McClatchy: Here's the truth: 'Birther' claims are just plain nuts

[Pirate Smile]

Here's the truth: 'Birther' claims are just plain nuts

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The false allegation that President Barack Obama was born in another country is more than a fact-free hit job.

Marked by accusations and backstabbing, it's the story of how a small but intense movement called "birthers" rose from a handful of people prone to seeing conspiracies, aided by the Internet, magnified without evidence by eager radio and cable TV hosts, and eventually ratified by a small group of Republican politicians working to keep the story alive on the floors of Congress and the campaign trails of the Midwest.

It's a powerful story about what experts call political paranoia over a new face in a time of anxiety and rapid change — the sort of viral message that can take hold among a sliver of the populace that's ready to believe that the new president is a fraud, and just as ready to angrily dismiss anyone who disagrees as part of the conspiracy.

-snip-
"It's a fascinating phenomenon," said Jerrold Post, director of the political psychology program at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and author of a recent book entitled, "Political Paranoia."

"They are not searching for the truth. They are searching for anything that confirms their fixed idea, their malevolent idea . . . It doesn't soothe people to tell them it's not legitimate. That makes them angry."


THE TALE

-snip-
THE FACTS

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/72794.html

Ahhhh, McClatchy ... the former Knight-Ridder papers who were practically the only journalists debunking the Iraq War run-up. I'll always love you...

Ha, shows what kooks they are and actually names names.

[RandomThoughts]

1. Anger is a thought impediment.

They actually get angry to push out thought, when they start to break out of the while loop. They need something to stop the thought that is shattering their perspective of the world, even if their perspective is wrong. Anger does that well, since part of it is lack of thought.

That happens on so many topics, I usually ask, "Why are you angry" It has had some effect on getting people to understand they are not acting rationally.



Here is an example of a potential birther while loop.

1)If accept President Obama is good president, then ideas about some people, and self thoughts about what Americans really think about opinions of own ideas, must be wrong.
.....2)Think if maybe ones own positions or thoughts might be questionable or even wrong.
.....3)Devastating ego loss from thinking one is wrong might shatter ones own world.
.....4)Grab anything that allows not to think he is President.
.....5)Learn the birther argument is ridiculous.
.....6)Realize President Obama is president.
.....7)Cannot accept that(anger possible), jump to line 1.

[Number23]

2. Dammit

"Second, it's true that the 2007 document issued by the state of Hawaii, called a Certification of Live Birth, isn't a copy of the original 1961 document. Obama could ask for that from Hawaii but hasn't, without explanation. The longer, original form would show more details, including the name of the doctor, according to copies of other 1961 birth certificates."

Despite that EVERY OTHER WORD in this article refutes the Birthers and does everything short of calling for their forced institutionalization, I'd bet everything in my pocket right now this ONE SENTENCE will be what every birther latches on to as "proof" that Obama is a Muslin born in Mombasa.

[tblue37]

5. Someone in another thread says that Hawaii doesn't even *offer* the option of asking for

the long form of one's birth certificate.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. That is correct

What Obama posted on his website last summer is what Hawaii gave him.

[Cha]

3. Thanks, I did not know

that about McClatchy. I loved Knight-Ridder papers, too.

[mahina]

4. All the birthers are trying to do is shave a few points off Obama's next election.

Look at Grey Davis's recall, Arnold's election c/o "Kenny Boy" from Enron, and every shitty thing they've done prior to elections. This is about persuading the few slim percent out there who can be converted, in order to win. THey know it's a lie, and it makes no difference to them at all.

They have to lose, that's all there is to it. The stakes are too high.

[olkaz]

6. That might be the result of their actions, but it's almost certainly not the intent

Just out of curiousity, have you spoken to one of these folks before?

[mahina]

16. Yeppers. I agree that the individuals aren't aware, but the propaganda pushers are.

My opinion of course. I have no data to back up this assertion :)

[GoCubsGo]

7. Something to ask of the birthers....

Someone needs to demand that these kooks present the legitimate "long form birth certificate" of Obama's alleged birth in Kenya. A mis-transleated allegation that his step-grandmother claimed to have been there is not good enough proof of their claims for me. Nor, should it be for anyone. Put up or shut up, you bunch of lunatics.

[Ganja Ninja]

9. Yeah it would be nice if they would put up or shut up.

Come on Birther's, Obama has 3 documents that prove he was born in Hawaii. Lets see you clowns produce one official document that contradicts his Hawaiian Certificate of Birth and the 2 news paper birth announcements.

[BeyondGeography]

10. A "fascinating phenomenon," love the benevolent language of academia

Staying neutral as possible so everyone will buy his book, I guess.

[BlooInBloo]

13. lol! No. They actually mean those words at face value.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

11. Experts call it political paranoia over a new face in a time of anxiety and rapid change.

I call it straight up racism.

[BlooInBloo]

12. Ah. So THAT'S what journalism looks like!

A good companion piece for that article is a classic Greenwald article:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/02/self_absorption/

"The right's two-pronged religion of rage and self-pity

(updated below)

The Right in this country -- meaning the faction that followed George Bush for the last eight years -- long ago ceased being a movement of political ideas and is driven by two, and only two, extreme emotions: (1) intense, aggressive rage towards their revolving door of enemies, and (2) bottomless self-pity over how unfairly they're being treated. As their imminent defeat looks increasingly likely (potentially on a humiliating scale), these two impulses are in maximum overdrive, feeding off one another in endless self-perpetuation (the more they lose, the more victimized they feel, the more they rage against their enemies who oppress them, etc.).

The Right's rejection by the public can't possibly be due to anything they have done. It can only be due to some extremely vicious enemy that oppresses them uniquely and so very unfairly. For the moment, they're only losing because The Leftist Mainstream Media hates them and is deeply biased against them.

...

Needless to say, whether the excuse-making is coherent or consistent matters not in the slightest. The objective, as always, is to believe that they are weak and hapless victims being stomped on by some Evil, Unfair Force, and that self-pitying worldview can then explain away every last one of their failings. That is the mentality that lies at the heart of today's right-wing ideologue; more or less, it's all there is (for a long time, it was also the media and the Left's fault -- but not theirs -- that things were going so poorly in Iraq, even though they controlled all the branches of the Government). "

[BeyondGeography]

15. Honest and, ultimately, soothing

Enlightenment is good for the soul.

But he'll never be a professor.

[Brother Buzz]

14. McClatchy ... the former Knight-Ridder papers?

McClatchy purchased Knight-Ridder. The McClatchy Company dates to the California Gold Rush era of 1857, when James McClatchy was one of the founding editors of its flagship newspaper, The Sacramento Bee -- one of the oldest newspapers in the West.