So when they say President Obama "has spent 2 million" to hide his secret muzlim birf certificate

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

where does that figure come from?

Is it just a random number someone pulled from their ass, and managed to get repeated endlessly - or is it based on some legitimate legal expense by the president and distorted into something else?

I'm just curious, as I've heard both Trump and Palin push this figure, and I have to wonder where on earth its coming from.

[Drale]

1. 2 million? No No No

You underestimate there craziness more like 2 BILLION!

[Skink]

2. After this election that figure goes way up.

[ZombieHorde]

3. I have wondered the same thing. nt

[Timbuk3]

4. I recommended this

...because I wonder the same thing.

But if you can stand the damage to your nerve endings by doing it, you might try looking around Newsmax or Free Republic. I'd bet it started in one of those two sources of fundie disinformation.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

5. in the old days, this crap would be confined to talk radio

but in the world of FOX News, you hear these types of nutty rumors repeated by the party's most prominent figures

FOX has mainstreamed the fringe conspiracy talk, and now you hear outlandish conspiracies with no basis in fact popping up on supposedly respectable outlets like the Today show.

If FOX had existed in the 90s, one has to wonder if Bob Dole and Steve Forbes would have spent the 96 GOP primaries accusing Bill Clinton of killing Vince Foster and running people over with trains and if the networks would have covered the "discussion" with the same b.s. effort to be fair to both sides

[msanthrope]

6. (Raises Hand!) I KNOW!! I KNOW!!!

No, seriesly, I do know.


Way back, in the early days of Birtherism, the lawyer/dentist/real estate agent Orly Taitz read somewhere that the Obama campaign had paid its law firm, Perkins Coie, 2 million dollars in fees.

So Orly ran with that. She claimed that the whole shebang must have been for hiding his birth certificate. If you ask this question in Freeperland, they will breathlessly show you their 'proof'--the FEC filing that shows payments to Perkins.

Really--this is where this shit comes from. Because of course, the lawyers for the campaign had no other expenses, and did no other work, other than making sure the birth certificate never came to light.

[Gabi Hayes]

10. EDITED...already been answered by the time I posted this>>>>

''.....$2 million is a figure that has been promoted by World Net Daily, a conservative website that has tried its best to fan the flames of the “birther” movement. In a number of articles, it has speculated that all of the legal fees spent by the Obama campaign since the election have been devoted to defending the President against a series of lawsuits concerning the certificate — all of which have been ultimately dismissed as frivolous.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, those legal fees total $2 million since January 2009. The filings do not break out exactly how much was spent on the lawsuits, and Obama campaign officials decline to engage in “birther” questions. But it's pretty clear that the bulk of the legal spending was devoted to other matters, such as winding down the campaign and defending against FEC investigations into the financing of Obama's presidential bid.


John McCain's campaign, which did not raise nearly as much money as Obama, has spent $1.3 million on legal fees since the election, according to an article last month in Roll Call.''

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110417/OPINION04/304170040/Glenn-Kessler-Trumping-up-birther-claims?odyssey=mod%7Cmostcom

reprinted from Kessler's WashPost factchecker column

it's what the RW propagandists ALWAYS do: take one grain of truth ($2 million in legal fees)and surround it with a story that's compLETELY fabricated---everthing else about his 'trying to keep the real birth certificate story from coming out.'

[left is right]

11. just out of curiosity and with no axe to grind on this issue

Is 2 million an excessive amount to pay a campaign’s lawyers? Is it probable that McCain’s campaign paid a similar amount to lawyers?

Edited to change possible to probable because I didn’t like the connotation of the former

[MadMaddie]

14. Psst

It's a lot for a black man to pay! Did I say that outloud?:smoke:

[blondeatlast]

15. The Politifact article in post 9 says Mccain paid at least $1.3 million

in legal fees related to the election.

The figure doesn't seem at all outrageous to me (of course, I actually do legal billing as part of my job).

[DearAbby]

7. From the fertile fecal fields

just to see what sticks. Probably from one idiot, and the rest of the bobbleheads bounce as they parrot the quote.

[eleny]

8. Yesterday someone on tv pointed out that 2M was the total spent on post election expenditures

If Obama spent some funds on dealing with the "birther" issue, it was only a very small part of a total of 2M paid the law firm.

[jenmito]

9. Politifact explains why it's false:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/12/donald-trump/donald-trump-claims-obama-has-spent-2-million-lega/

[Motown_Johnny]

12. +1

thanks for posting that

[spedtr90]

13. McCain spent 1.4 million

So what was he busy hiding??

Actually, both spent the $$ on legal expenses related to campaigning.
Heard this on MSNBC yesterday as they were exposing Bachmann's stupidity.

[AsahinaKimi]

16. Did that 2 million cover the time machine trip?

Ya know where he went back and planted evidence... :sarcasm:

geeze these Birthers are wackos

[L. Coyote]

17. You can spot the non-candidates because they tell the outrageous lies.

It doesn't matter where it came from, what matters is they have ass-hats
willing to pretend to be Presidential candidates just so they can give these lies
more credence and air time.