The answer to the many questions surrounding why Obama waited so long to release his birth certificate is simple.
In 2008, Obama met with Donald Trump in a secret closed-doors beer summit. There, they hatched a scheme. Knowing that there is a large segment of the American people that is still deeply racist, and that said racism would not emerge blatantly when confronted with the first black president, Obama and his good friend The Donald began crafting a long-con. At the first whiff of birtherism, Obama released most – but not all – of the relevant documentation of his birth in Hawaii, throwing the racists birthers a bone to chew on for the next couple of years. The plan was in motion.
The long-form birth certificate remained under lock and key in Hawaii. As the years went by, the usual suspects on the right trotted out one crazy conspiracy after another. Obama ignored them. Trump waited patiently while drawing as much attention to himself as possible.
Then, in 2011, Trump played his, er, Trump card, launching a wild-eyed conspiratorial presidential bid based almost solely on the birther question. Polls showed that Trump’s popularity was rising, and almost overnight he was polling at first place. A clear front-runner had emerged, and the crux of his campaign was the missing long-form birth certificate. Trump beat that drum as loudly as possible, even sending private eyes to Hawaii to track the runaway birth certificate down. And people loved him for it.
Birtherism, it appeared, had taken over a larger segment of America than anyone had expected. Despite rumors of its death, racism in America was still very much alive and kicking. And now it had its avatar.
Now it was Obama’s move. At the height of Trump’s popularity he released the final, definitive document: the long-form birth certificate – knowing full well that it would do nothing to placate the birthers. However, with so much momentum now behind Trump and a large segment of the Republican base rallied around the cause, there was little the GOP could do to recover and run anything like a legitimate challenge to the president in 2012. The threat of an independent bid by Trump – who could easily self-finance such an effort – was too great.
Obama effectively steered national attention back to the rightwing fringe – a fringe, mind you, that is also the largest voting bloc on the right. He also ensured that his good friend Trump was the one spear-heading the movement.
This effectively torpedoed Republican chances of a victory, and ensured Obama a second term, where he went on to do many great things, including finally realize Trump’s dream of universal healthcare for all. And everyone lived happily ever after. Well, almost everyone. Racism, it turned out, was still not over in America, even though a black man had been re-elected president. And Obama had to endure four more years of one of the most thankless jobs on earth. And Trump?
Well, Trump lost his reality shows on NBC but that hasn’t stopped him from finding a way into the spotlight. With his gig on Fox, Trump ruthlessly parodies rightwingers from within the heart of the propaganda machine itself.
aimai
So you are saying Trump is really some form of Stephen Colbert in a fat red faced suit with a bad toupee? Ok. I can see that.
aimai
JPL
What I would like to know is how many birth certificates does the President have to show? Is there another form?
Corner Stone
The stalker bug has finally gotten to you kid.
TooManyJens
It makes more sense than what actually happened.
Corner Stone
Scenario 1: Trump is the greatest actor of our modern age.
Scenario 2: Someone so self-unaware with that level ego is incapable of the kind of intentional comedy we are seeing.
Bulworth
So this really was all a Democrat party plot to distract Republicans from focusing on other distractions. Obama is so mean. Look at all that time and energy he made Faux news use up on the issue. Loss of civility!
Mudge
Could be true..but one item is wrong..it was Rahm Emanuel that met with Trump in 2008. And go check Trump’s tax returns since 2008..interesting ..No? Oh..he hasn’t released them? Isn’t it time?
E.D. Kain
@aimai: essentially, except that Trump is way under cover.
@JPL: there’s actually the long form, the tall form, the grande form, and the venti form. I don’t think they had the trente form in Hawaii in 1961 though.
Joe Beese
Well, Obama has already asked us to give him “four more years of one of the most thankless jobs on earth”.
So he can’t mind it too much.
Or do you believe that he actually hates being the most powerful man on earth and he’s only seeking re-election out of a grim sense of duty to his country?
Just Some Fuckhead
Is this one of those 11 dimensional chess explanations?
TooManyJens
@Joe Beese: I would imagine that he has some very mixed feelings on the subject.
g
The Donald shares with Palin a kind of peculiar jilted obsession with Obama. I bet after Axelrod blew him off about the $100 million dollar ballroom, he started acting like the entitled quarterback turned down for a date by that cute smart girl in History class.
Amir_Khalid
No doubt, this scheme was suggested to President Obama by none other than The Cigarette-Smoking Man.
E.D. Kain
@Mudge: oh damnit. I left out Rahm’s role in all of this. And that phonecall that Blago got busted on? The “It’s fucking golden!” one – that was actually a call about this plot, which Blago was a part of (having introduced his friend Trump – who he knew from the Bad Hair Club – to Obama in the first place).
E.D. Kain
@Joe Beese: hey with great power comes a whole lot of really annoying shit. It’s a job I for one am thankful not to have.
@Amir_Khalid: yes!
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: I think EDK is soon to start posting about what happened to the strawberries.
gogol's wife
I enjoyed this at the end of a hard day. Thank you.
gogol's wife
@Corner Stone:
The mess boys ate the strawberries.
JGabriel
E.D. Kain:
Nah, Trump’s not bright enough. In order to ruthlessly parody someone, you have to understand their positions. Trump has already shown that he doesn’t even know what the right-wing positions are.
.
E.D. Kain
@JGabriel: that’s just all part of the act!
E.D. Kain
@gogol’s wife: you’re most welcome.
Nellcote
Baratunde Thurston has something to say and you should listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX5ueEKsSWc&feature=player_embedded
Paul mistermix Muad'Dib
@E.D. Kain: The Rahm component is important, but what about the PUMA angle? You need to explain how Obama, Trump and Rahm conspired to screw over Hillary.
Joe Beese
They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with… geometric logic… that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I’d have produced that key if they hadn’t of pulled the Caine out of action.
Wait, what were we talking about?
geg6
@TooManyJens:
Word.
fhtagn
@Amir_Khalid:
Well, the Bills still haven’t won the Super Bowl…
Villago Delenda Est
@Paul mistermix Muad’Dib:
Jointly composed Letter of Recommendation to Hillary on behalf of Mark Penn, perhaps?
passerby
This story is all the news that’s fit to print. An enjoyable read indeed.
In trying to make sense of his Presidential campaign, I can’t help but think that at some point, Trump will announce that his candidacy was merely a Great Experiment in reality television. He will have a documentary put together and sell it to HBO.
OccasionalReader
I didn’t know until this day that it was Obama all along.
E.D. Kain
@passerby: filmed by Casey Affleck.
geg6
@E.D. Kain:
You forgot the part about how Trump paid Blago off with his sympathetic portrayal in a starring role in last season’s Celebrity Apprentice.
http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/rod-blagojevich-fourth-celebrity-fired-from-celebrity-apprentice–10706.php
Chris
@aimai:
Nothing would amuse me more than finding out decades from now that Trump was in fact a deliberate spoiler fucking up the Republican candidates’ field for them.
They did it to themselves. A 9/11 Truther could not seize 9/11 Trutherism, run with it and use it to bring him to the forefront of the Democratic candidates’ field: it just wouldn’t happen. If Trump were to turn out to be a plant, then I’d say he just used their own prejudices and paranoid lunacy against them. Mourn not.
Corner Stone
@Paul mistermix Muad’Dib:
C’mon! It’s pretty clear HRC was in on this from the very beginning! She didn’t get screwed, she helped seed the fertile ground Trump and Obama would need to make this all seem non-27% ish.
HRC and Obama are clearly lovers. You don’t see that?
fhtagn
@Corner Stone:
You missed out Obama shooting Vince Foster, because Vince Knew Too Much.
Corner Stone
@fhtagn: God dammit! I was about to reply to myself with the Vince Foster angle!
Fuck!
ETA, Although I had Trump shooting him after HRC had lured Vince to the spot with promises of sweet nookie.
Obama had to keep it clean, and Michelle had started to suspect something after Barack mistakenly called her “My Sweet Cankles” one night in the sack.
E.D. Kain
@geg6: exactly!
Nellcote
@g:
Trump called the WH last year asking to be put in charge of stopping the BP oil leak. Axelrod told him they’d get back to him.
Nellcote
@g:
Trump called the WH last year asking to be put in charge of stopping the BP oil leak. Axelrod told him they’d get back to him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone:
You are so naive. In fact, you are jejune. Your jejunacity rivals that of Boris Greshenko.
HRC and Michelle are lovers. Obama is a beard for both of them.
It’s so obvious.
danimal
You missed the part in which James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart conspired to make the right-wing look like idiots, allowing ACORN to complete their reorganization.
gex
@Corner Stone: She never ever wanted to be President. That was a ruse to put the Kenyan in. She played everyone to get her dream job, Secretary of State.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
What, no mention of the key player, matoko nutjob-screechy? No integration of the Hackas Iz Us Nation into your narrative? Some days I swear you want to be denounced until time ends as a glibertarian spreader of kakomemes.
fhtagn
@Corner Stone:
I shouldn’t say this, because I probably really don’t want to know… but.. cankles? What they, dude?
Lolis
I realize you are trying to make a funny but I don’t like this narrative trying to blame/credit Obama for not releasing this earlier. No candidate or president in history has ever had to release their birth certificate. To say Obama is benefiting from this raving racism is pretty optimistic. But quit it with the narrative that this wall a secret plan by Obama or his staff. It is disgusting and deflects blame from those who deserve it.
fhtagn
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, we know that Muslims have beards.. does that mean HRC is also a secret Muslim?
Corner Stone
@gex:
She actually doesn’t give a damn about the job. Her mission has been to screw as many heads of state as she can, all to get back at Slick Willie.
Man, woman, left, right…upside down. She’s gonna show Bill who the fuck is trailer trash now.
E.D. Kain
@Villago Delenda Est: goodness, that explains so much.
Corner Stone
@fhtagn: Yeah. Cankles.
Barry is one kinky sombitch. To understand his sexual proclivities you have to really kind of understand the Kenyan anti-colonial mindset and thinking. Deal with it.
JGabriel
@Chris:
Largely because most 9/11 Truthers were never Democrats to begin with. They were usually conspiracy theorists of either libertarian or independent “pox on all their houses” politic leanings.
.
Lolis
@Nellcote:
Can you summarize? Some of us work at places that block youtube.
Earl Butz
@Joe Beese: The President of the United States has never been “the most powerful man on earth”. You need to look to people with the real money for that.
As far as his reasons for seeking re-election, I do think the only reason he’s doing it is out of a sense of civic duty. He was a happy, not to mention reasonably wealthy man back before 2008. These days, when he’s not pissed off, which is most of the time, he looks aged, miserable, and depressed. I couldn’t deal with what he puts up with every day.
E.D. Kain
@Lolis: uhm…that whole “you were trying to make a funny” is all you needed to say. If you think my little joke post is furthering any sort of narrative you are wildly mistaken.
fhtagn
@Corner Stone:
I can’t deal with cankles until I know what they are, you crypto-Stalinist oppressor of the evolutionary discourse!
Villago Delenda Est
@E.D. Kain:
It all fits together. Sort of like how the theory of intelligent falling utterly demolishes the theory of gravity when you look into the detail.
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est: Dude, we all know Michelle is a plant from the old school Politburo.
Those old white keesters have been fooling us all. There’s gonna be a high style reunion tour reeeeall fuckin soon.
And Michelle’s job is to drop the hammer one night when the time is right.
It’s fucking obvious she’s a Soviet plant.
Which isn’t to say she isn’t also bangin’ HRC.
E.D. Kain
@Lolis: in other words, this is a satire of all the people asking why it wasn’t released earlier. I’m not spoofing Obama. I’m spoofing the issue.
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone:
I believe if we contact Dinesh D’Shithaid, he could give us the low down on that entire side of the story.
Corner Stone
@fhtagn: They are the less than flattering commentary when a woman has a little swelling around her ankles. She has fat, swollen ankles instead of slim and slender appealing lower legs. Cankles.
“The area in affected female legs where the calf meets the foot in an abrupt, nontapering terminus; medical cause: adipose tissue surrounding the soleus tendon, probably congenital, worsened by weight gain and improved in appearance only by boots. From the English “calf” meaning wide portion of the lower leg, and “ankle” meaning slender joint of leg with foot.”
E.D. Kain
@Villago Delenda Est: Intelligent Falling. Somehow, I don’t think this concept is a joke to everyone. Sigh.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
Reasonable people say they are spoofing the issue, but other reasonable people say they are promoting GOP memes… isn’t it time for David Brooks to write a column about this?
Lolis
@E.D. Kain:
I get it. I just think snark isn’t the effective tool we always think it is on the left. Sometimes it is good to get outraged and pissed off. That is where I am at.
Amir_Khalid
@fhtagn:
Urban Dictionary is your friend. Then again, this time maybe not.
geg6
@fhtagn:
Here ya go:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cankles
And HRC definitely has ’em.
fhtagn
@Corner Stone:
Imperialist lackey and ankle-fetishist! How dare you denounce Michelle Bint Osama’s perfect ankles which I have never seen!
Mudge
Thank you for providing some fun in these depressing times. The comments are also priceless.
JPL
Because Trump now wants Obama to release his school records, he is an obvious plant. The republican candidates now have to release two birth certificates and their college records. Sarah better start requesting hers since she transferred so many times.
Chad N Freude
@E.D. Kain: Don’t bother trying to explain this to the one person on the planet who doesn’t get the joke.
And
may be the funniest thing ever posted here.
gogol's wife
@Lolis:
Me too, but there’s a lot of that elsewhere on this blog, and I found a gentle laugh to be therapeutic, if only for a few moments. I did not see this as being directed at Obama at all. If I had I wouldn’t have found it amusing.
E.D. Kain
@Chad N Freude: thanks!
Corner Stone
@fhtagn: Oh, Michelle totally has perfectly shapely ankles.
That’s why Barack has always dug HRC so hard. It’s his Kenyan mindset that women with perfectly pale cankles were the ideal mate. Poor bastard. He really kind of had no choice when it’s all said and done.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@E.D. Kain: I can’t wait for someone to link to this stating “Even the liberal E.D. Kain accepts that Obama and Trump are working together to speed up the destruction of our once great country.”
E.D. Kain
@gogol’s wife: humor can be a potent weapon at times.
Chad N Freude
@gogol’s wife: C’mon, people. Think Stieg Larsson paranoid fantasy, only funny.
E.D. Kain
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): oh that would be icing on the bloody cake!
fhtagn
@Chad N Freude:
More like Artemis Fowl.
Shadow's Mom
ED – You have been prescient as evidenced in your Forbes posts. http://goo.gl/E122g – sample here.
It’s amazing how deeply the conspiracy runs through the bedrock of American history. Don’t forget that there must be some link to FDR and LBJ too.
AkaDad
Now that Obama has released his certificate, anyone who brings it up shall be referred to as Afterbirthers™.
Corner Stone
The circle has been closed. WJC went to Oxford in the 1960’s where he met Barack’s future handlers.
Bill then went on to smuggle precious jewels and drugs from Africa through the airport in Arkansas when he was Gov.
God damn. We’re through the looking glass here people.
If I die tonight of “bacon overdose” please know that I love you all. And the yellow dog barks at midnight when the earthworms turn.
Laertes
I hope the frontpagers don’t cave in to all this whining and rending of garments from certain commenters every time they mention Sullivan, or comment on a story that Sullivan’s commenting on.
Sully’s got a widely-read blog. He often says really stupid shit. And he doesn’t have comments. These are all excellent reasons to engage him from this blog.
Keep it up, guys. Ignore the whiners.
E.D. Kain
@Shadow’s Mom: I’m sure it goes back much further, to the Founding Fathers themselves.
@AkaDad: okay that’s funny.
Superluminar
@ED Kain
How could you tarnish the Leader like this? I thought better of you, but I guess you really do believe in all that foresty-free-market bullshytte. Maybe you can tell us how GaJo is a better candidate for President in the next post?
Cerberus
He didn’t. He released it during his campaign for President, again after he was elected, and its been available for free on the internet for years since, often referred to by Obama himself.
What makes this different is our failed media is so utterly good at misinforming everyone to the point that they can’t remember history little over 2 years old, that many seem to have utterly forgotten and treated this like the myth was true and Obama somehow hadn’t gotten around to releasing his birth certificate until recently.
By now, he has released more information on citizenship than anyone I have ever known and I know some people damn deep in the citizenship shuffle. He has released his official birth certificate, his unofficial “long form” birth certificate (or hospital record of birth), his passport, his school records, his baby announcement in the Honolulu paper, a sitting governor who knew his parents when they were pregnant with him, and a host of photos and biographical information about his entire childhood.
Shit, I can’t prove I was born in this country as much as he has been able to.
And that’s why this won’t matter one whit. Because no matter how double-plus extra-debunked this gets, the media will still “chase the controversy” and let their brain-dead conservative guests “just ask questions” and everyone who pays attention to the news shows rather than the actual news will end up repeating how this latest reiteration of the obvious was the first time this has occurred and what does this mean.
What this means is that our failed media experiment has officially graduated from tragic in its failure to openly toxic. People are ending up less informed the more news media they consume. Our elected officials end up getting sucked up in dramas that only matter to the fee fees of national pundits and every important debate has been sidestepped by a media who actively ignored any real news in order to invent a new mask for movement conservatives and libertarians to act like a new political force.
Our media is not only tragically broken, it is actively evil. A force that not only will die, but must die if we are going to have any hope of escaping from our current society.
Yes, I realize this was all parody, ED, but the sheer number of places actually acting like this was something novel or new has really got me freaked out about just how bad our current media environment has gotten (and I thought it was pretty bad before).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Cerberus: So, what you’re saying is Obama will be the only person who can get a passport?
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m actually blushing a little. No one has called me jejune since that time my liver failed after I ate a fresh fruit salad in Mexico City and didn’t piss for three days.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn:
bad satire is bad satire.
This is not parody, sry. This is how the wingnut wurlitzer plays. From Lee Atwater mainstreaming racism to Douthat mainstreaming homophobia to “our” very own EDK mainstreaming fetus=slave theory and islamophobia this is how it works.
The reason O released the long form was to stop the news media from talking about birtherism and legitimizing it.
Because the very act of talking about it was making converts.
E.D. Kain
@Superluminar: I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious or not.
@Cerberus: my point in all of this, is sometimes it’s better to meet ridiculous bullshit with a sense of humor. Parody is a good tool when used well. I hope this was good parody, but I’m a terrible judge of my own funny material.
I’d say Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are some of the most effective people on the left exactly because they’re able to answer the crazy bullshit coming from the right with humor.
Ghanima Atreides
@Superluminar: its a non-satire.
And it isnt funnie.
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides:
I disagree. I think Obama wants birtherism to be the focus of the GOP’s campaign because he knows it’s a loser in the long run. Could he be making the best of a bad situation? Maybe.
re: the fetus=slave argument, I’ve said over and over it’s a bad analogy. There is no reason to keep harping on it. It’s a bad, stupid analogy and I never should have defended anyone making it. I did so because I try to examine things from other perspectives to gain better understanding. It was still the wrong move on my part.
E.D. Kain
*Sigh*
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: well im serious. Trump is not parodying the Right….he is the Right.
Birtherism is no more a fringe than socon values and AGW denialism are fringes.
This is SOP for you guys.
Just Some Fuckhead
@E.D. Kain: Doh! would be more appropriate. :)
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: you did read this post, right? Where I say the birther fringe is the ‘largest voting bloc on the right’?
I’m sure Trump is *not* parodying the right. That is part of the joke.
Corner Stone
@E.D. Kain: The “bullshytte” was the key.
Re: Superluminar
E.D. Kain
@Corner Stone: okay thanks. Thought so.
E.D. Kain
@Just Some Fuckhead: *DOH!* is always more appropriate.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: I want you say that fetus=slave is not understandable. It is not understandable. Homophobia is not understandable. Racism is NOT FUCKING UNDERSTANDABLE! Islamophobia is not understandable. And I want you kick that fucking JAFI off your front page.
Birtherism is not a fringe of the Right, anymore than islamophobia is a fringe, or racism or creationism or homophobia. You support that evil shit, you are my straight up enemy.
because that is what you and the rest of the cryptoconservatives would do. Obama wants to talk about the real problems here instead of the freakshow legitimizing birtherism as a newsworthy viewpoint. Obama already said he doesnt care if hes a one term president.
Ghanima Atreides
@Corner Stone: that is spelled wrong, for us Stephenson otaku. it is bulshytt, as in EDK is a bulshytt talker.
Superluminar
AMG! I cant belive u all thinkk this iss snark, srsly! ED, you is just pandering here!! The fetuses are crying out in their slave-cribs, but you just want to manacle them you bastard! Pleez marry me naow!
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: I support none of those things.
Re: Obama, I think he really *does* want to talk about the real issues. But making birtherism the focus of the GOP campaign is really quite brilliant in terms of a re-election *strategy*.
Honestly, the fetus=slave thing really isn’t understandable. The only way to understand it is to understand what a lousy education a lot of people receive. Homophobia and racism are purely fears of the unknown and other – they are understandable only through the lens of ignorance.
I don’t think kicking people off of a blog is the right response however. Light is the best disinfectant.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
So talk to the person who wrote the passage you quote. Leave me out of your pseudonymous babblings. Still, at least you’ve moved on from Hermione Stranger-Queasily and macuckoo_chan.
Corner Stone
@Ghanima Atreides: I didn’t spell it. That’s why it’s in quotes.
You are relentlessly being made fun of because you don’t have a tuning dial, or an off switch.
Life gets easier when you can drop in and out as needed.
Corner Stone
@Superluminar: I lulzed.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
So is it understandable or not? Your position seems a bit… self-contradictory.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: do i HAVE to fucking quote you like on the Gary Johnson posts?
You said fetus=slave is “understandable”. Just like you are saying that having a JAFI posting on your front page is “understandable”.
I get it, honest I do.
E.D. Kain
@fhtagn: the only way to understand the people who believe this is to understand how badly educated they are. There is a difference in understanding where ignorance stems from and saying a position held by ignorant people is ‘understandable’.
Just Some Fuckhead
Am I the only one that imagines EDK and M_C having frantic sex, EDK hurling out free market epitaphs while M_C shrieks in orgasm?
Thought so.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Maybe you should wait until some sane member of the family can help you with basic reading skills?
Alternatively, you could, as you gracefully put it, fucking fuck off.
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: I’m telling you right here that it is *not* understandable. To understand why people say it you have to understand how prevalent ignorance is in our society.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Nice try, but you’re not quite up to Sarah Proud and Tall’s standards yet. I think it needed a small yapping animal … no, not the one on The Donald’s head.
E.D. Kain
@Just Some Fuckhead: you are an evil bastard, I just want you to know that.
E.D. Kain
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: well at least the mystery of the hairpiece has been solved.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
So you mean it is understandable. You can’t hold that it is understandable and not understandable at the same time, old chap.
Also too, I did warn you to include a paragraph with matoko-of-the-many-lame-names and Hackaz Iz Us as the heroine of the grand conspiracy. You chose to ignore me, and the screeching inanity has now resumed. Don’t you ever learn from experience?
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain:
WTF do you not get about this? None of those things are FUCKING UNDERSTANDABLE. None of those things are reasonable beliefs for humans to hold about other humans. Those beliefs are WRONG and should be called out as WRONG.
fhtagn
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Please, decorum. It’s nearly David Brooks’ first dinner time, and here you are talking about coition in public. Think of the Applebee’s Salad Bar, I beg you.
Ghanima Atreides
@Just Some Fuckhead: euwwww
i wouldn’t touch a freemarket fucktard with a ten foot pole. they all have marketbased chlamydia and cartel herpes for sure.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
Not so. Trump’s hair-piece has yet to produce any sort of birth certificate.
E.D. Kain
@fhtagn: no, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the belief is *not* understandable, but you can understand why people hold it because people are ignorant. These are two different things.
@Ghanima Atreides: what I just said. The beliefs themselves are *not understandable* they are most certainly *wrong*. To understand *why people hold these beliefs* you have to look at how ignorant much of the US population is.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@E.D. Kain: I’m with Chad on this one. Long, Tall, Grande, Venti had me laughing out loud.
Bill Arnold
@Ghanima Atreides:
That, and the impending wave of birther laws. Those wouldn’t be so politically damaging, but unraveling them in time would be distracting and maybe impossible, and the orig birth cert would might have been required.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
Sorry, but this is waffle. If you understand why someone holds a belief, then you find that belief understandable. That’s not the same thing as agreeing with it.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn:
yeah, like i make less sense than that.
;)
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain:
umm…..riiight.
/whips out Friedrich Hayek Patented Libertarian Decoder Ring and gazes intently at EDK.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
You make less sense than the last act of flatulence by Orly Taitz. There are nematodes in Haley Barbour’s dung that possess a higher degree of logical capacity than you. Hell, Donald Trump’s hair piece deploys more intelligent arguments than have ever filtered down from your pointy little head to your gibbering oral chasm.
Get the drift?
Superluminar
Ghanima Atreides – April 27, 2011 | 6:45 pm · Link
@Just Some Fuckhead: euwwww
i wouldn’t touch a freemarket fucktard with a ten foot pole.
Reply
You doth protest too much, methinks…
E.D. Kain
@fhtagn: I don’t know. I understand why people used to think the world was flat. They were ignorant, didn’t have the right data, etc. They were also wrong. So – I guess what I’m saying is that the belief is just simply flat-out completely wrong, and based on ignorance.
@Ghanima Atreides: I am not a libertarian, and I don’t have a decoder ring of any kind. I do wish I had some sort of decoder ring, but I don’t.
Ghanima Atreides
/begins paging frantically through the Burke/Hume libertarian to english translation dictionary.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
Right, so you do understand their view, you just don’t agree with it.
Now, was that so hard to say?
Incidentally, if you require a 20 ft pole for fending off the lustful Bullshytte Artist Formerly Known As Matoko, I think I know a man you could talk to. He’s in Britain right now, after some trouble in Sweden, but he’s got a bit of free time and he’s really good at sourcing things, if you know what I mean.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain:
riiight. How many times have you said you believe in market-based policies on this very blog?
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Stop playing footsy. Anyway, EDK is happily married, so you’ve got no chance.
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: dear lord, woman, most people do. Most liberals – even real lefties – believe in market-based solutions to some problems. I don’t believe markets will solve everything or even most things and I’ve said so many, many times. I’ve written many posts about the very bad policies being put forward by conservatives. I’ve thrown my support behind numerous government solutions such as single-payer healthcare and public schools. You don’t listen to any of that, because you have a vendetta. It reminds me of something…can’t figure out just what.
E.D. Kain
@fhtagn: this is true. Very happily married.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
So, the 20 ft version? Or do you require the extended 30 ft model? I tend to advise clients to go for the 30. More non-bang for the buck, so to speak.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: i think you have mistaken lust for disgust.
What is EDK, then?
You explained to me your bigself that he can’t be a liberal.
See?
Mandramas
@E.D. Kain: The word “understand” can be used as you claim, but also as a lousy synonym of “justify” or even “approve”. So, it is natural that they are going to jump to your throat if you don’t use the words unequivocally, stating your meaning. To use vague weasel words could be an accident, or a deliberate dishonest choice.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Sorry, matoko, but I am happily married as well. So happily married that (like EDK) I wear a burqa in order not to tempt innocent wimmins on the street. John Cole might be available though…..
E.D. Kain
@Mandramas: okay well what I’m trying to say is that I understand that people believe stupid things because they are ignorant and exist in a cocoon of ignorance, but this does not justify their holding extremely stupid beliefs that I think are wrong.
@fhtagn: wait, did you say yards or feet?
@Ghanima Atreides: I don’t believe in rigged markets and cartels. He’s right that there is no free-market in the USA, and it is instead largely a bunch of competing special interests, deeply entrenched corporate favorites, etc. If you understood what I’ve been saying lately it’s exactly that. There is no free market in practice, but we should work to level the playing field as much as possible to empower normal people over corporations, etc.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain:
since this is Dune week at BJ, could you please say kanly?
You see, I object to EDK mainstreaming an anti-islamic bigot on his front page. And it is extemely hard for EDK to admit he is wrong.
Like this.
Four front page posts and like a thousand comments and EDK finally gives up on Gary Johnson.
How do I make him give Tim Kowal the hook?
Crusty Dem
I, for one, am shocked, SHOCKED, that a parody/satire post has devolved into an m_c/EDK battle royale in comments.
Nice post, but you completely left out the Bilderberg group, the Freemasons, sharia law, William Ayers and ACORN.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
Well, if you want yards, I think something can be arranged. We have the De-Palinator at 30 yards, which is considered the ultimate in stalker off-prodding equipment, or we could go for the Bachmann Deflectorizer at 20 yards.
Crusty Dem
@Ghanima Atreides:
The Catholics often have a hard time distinguishing the two (Hint: Lust comes first).
Mandramas
@E.D. Kain: I understand your intention after your explanations. I also understand fhtagn and ghanima, since the word “understand” have this ambiguous meaning. I friendly advice to parse potentially ambiguous statements, and edit them to avoid easy attacks. The same premises I suggested on your forest as a free market post.
almostaquantum
Washington Post-Irony
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: and you contradicted yourself.
/sideways smile.
Bill Arnold
@E.D. Kain:
Computer technology in its current form wouldn’t exist without decades of cutthroat competition.
It would have stagnated within one or two orders of magnitude of WW2 levels, boosted a little by custom hardware to satisfy the needs of NSA, weapons labs, weather forecasting.
Ghanima Atreides
@Crusty Dem: i was raised catholic, and attended an all catholic girls school. Guilt R US.
/sadface
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
I repeat – I am happily married, as is ED Kain. You really ought to try your luck with John Cole. He puts up with Rosie, so you might just be admitted to the household if you whine and scratch the door enough.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: why bother with a pole? just get Cole to ban me again. You should mail him. He luffs mail.
;)
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
I don’t see why Cole would bother with banning the in-house entertainment. Half the fun round here is wondering what nonsense you’ll spout when your meds run out next time. Just don’t assume that any of us are interested in your hot and heavy flirtations, that’s all.
HRA
@AkaDad:
This has to be the winning comment of this year so far.
“Now that Obama has released his certificate, anyone who brings it up shall be referred to as Afterbirthers™.”
Two things, so far, I must not do when reading comments here
1. Drink anything
2. Yawn
Also my 1st thought on reading this post, ED, was I had discovered who Sarah Tall and Proud must be.
fhtagn
@Crusty Dem:
And the first shall be lust….
E.D. Kain
@Bill Arnold: yeah – chip technology alone is a fascinating look at cutthroat competition (though one worries that competition could be snuffed out at any time).
Ghanima Atreides
@HRA: Sarah Proud and Tall is morzer. EDK isnt even a tenth as good a writer.
Corner Stone
@HRA:
Yeah. Morzer. And it’s boring as fuck to boot.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: darn. No one has ever seen Suicide Club. I guess i will go my grave without understanding the baby chicks in the skintape room.
>:(
eemom
@Ghanima Atreides:
it’s not Morzer.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Still not interested. Good luck spreading your net for morzer, whoever he may be. Judging by your psychological profile thus far, I’d guess: older man, not interested, ripped the piss out of you, and was a perfect foil for your daddy complex.
Ghanima Atreides
@Ghanima Atreides:
so what the fuck are you?
neither flesh nor fowl?
Corner Stone
@Crusty Dem: Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?
We do, we do.
Ghanima Atreides
@eemom: liar
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Voices in the head getting a bit too self-aware, are they?
Corner Stone
@eemom: Whoever it is, it’s intensely boring.
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: I’ve said it over and over again. I’m a liberal.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: yah, and you aren’t interested that EDK has a JAFI front pager either. It would be like him having Daniel “League of the South” Larison on the front page and expecting ABL to be cool with that.
Larison mainstreams racism, and EDK is mainstreaming islamophobia.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
But have you released your long-form liberal birth certificate, hmm, hmmm?
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
So you failed basic reading comprehension on another blog then?
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: you are not. fhtagen said so.
you are a garden variety socially liberal fiscally conservative libertarian.
do i have to go get quotes from the archives?
I KNOW! I can print your mails to me.
;)
Mandramas
@Bill Arnold: Hmm. I think that it is a mixed truth. Early computers were created by academia and military funding, so it is not a “free market” start.
Transistor itself was created on Bell labs, the R&D paradise created by a natural monopolistic AT&T. No competition here. In fact, Bell labs gives the transistor tech mostly free of charge, since they know they can get profit for it soon. And they created UNIX. And the IP protocol. All for free, in a not competitive environment.
It is truth that PC explosion on the 80’s was due to the fact that IBM released an uncommon open architecture for the 8086 family, that triggered a mass PC clone business. This is arguably a triumph of international free market. But I personally feels that it is more a exception that a rule; computers tech do not follow the usual market patterns, since a lot of the research is shared in non-profit commites.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: Why don’t you read it for me, EDK fanboi?
eemom
@Corner Stone:
whoever the SPT ghostwriter is, he/she has more talent, wit and creativity in one tenth of his/her little pinky toenail than you have in your entire body multiplied by 73.
So, it figures you’d find that boring.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
I hereby officially certify ED Kain as, in my opinion and to the best of my knowledge, a liberal.
eemom
@Ghanima Atreides:
nope.
Anyways I miss morzer. : (
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Keep hiking the skirt and plastering on the make-up, child. Still not interested.
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: there really is no rational way to argue with you. You are resilient to reason.
Midnight Marauder
@E.D. Kain:
Good on you for being able to admit this.
Also, my deepest sympathies for the cyber stalking you will never be able to escape.
fhtagn
@eemom:
Better be careful, or the Scourge of Logic might decide to develop an erotic fixation on older women….
E.D. Kain
@Midnight Marauder: thanks.
@eemom: what happened to morzer?
E.D. Kain
@fhtagn: oh shit, I didn’t even realize I needed certification! Did anyone tell Yglesias this?
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: I don’t like Kowal’s posts on Islam at all. I responded to his first post quite forcefully actually. Why don’t you quote my response?
Ghanima Atreides
umm…i hate to point this out, but EDK still has not admitted that all those beliefs…islamophobia, racism, homophobia, AGW denialism, creationism, fetus=slave ARE NOT REASONABLE.
Do we really have to have four front page posts and a thousand comments again (like l’afaire du Gary Johnson) before he can admit he was WRONG?
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
Well, now you have it. Just change the birthplace from Uganda to say…. Alabama, and we’re golden. No reason for Matt from Cote d’Ivoire to take any interest.
Ooops. I shouldn’t have said that….
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: why dont you kick him the fuck off your blog?
i read your weak tea response to a Kowal post 3 posts ago.
Where have you responded to the last two fucking posts including the one i quoted?
In your head?
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Do we have to go through four years and a thousand sociopathic acts of attention-seeking idiocy before you admit you are a raving kook with a daddy fetish?
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: I said they were unreasonable a few comments ago. You refuse to reason.
And also I’m not planning on responding to everything anyone writes ever. If you care that much, go write at your own blog. You have a blog. I’ve read it. I’ve read you cheer on GW Bush at your blog back when you liked him. I also do not hang that around your neck forever ad infinitum and deny you the ability to change or evolve.
fhtagn
@E.D. Kain:
Ole, ole!
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: oh yeah?
I kicked your ass here.
And I wasn’t the only one.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: well you see….i changed. You haven’t. You are still a socially liberal fiscally conservative libertarian.
Why dont you post at Forbes and the LoOG?
I wont bother you there.
Oh, yeah…you cant link whore balloon juice if you dont come here.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Fine words from the woman who said:
Isn’t it time you kicked yourself off the blogs?
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain:
is that what you said?
lol, you said this.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: lol, i reverted. i rejected both conservatism and christianity. The Needle is from when I was a conservative…and the Ghost Blog is the record of my dual reversions. They are hairshirts I keep to scourge myself.
:)
EDK, however, is the same as he ever was.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Or again:
Such a convincing liberal you make, eh?
brentblah
Need moar popcorn. This is the most entertaining thing I’ve seen all day.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Nope. You are the same jack-ass you were in the days when you idolized Instapundit, grovelled to Malkin and were the Bush-sucker de nos jours.
ED Kain, on the other hand, debates critics, admits it when he makes a mistake, and generally does so as a liberal – he shows tolerance, thinks for himself, gives the state a positive potential role in human life, doesn’t fetishize the free market. You, on the other hand, with your non-blog, no readers and no credibility turn up on here to stalk him, issue ridiculous demands, waste everyone’s time, and generally sound like Glenn Beck without the education. Worst of all, you are boring.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: haha, in your head. I worked on Obamas campaign. I worked on Bennets campaign. Ima muslimah in grad school. And I dont get comments like these.
Omnes @E.D. Kain: No, he didn’t start a war. The French and British didn’t start a war either. The war was happening. It was a civil war, an internal war of rebellion, but it was a war. Our non-participation does not mean that shooting, fighting, maiming and killing were not taking place.
Allan – April 26, 2011 | 3:53 pm · Link
@E.D. Kain:
Bush had a ‘coalition of the willing’ including the UK. It doesn’t make the Iraq war right any more than French and UK jets make the Libya war right.
Oh, I see. You weren’t saying that Libya and Iraq were the same. You were only saying that Obama’s role wrt Libya was the same as Bush’s wrt Iraq, and that the coalitions were the same. And that both interventions were wrong.
__
You’re still completely, irredeemably wrong, of course, but that is a subtly different way in which you’re completely, irredeemably wrong than what I was suggesting.
__
Yes, the international coalition’s role in Libya is expanding as we speak, in smart ways that should provide added cover to the people who are attempting to overthrow their own dictatorial leadership.
__
If only your position on involvement in Libya had prevailed, and all those pesky rebels were already dead, and Gaddafi’s forces were busily murdering all their family members as punishment for their involvement the rebellion. That would be ever so much better, and you could feel really terrific that no “war” ever happened in Libya, because no outside force got involved in any way in Libya’s silly internal affairs.
danimal
@Crusty Dem:
Ahem. @danimal:
I took care of Acorn already.
We now take you back to the pissing match already in progress…
Crusty Dem
@E.D. Kain:
This is perhaps the kindest way to phrase schizophrenia and paranoid delusions I’ve ever seen, I would have gone with “Fucknut McLoonycrackers needs her vitamin H” myself.
Crusty Dem
@danimal:
Correct, still, it needs a deeper wingnut aura that only an a true aficionado of right-wing insanity can provide. IOW, needs more tbogg…
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn:
you just said i was entertaining.
n.u.m.b
I KNEW it!!11!1ONE
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
Oh I see… so now you get to discount your worship of the neo-cons, your enthusiastic embrace of Bush and Cheney, and somehow emerge as a virgin liberal, whiter than the driven snow? You’ve never had the guts to stand up here, as ED Kain has several times, and say: I got it wrong. You aren’t a liberal, just an angry little girl looking for targets to lash out at and other people to stalk. Make as many claims as you like about yourself, but until you start walking the walk and quit pestering other people in your hateful and ignorant way, you have no claim to be a liberal whatsoever.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: and I don’t just hate EDK. I loathe all libertarians with the fire of a thousand suns. Its just EDK is the only front pager that is a libertarian.
See what I did to Kuznicki?
Santiago
@fhtagn:
Well done.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: I have said a kajillion times i got it wrong.
wanna hear it again?
mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
And I am expiating my sins WITH DEEDS by working on Obamas and Bennetts campaigns. I AM WALKING THE WALK.
EDK on the other hand is still fluffing poseurs like Gary Johnson, still fetishizing market-based economics, still concern trolling President Obama, still mainstreaming islamophobia.
and still understanding the non-understandable.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
I don’t care whether you gave the luckless Kuznicki a blowjob while whistling Dixie. However, I do remember this particular cri de coeur you uttered:
Funny, isn’t it, how the incoherent babbling remains the same, and only the names of your pet hates change?
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
So, take the next step. Quit hammering ED Kain for his supposed past, accept that he is, as he claims, a liberal, listen to what he says, debate him intelligently and quit playing the emo-stalker.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
a) He rethought his views on Johnson, and said so. In any case, his focus was much more on Johnson as anti-war and anti the War On Drugs. We’ve gone over this ad nauseam.
b) Taking the free market seriously is a perfectly reasonable position. No-one wants a pure command economy – even you.
c)He isn’t concern-trolling Obama. His views may not always agree with yours, but that’s why we have blogs and debate such things, like adults.
d) Why, yes, ED Kain and the Crusaders will be setting out for the Holy Land any day now. And no, he isn’t “mainstreaming Islamophobia”. There are, however, some self-identified Muslims among us who do their faith little credit with their demented attacks on others. I don’t remember the Koranic passage that praises emo-trolls and cyber-stalkers and promises them paradise.
e) Understanding something is not agreeing with it. I might understand that some bloggers revere George Bush and think of him as a hero of the war on terror. Doesn’t mean I agree with them.
neal peart
Geddy, Alex and I did not read the comments but we all agree that Trump is most likely a Dem mole. It’s very unlikely that GE/Immelt would allow NBC’s biggest star go out and trash the president about such a ridiculous issue. This let’s O get rid of all the nonsense early and in response to a seemingly “Republican/legitimate” issue.
neal peart
Hasn’t anyone else watched “The Daily Rundown” the last few weeks? Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie have been fluffing Trump like crazy with stupid interviews, etc. They never once denounce Trump’s allegations. I suspect this is all stagecraft, with Trump having his little speech while O interrupts to produce the long sought long form birth certificate, whatever the fuck that means.
Yes, I sound paranoid.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Yeah. ZZZzzzZZzzZZZzzzZZZzzzzzz….zzZZZZzzzzz
DPirate
27% of the people I know do not believe Obama is black. There’s simply no proof!
E.D. Kain
@fhtagn: well said. Thanks.
Prasad
Mr. Obama did very well i hope now Donald Trump will calm up i think this matter will ends with this action (Release of Obama’s birth certificate).
fhtagn
@Prasad:
Sorry, but Trump has already moved on to suggesting that Obama got into Columbia and Harvard only because of affirmative action. Crazy’s going to run until it flies off the cliff.
Neo
Obama ended the primary birther hysteria because, after two weeks into the “War on Ryan” campaign, he hadn’t made a noticeable dent in audience appreciation. What was worse was that his own minions in the media were working against his new campaign while they prolonged the “birther” saga with their attempts to embarrass various Republicans.
Instead of making Ryan and his budget the primary point of the current media narrative, the “birther” saga was letting other news, like high energy prices, slip into the news.
Meanwhile, various independents were showing there were susceptible to the “birther” doubts, while seniors were the group who now most embraced the Ryan budget. It was like Obama was invisible, a narcissistic death sentence.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: /sigh
EDK has fluffed Johnson since august 2010 on this very blog. You are credulous indeed if you believe all EDK knew was his war and drug war positions. EDK is not a liberal or he would not have supported GaJo for 3 front page posts and a thousand comments. Johnson is a racist, tenther, union-bashing, rich-folk tax cutting, anti-Roe, AGW denialist market-based libertarian. Just like EDK is a marketbased libertarian.
The freemarket gave us the Econopalypse that ate Americas jobs. That was EDK’s “lightly regulated” market. Freemarket policies have nearly destroyed this country. Yes, I do want something else. And so do all social justice engineers.
He is concern trolling Obama. If EDK is a “liberal” why support a candidate that is anti-union, anti-Roe, into AGW denialism, a racist and a tenther who opposes child labor laws? The only reason i can come up with is that he wanted to use GaJo as a stalking horse to take cheap shots at Obama on Libya. If EDK was an honest agent he could just come out and say that he has problems with Humanitarian Imperialism and Right to Protect Doctrine. But that wouldn’t allow him to say Johnson is better than Obama on the drug war and isolationism or that Obama = Bush and Libya=Iraq.
The next phase in the war against Obama is going to be blame the muslims. From Kowals post.
Bubba is going to be looking for someone to blame…for gas prices, for America’s humiliation in Iraq and A-stan, and for the economy. And most muslims are black and brown. Do you know who else is black? President Obama.
And here EDK works up the Obama is the same as Bush meme.
Understanding something is legitimizing it. Mainstreaming it. Something that is understandable is reasonable.
Kowal is working on reasonable islamophobia like Santorum works on reasonable homophobia and the GOP is working on reasonable racism…because that is what birtherism is…reasonable racism.
so im done here.
I can’t justify posting at a “progressive/liberal” blog where one of the front pagers pimps a racist anti-liberal candidate and hosts a JAFI (just another fucking islamophobe) front pager on his home blog.
fiamannullah
THE
@Ghanima:
Check this: Told ya so.
Divide and rule. NATO have partitioned Libya.
fhtagn
@Ghanima Atreides:
What, again? I’ll give it a week, tops before matoko/hermione/ghanima/somelamealias bungles into battle.
droog
This isn’t over. This long form certificate is a fake. Andrew Breitbart is going to release Obama’s cunei-form birth certificate. This is a clay tablet proving Obama is Sumerian, which I’m told is the deadliest kind of Muslim ever to come out of Kenya.
Ghanima Atreides
@fhtagn: i dont think so.
But let me point out one thing.
EDK never debates me one-on-one. He gets someone like you or puffdaddy mistermix to defend him and add hom me. Or he gets Cole to swing the ban stick.
Because I’m right.
And he is a pansy-ass cowardly weak-argument marketbased libertarian that can’t even fight a muslim aspie grrl.