# National Review on Obama's birth & citizenship **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 28, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559 "2009-07-28T16:28:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/41 "2009-07-28T19:10:49Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > If I said “A person with the Straight Dope Message Board handle ElvisL1ves came from the camp of the Clintonites”, would it be inaccurate? Perhaps you could ask your composition teacher about context, connotation, and implication. > [@](#): > > If someone else said “A guy who likes cats came from the camp of people whose handle makes fun of Ayn Rand”, would cat haters have some genuine grievance? Yes. > [@](#): > > I thought time healed all wounds, anyway. Time does not heal a penchant for falsehood. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/42 "2009-07-28T19:19:35Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Time does not heal a penchant for falsehood. On that note, happy ninth anniversary on the SDMB. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![haymarketmartyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/35a633/32.png) [@haymarketmartyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/haymarketmartyr)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/43 "2009-07-28T19:27:04Z")
This entire “Birther” nonsense reminds me of an opposing coach in sports who plays the game, sees his team lose the game, then files a protest with the league officials claiming that the other teams uniforms were not in accordance with league standards. But it does serve the wonderful purpose of exposing the desperate silliness that is much of the Right racist movement. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/44 "2009-07-28T19:32:53Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > A moment of lucidity from NRO: > > > [@](#): > > > > The myth that Barack Obama is ineligible to be president represents the hunt for a magic bullet that will make all the unpleasant complications of his election and presidency disappear. > > That’s what the “Well, why not just give in to them and show them anything they want?” crowd doesn’t get – these people have their _souls_ invested in this. Records will always be incomplete or faked, government officials will be liars or afraid to say the truth, court cases will be horrible judgments by liberal activist judges. Nothing will _ever_ be good enough because they desperately need this belief that someday they’ll be proven correct and all this scary Obama stuff will go away. It’ll never go away because Obama can’t change his race, which is what this is all about. These people simply can’t bring their pea brains around to accepting a black man as president of their precious white nation, but know it’s no longer acceptable to be blatant and obvious about it. They will continue to clamp onto any assertion, regardless of the preponderance of proof against it, in the hopes that something, anything, will ultimately open the eyes of their representatives who will oust Obama and bring back the natural order of things. Anyone still questioning Obama’s citizenship, whether Republican or Democrat, is a bloody racist, plain and simple, and that includes any of the slew of Congress people, Senators, and pundits who continue to pander to the basest element of their constituency by maintaining an intentionally ambiguous stand on the topic. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/45 "2009-07-28T19:38:53Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > The NRO article said that one-in-three believed it was done with the “foreknowledge” of the Bush administration, so I think adding up both numbers makes sense. That was actually one of the reasons I suspect that that poll was the source of the NRO’s numbers, throwing in the foreknowlege language lets them lump together people who thought the gov’t saw it coming with the smaller group who think the gov’t actually perpetuated the attack. > > That was my point. The NRO is being misleading in saying one-in-three dems were found to believe such things, it’s probably true, but it’s also true of the general population. I don’t think that the numbers should be added together however; they are quite different claims, and I think believed by quite different people. The people who say that the Bush Administration knew about the attacks and did nothing can point to the Bush Administration being warned and doing nothing, they ( at least in my experience ) generally admit that they can’t be sure, and their claims at least from a purely practical perspective aren’t at all implausible. Doing nothing isn’t hard at all. And doing so fits the Bush Administration’s desires; thinking that Bush would do that just requires you to be cynical enough about him. The “Truthers” who talk about missiles instead of planes, wiring the Towers with explosives and all the rest are quite different ( and much fewer going from those numbers ). Their claims require vast conspiracies, none of whose members spill the beans. They are _ **certain** _ that the conspiracy is real. They make claims that are simply wrong about everything from how buildings fall to claiming that iron oxide in a steel framed building is proof that thermite was used. And there just isn’t any motive for such elaborate shenanigans when you already have planes hitting the buildings. It’s classic conspiracy theory stuff; wildly implausible and elaborate, effectively impossible to pull off, incorrect when it comes to technical details and the facts of the incident; and composed of followers who have absolute certainty in their correctness. To put it more simply; one position is accusing a despised enemy of doing something nasty that it’s quite possible for them to have done. The other is making an accusation that the Bush Administration did something that it or anyone else couldn’t have pulled off if they wanted to. It’s like lumping together the people who think that Bush had a bad agenda and the people who think Bush had a bad agenda because he is one of the Lizard People. The one thing that lumping the two numbers together is make the outright crazies look MUCH more numerous than they are. “One is three” is a whole lot more than 4.8%. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/46 "2009-07-28T19:42:58Z")
> [@haymarketmartyr](#): > > This entire “Birther” nonsense reminds me of an opposing coach in sports who plays the game, sees his team lose the game, then files a protest with the league officials claiming that the other teams uniforms were not in accordance with league standards. … without the slightest bit of actual evidence that the uniforms were wrong, expecting the other team to retroactively prove their uniforms were appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/47 "2009-07-28T19:45:26Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > … without the slightest bit of actual evidence that the uniforms were wrong, expecting the other team to retroactively prove their uniforms were appropriate. The lack of evidence just proves the extent of the conspiracy! ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/48 "2009-07-28T19:46:03Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > There was that video of the Birther woman ranting at her Delaware congressman during a town hall meeting and succeeding in gaining control of the meeting for a few minutes. Others in the audience applauded her and booed the congressman when he said Obama was a US citizen. > > Then you have Lou Dobbs on CNN suggesting there were unanswered questions pertaining to Obama’s birth despite a woman who sat in for him on his own show thoroughly debunking the Birther claims. > > Then there is the congressman who when asked by Chris Matthews if he felt Obama was a US citizen who first dodged then said “as far as I know” when pressed. > > Then there is a bill proposed in congress demanding any presidential candidate in the future provide a birth certificate. While it would not affect Obama (only future candidates) it is a swipe at this issue. > > Then you have a video where a HuffPo reporter tried asking congresscritters entering the Capitol building what their opinion on Obama’s birth status was with varying answers to non-answers (some literally ran from the reporter) none of which definitively said Obama was a US citizen. > > Probably a lot more but definitely been in the news which clearly spurred the NRO to weigh in to defang it. Didn’t some military guy try to sue because someone who wasn’t the president was trying to send him to Afghanistan? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/49 "2009-07-28T19:47:13Z")
Well, with [this article,](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_birth_certificate) I’m confident we have now heard the last of it from the Birthers. I almost got through that with a straight face. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/50 "2009-07-28T19:55:25Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Didn’t some military guy try to sue because someone who wasn’t the president was trying to send him to Afghanistan? There was just a [Pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=524759) about him in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/51 "2009-07-28T20:01:38Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The lack of evidence just proves the extent of the conspiracy! Indeed, they should have known that the other manager would file a complaint, and taken detailed photographs of each player’s uniform. The fact that they didn’t take the photos means they must have had something to hide. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/52 "2009-07-28T20:41:08Z")
This was alluded to earlier by **Der Trihs** , but bears repeating. From the National Review article: _“The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is that a lack of evidence for the theory is taken as yet more evidence for the theory.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/53 "2009-07-28T20:50:41Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > “Righties” and “self-identified Democrats” are not mutually exclusive, especially in the South. Right - but as was noted above, one of the people involved enough in this issue enough to sue over it was Philip Berg, former associate attorney general of Pennsylvania, truther extraordinaire and onetime perennial entrant in Democratic primaries in the state. And he was no conservative Democrat either - he was a supporter of Jerry Brown in his 1992 presidential bid. Not to say that this fiction doesn’t have quite a few right-wingers spun up, but to say that this is limited to or exclusively led by them wouldn’t be accurate. Hell, Dobbs himself is no philosophical conservative - he has cast himself in recent years as an ultra-populist, which is another thing entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/54 "2009-07-28T20:54:29Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I think you are thinking of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos. Their effectiveness is debatable. As an aside: my uncle, a die hard Republican true believer, switched parties so that he could be a Clinton delegate to the state convention. He admitted to me that he wanted to make sure that Hillary got the nomination because he felt that McCain would easily beat her and he was nervous about Obama. I got the feeling that there were a lot of other people who did the same thing, but I have no hard evidence to present… ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/55 "2009-07-28T20:54:36Z")
What’s funny is that suppose the brithers were right. Who is President then? Joe Biden. Is that what they really want? Maybe, Joe is white, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/56 "2009-07-28T21:37:59Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > What’s funny is that suppose the brithers were right. Who is President then? Joe Biden. Is that what they really want? Maybe, Joe is white, after all. I heard on the radio (so sorry, no cite) that if Obama was deemed not a citizen and thus tossed out Biden would have to go with him as he ran on an ineligible ticket. They then said that Pelosi, next in line, would be ineligible because she formally stipulated Obama was a citizen…did not really understand that part to be honest. This then would put Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) as President pro-tempore of the Senate as next in line and the new President of the United States. Take that with a grain of salt. Would either have to be Pelosi or Byrd though as I could see why Biden would be ineligible. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/57 "2009-07-28T21:50:20Z")
They probably figure they could keep finding ways to disqualify the damned liberals till they got down to a safe, patriotic conservative (preferably Republican). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/58 "2009-07-28T21:52:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think Hilary got a little more support than that. > > Regards, > Shodan Yes, but not in the form of any significant number of her followers casting doubt on Obama’s citizenship. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/59 "2009-07-28T21:52:49Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > They probably figure they could keep finding ways to disqualify the damned liberals till they got down to a safe, patriotic conservative (preferably Republican). That would have to be Robert Gates who is sixth in line. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559/60 "2009-07-28T21:59:22Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I heard on the radio (so sorry, no cite) that if Obama was deemed not a citizen and thus tossed out Biden would have to go with him as he ran on an ineligible ticket. As I understand it, the Electoral College elects the President and the Veep separately, and only their votes count, so it’s masturbatory wish-fulfilment at best. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-review-on-obamas-birth-citizenship/504559.md?page=4)