This is really getting silly:
Really, about the only thing left is the fallout. NBC will can the Apprentice because of shitty ratings, Donald and the birfers will claim this is GE/NBC covering up for Obama, and then Donald can be offered a job with the Fox Business channel, with the new Apprentice appearing in between “Brown Invaders” with Lou Dobbs and the Juan Williams Martyr Hour, with Rick Santelli providing market analysis updates.
Ash Can
And Megyn Kelly in a star-spangled bikini, reading the Constitution aloud.
Mike Goetz
As usual, Obama said it best: “carnival barkers”.
Ghanima Atreides
AMG, that was just awesome.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Ash Can:
Arrgh, seeing Meagan spelled that way makes me want to punch a kitten.
Loneoak
CHECK THE KERNING.
cleek
and Sullivan is incoherent on this.
sounds like he’s trying so hard to justify his Trig obsession that he’s now deemed it the MSM’s and the President’s job to aggressively and quickly debunk every conspiracy theory that comes up.
WaterGirl
whitehouse.gov
catclub
@cleek: “and Sullivan is incoherent on this”
So, no change from usual.
Windy City
@cleek
I read Sullivan’s piece, too, and was infuriated by it. So much so that I shot him the following e-mail missive:
I must disagree with your premise that Obama waited too long to release his birth certificate and therefore contributed to this country’s crippled and basement-dwelling political discourse. Obama released proof of his birth during the primary campaign in June 2008. It was the same printout anyone gets when they request it from state records. He did this. It was way out in the open even before he won the nomination. But the goalposts kept changing for the birthers and the conspiracy theorists and the Republican presidential field that desperately wants to Swift Boat this presidency by sowing doubts on his origins. So thanks to our media chasing the squeaky toy that is birtherism, the president of the United States had to dig into his personal records and find the original copy of his birth certificate…even though he already provided the proof that would get any other American a passport, visa or replacement social security
card.
This is not the president’s fault. He did not string the country along. This is a sad — but appropriate — response to a sustained and unwarranted assault on his credibility. He has been upfront on this issue since day one. Today, when the president of the United States is forced to prove to a fringe, lunatic minority that he is not only eligible for office, but an actual citizen of the United States, is the day that America has officially “jumped the shark.”
Punchy
Prob is, Donald Chump has more skeletons than an anorexia clinic. He’ll need some remedial assistance from Gingrich on how to essplain away to the mouthbreathers on Fox his myriad wives, past Democratic donations, pro-life stance, etc. He’s too dirty for a Faux gig….ha! Who am I kidding? (stares @ boozer Beck, drug addict Rush)…
Rick Taylor
This would all be completely silly and a waste of time, except that Trump was polled as the second most popular Republican candidate running for the Presidency in New Hampshire. What is wrong with that party?
JPL
@Mike Goetz: What a biased statement!!!! I’m appalled that the President of the United States would use a derogatory statement to diss hard working real Americans.
Also, too…
maye
Brown Invaders! I love it.
Benjamin Cisco
GETTING??? Dude, that ship sailed a looonnnnggg time ago.
drew42
I just watched the video of Obama’s statement. Shorter version:
“You guys in the media all suck at your jobs. We’ve got a lot of serious problems in this country, which we can fix — if you stop sucking at your jobs. But you won’t stop sucking, so we’re screwed.”
Linnaeus
Days like this make me glad I live in the Pacific Time Zone and have therefore slept through most of this shit today.
Martin
Note to teatards: Every other country on earth is laughing at us over this.
Comrade Mary
Hey, how is the CNN video loading for the rest of you? It takes about 15 seconds to load for me and it sometimes crashes the Flash player. (FireFox 3.6, NoScript with all appropriate permissions turned on).
zach
I was watching this on and off at the gym on close caption yesterday… the actual story was like 10 minutes long and fairly to-the-point, but the hour of lead-ins before and after every commercial break preceding the story were all “we put the controversy to rest!” without giving the conclusion.
Sullivan’s in fine form today plainly using this nontroversy to justify his continued Trig Palin paranoia: “So Obama had every reason and capacity as both the person whose birth certificate is on record, let alone as president of the US, to have done this months ago. But he decided to play rope-a-dope instead.”
I don’t like the rope-a-dope metaphor; so Obama let his opponents (Trump? Crazy people?) wear themselves out before going for the kill? The past few weeks have been the only time where the birther stuff has really bubbled into wider popular culture, so he killed it. The end.
cleek
@Comrade Mary:
same here.
i’m debating whether i should adBlock all CNN videos.
Joe Beese
Meanwhile, in less important news…
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-04/27/c_13848966.htm
TooManyJens
@Martin:
WHO CARES WHAT THOSE EURO-WEENIES THINK? SUCK IT WORLD! USA! USA!
steviez314
I predict before this is over, Pat Buchanan will say the N-word on TV.
Zifnab
@drew42: If American success or failure hinges the corporate-agenda-laden ratings-fueled media machine, we were well and truly screwed way back in the 80s when they all originally sold out.
I doubt that, though. The internet provides a new avenue of information, and the public at large is adapting to work around the traffic snarl that is the mainstream press.
We’ll make it through this.
Face
Cue an Foxrage over the fact that Obama just threw hard-working, real Amurkin carnival-barkers under the bus.
Serious Person
Anyone notice how Sullivan and Newt Gingrich had the same reaction? WHY NOT SOONER?
Zifnab
@zach:
Zombie lies never die. They just mutate into something crazier and wait for their moment to return.
lllphd
how did anderson keep a straight face though this? an investigation of an investigation of an investigation…of a movement’s question about…? that’s the question i want a reporter to ask; what do they expect to find besides “something fishy?”
is stephanopolous the only reporter who’s actually shown trump the certificate? and then why did he not point out to the combover that regardless of where obama was born, his mother’s being a citizen made her son a citizen too? just, ooh, too silly for words.
now with the questions about his academic performance. ho boy. who saw pat robertson on tweety make a perfect ass of himself yet again? mcauliffe made the point well, this only helps the democrats.
so, interestingly, obama now presents his longform to “stop the silliness.” what a remarkably maestro move! everyone take note here, this is a clue for how our prez operates. he has observed not only what drives this movement (racism) and what gives it oxygen (the media), but what it means for the republican party (doom). so rather than continue with only producing what he produced even before he was nominated, he has now produced what would normally shut the pie holes of all these birther cultists.
but obama knows that it won’t. he knows they’ll now move on to another nit to pick, getting more media attention which is turning off voters. truly genius. i’m going to have to think about how he might have used this same sort of trick in past negotiations that looked like he was caving but he ended up winning.
clever guy, that.
Scott
Someone in the office pointed out that this wouldn’t make the wingnuts stop screaming, but actually, I think that’s a good thing. The GOP is going to double-down on birtherism, because doubling down on lunacy is all they know how to do any more. And the non-crazy voters are going to see nothing from the Republicans for the next six years but deranged ranting about Obama’s birth certificate…
Stillwater
@cleek: and Sullivan is incoherent on this.
Yup. He’s he’s a lazy innumerate sociopathic subterfuger. Actually that’s wrong – he works pretty hard at it.
Benjamin Cisco
I finally had to send Sully an email. Cut to the chase:
__
__
I’m off to take a bath now, I actually feel dirty for having read that column.
PurpleGirl
Has Orly Taitz released a statement yet? (I refuse to try any web associated directly with her.)
kd bart
Did Meagan have to look up “carnival barker” in the dictionary to discover its’ meaning?
New Yorker
You win the internets, John.
maya
I demand to see the original authenticated copies – all freakin’ five of them – of Dick Cheney’s Viet Nam era draft deferments.
Even if he can produce them they should make great material for comedy stand-ups.
KeithW
@Amanda in the South Bay:
The name is “Megan”, and it’s Welsh (and pronounced Megg-an). “Meagan” is a corruption that doesn’t even follow Welsh spelling principles, which Megyn does, at least.
JPL
Since the president had to send someone to Hawaii to get the long form of the birth certificate, how much money did it cost the taxpayers of the United States? Maybe Trump should pay for the cost of this escapade.
New Yorker
Also too, anyone who thinks this is going to kill the birther meme is in for a rude surprise. Conspiracy theories are, by defition, non-falsifiable. There is nothing that will make the true believers doubt that Obama was born in Kenya, just like there is nothing that will make true believers accept that the moon landing actually happened, that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and that Dick Cheney didn’t order the controlled demolition of the the World Trade Center.
kd bart
I can see the lead story later on Neil Cavuto.
“Markets are mixed on news of the President’s alleged birth certificate. Is America facing economic collapse over the President’s legitimacy?” Join Neil Cavuto and his special guest, Dick Morris, as they discuss later on Cavuto and Friends.
zach
It’ll continue to exist in the way that it did in the pre-Trump era. That or the secret Muslim stuff or whatever. What I’m saying is that in the last week, the equation changed a bit: Obama could make fewer people talk about crazy things by releasing his birth certificate. Had he released it when it was just the subject of obscure paranoia, it would’ve increased the amount of people talking about crazy things.
Meredith
@Windy City: Oh, well said.
danimal
@Ash Can:
I can live with that.
As long as there’s a functional mute button.
Jay in Oregon
@Serious Person:
I called it several days ago, and was hardly the first to do so.
Birtherism is immune to logic or evidence; they “know” that Obama isn’t an American citizen, and that’s all there is to it.
Jay in Oregon
Comments like this are why I keep coming back here. The Snark is strong with this one…
maus
@danimal:
Hence why Fox is on everywhere there’s a silent TV, seriously. Do you think it’s for people reading Fox’s obviously superior crawl?
rikryah
he can’t change the real problem
HE’S A BLACK MAN AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
so that is what we have come to, the presidency is now about beating the cable show mythbusters to the punch.
from walk softly and carry a big stick, to shhhh parabolic mics and looking for comtrails.
from fireside chats to tin hat refudiations.
from the bully pulpit to debunking dais.
good to know.
Maus
@FPFT: I liken it more to the media being enamored of journalistic Creationism and gleefully “teaching the controversy”. But yes, this is the logical extension of infotainment.
jak
Media Matters has been documenting Beck’s advertisers for months. It is time to start documenting Trump’s Apprentice advertisers and boycott them.