, nor should it be done by another due to his own agenda.

I'm with you realist.

If the President's refusal to bow to the wishes of a bunch of lunatic slanderers costs him the votes of the uninformed, so be it. The damage to our system is greater if he concedes, IMO.

And it is highly doubtful that these uninformed voters would have voted for Obama in any case. Just ask the concern trolls if they would vote for Obama if their concerns were satisfied.

I don't think it's about the uninformed voter as much as it is the whackaloon candidates. This past cycle, birthers probably cost the Republicans several seats. But, not nearly enough. Witness the witless representative on Anderson Cooper's show. That they weren't all defeated suggests that birthers aren't seen as quite crazy enough. Why? Doubt. ("His BC doesn't look like mine.") Releasing the BC now let's candidates tar their opponents even more effectively as nutjobs.

Abercrombie releasing the form this way is just about the perfect way, politically, for it to be released. It's a third party, not Obama, releasing it, without even consulting Obama, not to help Obama, but to clear the good name of Obama's poor dead mama. Obama didn't cave to paper terrorists, a white knight came in to, on his own, attempt to vanquish the nutters. (It probably is also good politics for Abercrombie - sticking it to those crazy mainlanders!) It's so perfect, in fact, that conspiracists will inevitably, and self-destructively, claim that it was all part of Obama's sneaky plan.

I don't think waiting to 2012 is as effective, as it clouds Abercrombie's motives, or if it's Obama doing the releasing, he really is caving.

So just exactly what and how would the LFBC be released?

We all know that what is "in the vault" is more than what is issued as a BC, and in fact, is two pages containing the info we are accustomed to seeing on long forms along with medical and social info for research and statistics.

Is Abercrombie, his new appointee and the press going to troop into the vault and photograph the thing? It won't have a seal or registrar's signature on it.

Is the DOH going to print one out like the old forms? Do they still have the equipment? Will they then emboss it with the seal and signature-stamp it or will it just be a photocopy like Danae's?

I too would like to rub the LFBC in the faces of the birthers, but all they will do is turn around and ask for demand the Occidental records that say Barry Soetoro was a foreign student...

As governor, Abercrombie will soon learn that even the executive branch cannot violate the privacy laws on Hawaii's books. So there'll be nothing to release.

Consolation prize will be a plaque at the hospital. Maybe.

That particular nutjob was from East Texas, so he doesn't really count. Those folks would vote for Charlie Manson if he ran as a Republican.

Correct.

And because he has sold woof tickets to this non-event, the absence of delivery will be woven into the birther narrative.

He really doesn't seem to understand that a huge chunk of the birthers are already at the point where it doesn't matter to them if Obama was born in Hawaii.

I can hear it already... "So NOW they want to release a birf certificate, after years of saying they couldn't." Obviously that means the forgery has come out of the aging ovens.

Abercrombie is on a fools errand here.

I don't think there's much Gov Abercrombie could release without Pres Obama's permission. I'm rooting for him because he knew Ann and Barack. Anything he says about his relationship with them, his experiences with them humanizes them. Birthism would have gone nowhere if both of them weren't deceased. It doesn't help that the President didn't have a lasting relationship with his father. It's made it easier for birthers to depict Barack Sr. as someone bad and foreign ( and he was so, so black what was he doing with that little white girl? Snark tags! ). It's disgraceful and I'm happy to see Gov Abercrombie stand up and say it's wrong. Even if he doesn't convince the 20 percenters, I think he will succeed in making them look like real a-holes. They aren't going to vote for Obama anyway.

That... and as the nutz are already stating the even if it were released it's a fake, it's now had time to "age" and is ready for release, it's a put-up job between Obama and Abercrombie (Obama is in Hawaii, after all, and it's suspicious that it's now) and don't even get me started about how it's irrelevant anyway, as he doesn't have two citizen parents, so who cares if it's show and/or if it's really legit (which would take forensic experts, blah, blah, blah).

It should not be done... period. And certainly not by someone other than Obama, and he should not do so either, unless and until laws/rules are changed which may require it and then he can submit the COLB and we can move on.

Abercrombie, while perhaps well-intentioned, is crazy to even attempt to do such. I suspect his state has much more pressing issues to deal with. He should tend to those.

I'm agnostic about the release of the LFBC. I'm more interested in the only curiosity (for me) of the entire birfer bullsh!t. The Connecticut SSAN. I'd love to see BHO II's appy. I suspect strongly it was a typographical error (transposing a 0 and a 9 on the Zip code) that caused it.

But, to Orly Taitz there is no such thing as a typographical error. Just look at her pleadings. It's all intentional.

Army "Hero" my ass.

What's "demoralizing" is when an O-5 refuses to follow orders. I am glad the Army punished him appropriately.

I agree.

Screw the birthers. Why give in to their demands (even if the rationality is good) when they have lost every single legal case over the matter?

It sets a bad precedent.

Nobody will change sides if the LFBC is somehow reproduced, unless you consider changing the Kenyan-born troupe moving to Vattelism "changing sides.".

Any way the gov and/or the legislature can pass a law that will be contested in court, fail, and help folks at least understand it ain't going to be released? Would that help with any percentage of the less-fanatic part of this fringe?

So you all think principles are more important than power and policy? There are 20% birfers and 20% liberals that will always vote the same way, irregardless of any BC answers. Arguments about Obama caving in to birfer demands are irrelevant in the next election. There is another 60% group of voters (Independents, moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats) that could go either way in the next election. Or have you all written off the 2012 election to the Republicans across the board already?

The only question that should be debated is this: Will releasing another form of Obama's BC in some official manner make ANY difference in the 2012 election results? This country remains split down the middle. Another 1% or 2% vote for Obama and Democrats could determine whether we have Obama and a Democrat Senate (the House is already lost), or a Republican administration, Senate, House, and an increased conservative Supreme Court majority after 2012.

Alternatively, explain how Neil releasing Obama's long form BC (with Obama's permission) will LOSE votes for Obama in 2012. Are all the liberal Democrats here going to vote for Palin if Obama releases his long form in 2012?

Liberal democrats have always seemed incompetent in practical politics over principles - principles that keep them in the minority.