Catering to Obama Haters

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-25/catering-to-obama-haters/full/


Catering to Obama Haters

by Paul Campos


Earlier this week, Hardball news anchor Chris Matthews grilled Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) about whether Campbell believes Barack Obama was born in the United States. Campbell, who is co-sponsoring a bill that would require presidential candidates to produce birth certificates proving their eligibility for office, dodged the question no less than seven times before conceding that “as far as I know” Obama was born in the USA.

An exasperated Matthews then started waving a copy of Obama’s birth certificate on camera, while excoriating Campbell for “playing to the crazies” in his party.

It’s been a good week for the (apparently numerous) crazies who believe, against all evidence and common sense, that Barack Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii. After fermenting for months on numerous right-wing websites, so-called “birther” conspiracy theories are beginning to draw attention from the mainstream media, which is not limiting itself to pointing out how preposterous these theories are.

snip//

What accounts for this double standard? Why are GOP politicians like Campbell getting away with playing to the Birther crazies, and why is Dobbs’ utterly irresponsible behavior being tolerated by CNN?

Part of the answer surely has to do with the enormous success the right-wing propaganda machine has had in portraying the mainstream media as being in the grips of a supposedly liberal bias. The mainstream media is well aware that the slightest attention to, or tolerance of, nutty left-wing conspiracy theories would be used as yet another stick with which to beat it.

But nutty right-wing conspiracy theories are another matter. As the Birther phenomenon demonstrates, the media is much more likely to, as the expression has it, “go meta” on such stories, and treat them as interesting cultural phenomena worthy of something other than pure contempt. This in turn allows mainstream conservative politicians to exploit the paranoid delusions circulating in their base to a far greater extent than mainstream liberals could ever do in regard to similar fantasies. (No mainstream liberal politician will ever be caught within a thousand miles of a Truther.)

Another way of putting this is that, in America today, while the paranoid left-wing fringe remains quarantined on obscure websites, the paranoid right-wing fringe is becoming another name for a good part of the Republican Party’s base.

[cleveramerican]

1. one of those stories

I can't believe drags on.

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. It's amazing that the GOP, whether in the majority or the minority, still

control the message. I can't figure it out. Even though most of the country thinks their nuts, an inordinate amount of M$M time is spent covering their latest antics. Could it be that rightwing extremists are just more entertaining? Is that why the media feels their every fart has to be aired in the national press?
:shrug:

[niceypoo]

5. They also control the agenda

and they do it because the Democrats allow them to.

We need to get rid of Harry Reid. Reid is spineless, timid, and submissive to the right.

[Cha]

3. To me, all these jackals are doing is

proving their own stupidity..and hey maybe they'll bring certain mediaWhores down with them!

[Peacetrain]

4. They are feed on their own neurosis.. A hundred years from now

the fringy part of the conservative movement will be keeping this lie alive.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FrenchieCat]

8. Hi there!

You sound quite willing to throw blanket stereotypes around like it ain't nobody's business....which is the exact same thing that Racists do.

Everything you wrote apart from your name (which of course I can't even be sure is real) is a big ass stereotyped lie. Let me be the first to say that I hope your ass lives in Canada.....cause we really don't need another one like you.

[babylonsister]

9. What did the "Black elites in high positions.. " deserve? And part of the

white racism? How can you justify that comment when so many white people voted for him? You're really confusing me. So are now all of us white folk who voted for Obama reverse racists? And I don't know that anyone can force the POTUS to do anything, especially when he's done nothing wrong.

:crazy:

You sound like you have problems in Canada which have nothing to do with the US, or you're being subjected to some really out-there opinions.

Have you bothered to see what this whole Gates thing has been about? It doesn't sound like it to me.

[Tarheel_Dem]

11. Why the hidden profile? Guess it doesn't matter though, your post is filled..

with so many racist stereotypes and lies, I doubt you'd be truthful in your profile.

[d_b]

12. woo-hoo!

another shitty gimmick :headbang:

[Undercurrent]

13. Racist crap!

You managed to hit most of the low notes in one post.

[HopeOverFear]

16. ^^^^THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT, PEOPLE

THAT is why I didn't want Obama to apologize. Because NOW some black people are gonna think Obama got whipped until he called himself Toby.

:eyes:

[FrenchieCat]

18. You need to chill out...cause you are starting to sound like FearOverHope!

[glitch]

7. Not just the "paranoid left-wing fringe" remains quarantined on obscure websites

anybody not regurgitating corporate spin is quarantined somewhere on the web.

[depakid]

10. Exactly

[Undercurrent]

14. Recommend OP.

.

[omega minimo]

15. What's the difference b/w the mainstream media and the Right Wing propaganda machine?

[question everything]

17. Seems that the anti immigration nuts have found a new horse to ride

the "where was Obama born."

By the way, where was McCain born?

See also

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x37513

Same region that is represented by John Campbell