I remember looking into the Obama birther rumor in 2008, but I lost interest once I established that his mother was a native born US citizen and where he was born didn’t matter. I remember a similar rumor circulated about John McCain wasn’t qualified because he was born in the Canal Zone.
Has anybody tried to fabricate evidence against President Obama like that fake National Guard letter that CBS got into trouble on?
The trouble with the internet, is that now every conman and wackadoodle in the world has access to you.
Orly Taitz has attempted to enter obviously fabricated documents into evidence in federal lawsuits against Obama. I think that counts (though it’s not clear that she faked them herself).
Well, it’s not rumor that McCain was born in the Canal Zone; that’s just flat fact. The discussion there is just about whether that qualifies him to be President, and there are actually some interesting arcane legal angles there.
Regarding Snopes, there is also the possibility that they just get more Obama rumors reported in for comment than they did Bush rumors. Who knows, it may be that folks were more secure in dismissing Bush rumors or in accepting a simple fact-check as good enough to move on.
However, insofar as the general tone of anti-presidential discourse, ISTM that in the beginning of his term, other than over the issue of whether he stole the 2000 election, IIRC the barbs at W were mostly derisive of his intellectual capacities, and it was after the launch of the wars, PATRIOT, etc that it began to take a generally darker tone about nefarious intent; while with Obama not only has it been all over the place as far as subjects and themes but it has been hard-line from day one.
Most email things about Bush were about events that actually happened: his National Guard service, response to Katrina, torture, Iraq, the 2000 elections, etc. With Obama, it’s been about things that are just batshit crazy: birther, death panels, his religion, etc. I’d say the Obama emails have been far more detached from reality than anything ever sent about Bush.
Got it. Then I stick by my original statement that speculation about what this guy might do under some hypothetical circumstance does not contribute constructively to this debate.
I figured it had to be pretty arcane to get around the fact that both his parents were American citizens when he was born. In most countries, that is the definition of native born and where you were born doesn’t mean squat. I know being born on US soil does count in the US as well as parentage.
It was the “death panel” terminology that made everybody go nuts. That the administration was considering some sort of end-of-life advisory boards was actually true and probably sensible. I’m not advocating euthanasia, but after a certain point, heroic medical treatment isn’t doing anybody any favors, including the patient.