HNS: Fine, except that the birthers are part of Romney’s base and he needs their votes. Why would he point and laugh? As you say, it was not a joke, unless your point was that it was intended as one but was far too lame for anyone to laugh at.
Oh, well, that’s all right then. 
There is a way to make that statement/joke that makes fun of Birthers (“Hey, why aren’t they asking for MY birth certificate? My dad was from Mexico, after all. Maybe because I look white?”). It doesn’t sound like, in context, Romney was doing so.
The people in the crowd certainly thought it was funny.
YouTube Clip of Romney Remarks
Everyone on camera behind him laughs at the line, as does the crowd as a whole. Then it turns to applause. The reaction is exactly what one would expect from a successful throw away one liner joke from a politician talking to a crowd.
Didn’t Obama himself joke about this at a correspondents dinner?
So do you believe there’s any difference between laughing at the joke because “hey, yeah, we know those Birthers are idiots” and laughing because “hah, it’s true, Obama was born in Kenya”?
Which reason do you think more closely fits the crowd in the clip?
Most of Romney’s family are from a Mormon community that settled in Mexico. They’ve been on tv recently.
Wasn’t Romney’s dad born and raised in that Mexico community? But he had American citizenship?
I’ve stolen it already!
Well regardless of whether people in this thread say it was a dog whistle or not, it got its job done.
It perked the ears of the dogs.
And that’s the thing with dog whistles-- people can deny that it was actually blown, regardless of whether they heard it or not, because if they say “Yep, I got it. Loud and clear,” it means they’re a dog. They can deny it all they want by saying “No, there was nothing beyond a man putting a little metal whistle to his lips. He did not blow, and it didn’t make any sort of noise” or “Nope, this wasn’t about a black man with a Muslim name and a Kenyan father.”
But as evidenced by this story, some people are just dogs and have no problem being dogs, and they will have no problem saying “Yep, I got it. Loud and clear” and “Mitt’s from Michigan. There’s no question about where he’s from. And you hear a lot of questions about Obama. You don’t know, but you hear questions.”
So deny that Mitt blew the little whistle, or that it actually made a noise, doesn’t really matter. What matters is the dogs came a-runnin’.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty lame. Nonetheless, they laughed.
Still, it was not actually funny. By which I mean, it did not make me laugh. I guess you had to be there.
I agree, it doesn’t sound like he was making fun of birthers. I think it was just a tone deaf joke, since Romney is a robot who doesn’t fully understand humor or human emotion.
But it did make me wonder- how often has he been bringing up the birth certificate stuff? If this is the first time, then I would just think it was a one-off stupid joke. If it’s been repeatedly, then it would make me think it was more of a dog whistle.
Y’know, it’s possible that Romney is just a clueless, humor-impaired tonedeaf dork who can’t put three syllables together without inadvertently offending millions of people every time he speaks.
But why would you want someone like that running your country?
You guys are all arguing past the truly stupid thing that Romney was implying with that comment. It wasn’t about race or even trying to appeal to birthers, really. He was trying to say that Obama is not obviously American (not patriotic, doesn’t believe in what Americans should believe in, etc), while Romney is.
It’s the same old line trotted out by Palin with her “real americans” line and stuff. He’s trying to imply that Obama doesn’t ACT like an American.
It’s annoying and offensive.
I just watched the video and the birth certificate comment was not needed --as in most people would not have made reference to their birth certificate in the same type of speech. IMHO, it was specifically thrown in because of the birther issue.
There is no way that comment was making fun of birthers and it definitely would have drawn applause from the local birthers that I know. In my area, there is a 100% correlation between those who are birthers and those who are racists. So, IMHO it was trolling for racists (aka race-baiting).
For those who think Anglo-Saxon is not also a dog whistle term. In my area, Anglo-Saxon is only ever used by people involved in the militia groups. These are guys that like to go out and play like they’re some sort of Rambo and trade fantasies about defeating the One World Order someday. They wear the yellow T-Shirts with the snakes and don’t really understand why a God fearing group like the KKK has trouble renting out halls to hold recruitment meetings. So now they hold summer camps (they have a macho term for them) on local farms instead.
So, in my area (like the tri-county region), the birth certificate comment would be a dog-whistle that would be clearly understood and ACTED ON ABOVE ALL ELSE by at least 20% of the population.
As an example of what I call racist: A woman I know has a young boy. You would never think she was racist. She is always a very generous and giving person. She mentioned once that her father would have killed her if she had married a black guy (or at least shot the guy). So, I asked, “What would you think if your son wanted to marry a black person?” Her response was “I’d never let that happen. That just ain’t right.” – BUT, an Asian or an Hispanic person she could “live with”???
And pig-ignorant to boot. Most of the curs using such dog-whistle terms are themselves mongrels of one sort or another. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants almost surely have some black or indian blood, or are descended from someone of roots other than the Angle or the Saxon tribes, or have a Catholic (or HORRORS! Jew or Muslim) direct ancestor, but their own ignorance about their own damned family and selves allows them to rant on about “racial purity” and all that tommyrot.
So at least one dog has responded as could have been anticipated.
@ pseudotriton ruber ruber - to clarify, I did say “In my area”. I would not be the least bit suspicious of a historian or geneticist using the term Anlgo-Saxon. But IN MY AREA we are not exactly wading hip deep in academics. 
deleting double posting
Enkel–I totally get that. It’s just funny to me, imagining an unruly crowd of racist louts all screaming about “racial purity” when none of them has the slightest fucking clue who his own daddy is…
Well, Obama seems to think the whole birther thing is funny. If he can laugh at this then I think we can all have a good laugh at this without being called racist.
From the site:
bolding mine. Thanks, Romney, for getting more people in on the joke.
$22.50 for a mug?
Yes, Romney was making fun of birthers, that makes perfect sense
…to nobody.
it’s an obvious dog whistle, maybe not done with racist intentions, but probably rings in the ears strongest of the racist base of the right wing. The message is clear, WHO CAN YOU TRUST, ME OR THE GUY WE AREN’T SURE ABOUT?
Um, not exactly. The constitutional rule that a president be born in the US is just not seen as important to the point of obsession by the public, in and of itself. John mcCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, after all. And, if we found out that someone was thirty-four years old, would we be up in arms? No, there are just so many other, more important issues, as issues.
These things only become truly important when people decide to make them so when applied to a particular person…and that’s where your analysis of Obama as perceived by many as somehow “other” DOES come into play, big time.