# Trival Pursuit: Kenyan Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 18, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328 "2012-05-18T16:12:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![IntelliQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e99b99/32.png) [@IntelliQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IntelliQ)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/61 "2012-05-21T17:44:58Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > So in other words, you were trolling? So in other words, even giving Obama the benefit of the doubt is not good enough for you? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/62 "2012-05-21T18:02:59Z")
That’s not “in other words”. That’s a completely unrelated set of words. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/63 "2012-05-21T18:26:54Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > So in other words, even giving Obama the benefit of the doubt is not good enough for you? To give someone the benefit of the doubt, there must be some doubt to begin with. In this case, there isn’t any. It’s just a little ball of right-wing catnip to keep the birthers riled up. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/64 "2012-05-21T19:37:26Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > Because I’m evolving on this 🙂 I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didnt even see the mistake. After-all, his agent was a nobody and he isn’t Stephen King. Promos like this goes out fast with much liberation given to the agents to make the book sell. I’ve given somewhat free reign to people under my hire in the past to make things happen, and sometimes later small errors or screw ups pop to the surface. > > If the Kenyan born bio was inside the cover or back of the book we’d at least have something to chew on, but some pamphlets printed up for exposure doesnt qualify as anything more than a rookie mistake by a rookie agent. I think that in general agents don’t write blurbs. Agents definitely don’t write PR material. Marketing people at the publishers do. Marketing people are great, but if they make an innocent mistake here or there which sells more copies of the book, they aren’t going to lose a lot of sleep. Obama being born in Kenya might be an assumption based on his father, or it might have been seen as making the book an immigrant experience book, but it isn’t exactly proof of anything. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/65 "2012-05-21T19:43:02Z")
AH) Choo. (Stupidity makes me sneeze.) Having been alive in 1961 (and living in Africa at the end of the year) I can tell you that if I wanted to groom a baby for a future presidency I’d make sure he was mixed race, the child of an iffy African and an atheist left wing mother, and that he would spend his early years in that center of the political network Indonesia. What could go wrong? ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/66 "2012-05-22T12:40:27Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Did you just argue that the media ought to report verifiably false information in the interest of balance? There is nothing false about the existance of the pamphlet put out by people working for him or the information [that existed for 17 years on the related web-site.](http://www.aim.org/aim-column/washington-post-hires-left-wing-blogger-to-bash-conservatives/) The official WP blogger calls it a “typo” 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/67 "2012-05-22T13:42:57Z")
But the _information_ contained in the pamphlet is clearly false, which brings us back to it not being newsworthy. Imagine if Bill Clinton’s literary agency had published a blurb that said he was married 3 times. Would it be “news” today? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/68 "2012-05-22T13:50:05Z")
Technically it would not be a “typo” but rather an “error”. Which is still a long, long way from “deliberate deception”. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/69 "2012-05-22T15:14:53Z")
AI) was not a great movie and the ending didn’t make much sense. But it made a lot more sense than treating errors in copy written by a literary agent in the '90s as having greater evidentiary value than contemporaneous documents about Obama’s birth from 1961. I’m not sure even a Birther could construct a logical argument for that. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/70 "2012-05-23T12:45:54Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > But the _information_ contained in the pamphlet is clearly false, which brings us back to it not being newsworthy. Imagine if Bill Clinton’s literary agency had published a blurb that said he was married 3 times. Would it be “news” today? My point proven once again … your kind is plenty happy letting the fair and balanced media make that call. I’ll bet you fuly approved of the effort and the results of the investigations/reporting done in Alaska three years ago too. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/71 "2012-05-23T13:00:46Z")
“Your kind”? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/72 "2012-05-23T13:01:46Z")
“Insanity-challenged”. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/73 "2012-05-23T13:08:26Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > My point proven once again … your kind is plenty happy letting the fair and balanced media make that call. I’ll bet you fuly approved of the effort and the results of the investigations/reporting done in Alaska three years ago too. I don’t approve of anything done in Alaska. Too cold. Seriously, what on earth are you talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/74 "2012-05-23T14:49:40Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > your kind is plenty happy letting the fair and balanced media make that call. Is your theory here that any time anyone accuses someone of something, the media should uncritically repeat that accusation because that’s the “fair and balanced” thing to do? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/75 "2012-05-23T15:04:24Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Is your theory here that any time anyone accuses someone of something, the media should uncritically repeat that accusation because that’s the “fair and balanced” thing to do? No, that’s ridiculous. Only for certain special someones. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/76 "2012-05-23T15:34:21Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > My point proven once again … your kind is plenty happy letting the fair and balanced media make that call. “Fair” and “balanced” are not the same thing. “Balance” means bullshit like giving creationism equal time with evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/77 "2012-05-23T22:54:17Z")
AJ)ax himself would have trouble coming up with more options for this poll once we hit the B’s. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/78 "2012-05-24T13:49:30Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Is your theory here that any time anyone accuses someone of something, the media should uncritically repeat that accusation because that’s the “fair and balanced” thing to do? No… unless your theory is that a document produced by a book agent on Obama’s behalf is absolutely not newsworthy. If so, then all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/79 "2012-05-24T13:56:00Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > No… unless your theory is that a document produced by a book agent on Obama’s behalf is absolutely not newsworthy. No, the “document” is not newsworthy. Under what set of circumstances is it news, exactly? Obama says in the book that he was born in Hawaii. Doesn’t that have much more evidentiary weight than a release written by his literary agent? The agent fucked up, end of story. Even if we’d never gone through the rest of this nonsense about the birth certificate, if a man writes a book and says he was born in one place and his literary agent says he was born somewhere else, who would you figure was probably right? ---
**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:** [May 24, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328/80 "2012-05-24T14:37:26Z")
AK)bar says, “It’s a trap!” At this point, why are we wasting pixels and energy on such a ludicrous nontroversy? It’s just a picayune distraction from the real battles looming before us. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trival-pursuit-kenyan-edition/622328.md?page=5)