CNN's Howard Kurtz slams Dobbs' birther coverage as "ludicrous"

[Turborama]

Run time: 04:14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ8-9CeVWNA   Posted on YouTube: July 27, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 27, 2009 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 1907

 
A lot more on this at Media Matters: http://mediamatters.org/

(apologies if this recent debacle has been covered enough already, I've been offline for a couple of weeks)

ETA check this out for the most definitive archive of debunking material: http://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/

[FrenchieCat]

1. Yeah...but of course, as usual, the media still did it's thing,

even if it stops now.

They are really good at doing something wrong, and then realizing that it was wrong after the fact.

[Enthusiast]

2. She is right on.

It is unethical for the media to be lending credence to this story. But, think back for a moment to media coverage of President Clinton and remember how complicit the media was leading up to the Iraq War. The media has been unethical and remains unethical. The media has an agenda.

[baldguy]

5. +1

How is the presentation of this story any different from every other story they present?

[AlbertCat]

10. The media has an agenda.

And it's OBVIOUSLY LIBERAL!!!!!

...oh....wait.....

[zbdent]

3. Dan Rather was run out of town for a less ludicrous stance ...

and he was actually driven out while using a document which PROVED that Bush showed up at some point! That document, and the one where Bush got dental work, as always, on the taxpayers' dime ...

[stlsaxman]

4. oh my god, help me- I'm in love with a correspondent from USA Today!!!

Lauren Ashburn makes me feel all happy on the insides! To quote the old Zippy The Pinhead cartoon- "I feel tingly inside- like a tomato!"

Could someone- anyone PLEASE talk me down!?!? Is it possible she's a journalist and not a GOP shill like the rest of 'em???

Granted I'm letting other parts of my body do my thinking here but it's been so long since i've found ANYONE in the MSM both physically AND intellectually attractive that I'm about to burst!

:loveya:

[ScottLand]

6. The media's the definition of unethical.

This is all to divert attention from the real issues and pander to the bigots that can't get past the colour of Obama's skin.

BTW, has anyone seen Rush Limbaugh's birth certificate? He's no fellow countryman of mine -- shouldn't he prove he's here legally?

[formercia]

7. What little credibility Lou Dobbs had, has vaporized.

What made him implode like that?

Good to see some responsible coverage from the M$M.

[GivePeaceAchance]

8. It's just not healthy to absorb insanity couldn't watch it all, oww.

[2 Much Tribulation]

9. Simple: there are 2 types/classes of citizens, the BORN and the NATURALIZED

Nothing in the Constitution contemplates any third class, and the Naturalized Citizen is equal in every respect, many cases and laws stress, to the born citizen.

Except, MAYBE, just one. That of President. But the only reason this anachronism sits there is that there have only been 44 potential chances for the issue to be litigated, only a fraction of those were post-14th Amendment after racism was written out of the Constitution at the cost of 650,000 dead in the Civil War, and only a small fraction of those were even arguably born abroad.

So there just hasn't been the chance for courts to rule that racist nativist ideas are no longer any part of the US Constitution. If there had been this issue would never come up. But anyway, this is nothing to be taken lightly because racist and nativism has been such a strong force historically we can not pretend that, as ugly as it is, that we can simply laugh it off.

It's an opportunity to WIN, (one always attacks the debate opponent when they are weakest, not when strongest) and to remind of why Dred Scott was such an embarrassment to the USA: Among other things, it affirmed that whether free or slave, blacks could not be full citizens of the USA.

Similarly, the "birthers" or "natural born citizen" advocates simply assume that IF Obama were born in Kenya to a US citizen parent that the location of birth, the "soil" of birth, makes him ineligible to be present. Clearly, Obama was born a US citizen and was not naturalized. Case closed, except for reminding people that "accidents of birth" (the sex, race, etc one was born into) was written out of the Constitution LONG LONG ago. What a throwback!

It's a throwback all the way to feudalism, where the "soil" upon which one was born controlled the "lord" one owed allegiance to.