Posted under "Birther" & Constitution Party & Virgil Goode
William Saturn at IPR asked Goode his thoughts on birtherism. Here’s Goode:
I would like to see the original birth certificate of President Obama. I assume that there exists an original file with the physician signed paper. Until I have the opportunity to see such original material I am reserving further comment.
If I’m going to rag on Goode, in fairness I should praise him when he gets something right. Goode answer this question adeptly and about the only way he could. Had he declared himself a convinced anti-birther or brushed off the question he would have alienated a huge portion of the kind of people who might vote for a conservative third party candidate. Had he declared himself a convinced birther he would have created a big distraction. His answer expresses just the right amount of skepticism. (Possibly good coaching.) Good for him.
Matt Weber on 29 May 2012 at 2:39 pm #
We have seen it though.
RedPhillips on 29 May 2012 at 4:46 pm #
Matt, no one has seen the original document on file in Hawaii except presumably Hawaii officials. What we have seen is allegedly an electronic copy of the original, the authenticity of which was immediately questioned by credible people. Goode is saying he wants to see the original. This indicates he has some familiarity with the issue. Like I said, this is possibly the result of good coaching.
RedPhillips on 29 May 2012 at 4:51 pm #
Sav, the more I think about it, the more I think you are correct. While coming out as a birther would subject him to ridicule from some quarters, it would earn him a lot of cred with birther true believers and there are probably some people who would vote on that issue alone.
Matt Weber on 29 May 2012 at 5:55 pm #
If we are expecting Obama’s original paper certificate to make a whirlwind tour of the country so that everyone can see and touch it, then Birtherism has jumped the shark more completely than I could have ever expected. I don’t hate the Birthers, but it is over. You won.
C Bowen (Hawthorne) on 29 May 2012 at 7:35 pm #
I have offered my advice before, that Goode should run a hardcore Birther campaign, and be ready to strike should Rubio get the VP nod–could do better then ‘break even.’
Kirt Higdon on 29 May 2012 at 8:00 pm #
I’ve noticed that this “issue” is being brought up more and more often by Obama’s supporters in the media, especially on CNN, but also MSNBC. This should give all but the terminally clueless an idea of who benefits from bringing this up again and again. Romney supporter and birther-in-chief Trump is still sounding off about this and Romney is being labelled a birther simply because he has not roundly repudiated Trump and cast him into the darkness outside. Do you think the BHO people would be so eager to label Romney a birther if they thought this was worth a lot of votes to him? Do you think they care if Goode gets 2 or 3 extra votes by being a “hardcore birther”?
RedPhillips on 29 May 2012 at 8:03 pm #
I agree C Bowen as long as he doesn’t dogmatically assert that Obama was born in Kenya. He should just make an issue of the uncertainty and the failure of the liberal press to do their job.
He should also run on the issue of what was the original intent of “natural born.” If Rubio or Jindal is the Veep pick, I could see the WND crowd coming his way in large numbers and even a Farah endorsement.
RedPhillips on 29 May 2012 at 8:07 pm #
Matt, no one expects the original long form to make the rounds, and I suspect you know that. What they would like is for the original to be scrutinized by experts. Heck, it would be nice if one of the big boys (CBS, CNN, the Washington Post, etc.) would scrutinize the electronic copy he released. None have.
Matt Weber on 29 May 2012 at 9:29 pm #
I’m afraid I don’t know that. At this point I don’t think I could predict which way the Birthers will go next. I’m only sure that they will indeed go somewhere rather than letting it rest. The media is in the tank for Obama, but for the normal people these kinds of things have a lifespan, and Birtherism is well into tiresome. I can’t imagine what they hope to achieve at this point.
C Bowen (Hawthorne) on 29 May 2012 at 9:36 pm #
Yes, of course, Red, re: Kenya; he should mention some of the other theories around another father, and he should branch out, Beyond Left and Right, and point out the long standing ties between the Geithner family and Obama/Obama’s mother, and return to Obama’s work with CIA front, Business International.
Kirt;
I am not sure why I should care about Romney, Trump, or Obama peeps, but you didn’t prove a point anyway. Romney gets close to Trump (one would assume he thinks it helps) ; Obama people raise the Birther issue (for their base consumption). No one thinks anything either way– because they don’t know.
Obama people are eager to make the Birther question unique to Kenya or not, but Birther covers a lot of other fruitful ground–including the very good work the Left has done on Obama and CIA.
Kirt Higdon on 30 May 2012 at 4:14 am #
I’m not sure what “the very good work the Left has done on Obama and CIA” refers to. The CIA reports to Obama since he is president. Is someone alleging that he was a CIA agent sometime in the past? True or not, if widely believed, that allegation would help him a lot more than it would hurt him by burnishing his terror warrior credentials with a James Bond sheen. Unhappily the CIA is quite popular with most of the electorate as are the other organs of the national security state. the TSA possibly excepted. The “other fruitful ground” of the birthers seems to include such things as college transcripts, ghost written books, affirmative action favoritism, and resume puffing lies. Many of these are either true or probably true, but no one but Obama obsessives care. Anyone who would vote in his favor despite (or because of) his policies of the last 4 years is not going to vote against him because he lied or smoked pot in college.
Feltan on 30 May 2012 at 4:16 am #
If I recall correctly, it is up to each (and every) state secretary-of-state to certify eligibility for a candiate to run in their state. For those of us not in love with Federalism, I wonder why no state has made a big stink out of it. Arizona apparantly thought about it, but was satisfied with the response from Hawaii.
I suspect, deep down, he was born in Hawaii. There is something else on the long form that he wants to keep private. If reports are to be believed, President Obama has spent a fortune keeping this document supressed. There has to be a reason — I am going to guess that the paternity is not what one thinks.
This is an issue that should die a dignified death. There is nothing, in my opinion, to be gained and much to be lost if this is pursued. Some people are going to end up looking like fools, and it worries me that it won’t be the President.
Regards,
Feltan
RedPhillips on 30 May 2012 at 5:08 pm #
Feltan, I think he was born in Hawaii, but I also think his actions are those of someone trying to hide something. I have always said that I believe it is more likely than not that he is hiding something. That, of course, leaves open the possibility that he isn’t hiding anything.
But were the real BC to contain info different than what he released, that would mean he deliberately fabricated an official document and attempted to pass it off as real. That would be a big deal, I’m pretty certain a felony. More of a big deal than if he had confessed upfront uncertain paternity or whatever.
I don’t think his Presidency could withstand that. Of course he would have his defenders, but the birthers would all be able to dance around saying “We told you so.”
Matt Weber on 30 May 2012 at 8:09 pm #
Birtherism does tap into a vein of suspicion against Obama. One thing the Birthers have constantly failed to do is make it known on what grounds they suspect Obama–and only Obama–of being an illegitimate candidate. So naturally the press fills in the vacuum with race. But it isn’t race per se, it is having a foreign parent. If Jesse Jackson were running there would be no Birtherism.
But Obama is an American. It’s hard to imagine a more American president. We may not like what that says about America, but there it is.
C Bowen (Hawthorne) on 30 May 2012 at 8:29 pm #
As I have noted, questioning parentage and pretenders to the throne, has a long history, and is a political tradition of our people, here and the ancestral lands across the pond.
As recently as Bill Clinton–whose father returned from WW II, got Ma pregnant, and promptly died in a car crash–there were questions about his father. And I should mention, liberal Roger Morris uncovered that Clinton worked for the CIA, spying at Oxford, and Clinton’s trip to Russia always had a little bit of mystery to it.
And in popular culture, The Half-Blood Prince was a Harry Potter edition–the anglosphere is clearly interested in such things.
Sav does get at the real point, which is Identity. The Birther movement is implicit identity, asking what does it mean to be an American? This is a healthy tendency that is shoe horned into the material world–where was he born? but the question is larger and more profound.
And if you want to play politics, the folks do seem interested in the birth certificate.
RedPhillips on 30 May 2012 at 8:47 pm #
“The the birther movement is based on stupidity and intellectual dishonesty.”
Please elaborate.
RedPhillips on 31 May 2012 at 2:41 am #
Sav, you are way over thinking this. Somehow, and I don’t know how, the rumor arose that he was born in Kenya and it spiraled from there. Rumor has it that Hillary’s campaign was behind the original whispers. Maybe some people recalled reading the recently discovered bio for his book that said he was born in Kenya. But once it got out there Obama made the situation worse by refusing to release documents making himself look guilty (assuming he really had nothing to hide).
The birthers hurt themselves by making it primarily about Kenya in the beginning and by being dogmatic. The facts never warranted dogmatism. That may have been “stupid,” (unwise would be a better term), but it’s not “intellectually dishonest.”
But I don’t know why Americans would never vote for a descendant of slaves. In fact, a lot of people would fall all over themselves for a chance to vote for a black person so they could prove how not racist they are. (Cain would have competed strongly with Romney had his campaign not imploded.) Obama benefited by never having been identifiably part of the racial grievance hustling business. The American public would never elect Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. They might elect Cain.
For what it’s worth, blacks strongly supported Hillary until rather late in the game when Obama started to seem like he could really win, based initially on his support among upper class whites.
Matt Weber on 31 May 2012 at 4:14 am #
Actually, Obama did release a birth certificate back during the 08 campaign. Only then, the birthers decided it wasn’t good enough and they wanted the long form. Then Trump comes along, 4 years later, and manages to get the long form released. Now that’s not good enough either (although the issue has completely dropped off the public radar now).
C Bowen (Hawthorne) on 31 May 2012 at 8:24 pm #
Red;
Let me try another way.
The adoption of the Constitution was favored by Southern “nationalist” interests, but was a close vote most everywhere, and if we think the game is rigged now, the vote to ratify had all the elements, threats, bribes, slander, and fraud one would expect…yet the “rightwing” party and impulse of our day uses the “written” Constitution (dubiously imposed) as the rallying point, and most liberals of the Middle and Upper classes, still respect the written Constitution in a way that say, a Sam Francis did not (dead letter and so forth.)
Whatever the reason (and this actually relates to the myth of Common Sense) the written document (material) is very important, where Sav (and myself) are discussing the esoteric meaning. I don’t really get worked up about the Constitution; I don’t have a problem saying we are after something better then the forefathers and their schemes–and I don’t care for that made-up history that “the Constitution, linked to the incorporating document the Declaration of Independence, was written by good Christian men.”
But I get what people mean when they say support the Constitution.
I get what people mean when they say, show me the Birth Certificate (or what not.)
RedPhillips on 31 May 2012 at 11:58 pm #
“Actually, Obama did release a birth certificate back during the 08 campaign.”
Ugh Matt, I thought we had been over this.
BO released an electronic copy of his short form bc, the authenticity of which was immediately questioned. The cry went up immediately for him to release the long form. BO drug his feet and lawyered up, increasing the perception of guilt. Trump reactivated the issue. BO then released an electronic copy of his long form bc, the authenticity of which was questioned within hours of its release by credible people.
At NO POINT in any of this has a major media source attempted to authenticate forensically the two documents. NOT ONE! NOT ONCE! Nor have they attempted to authenticate his draft registration card which was very credibly questioned. Does this not bother you? Are we supposed to just trust the self-serving attestations of politicians? Why? Because no politician has ever embellished a resume? Because no politician has ever tried to cover up a lie? Because politicians as a class are trustworthy? Because Democrats never lie? Because Presidents are always honest? Because the American people would never elect a liar? It’s absurd. Did the press take Nixon’s word for it when he said, “I am not a crook”? The press is not doing due diligence. It is deliberately looking the other way and acting as a guardian of the conventional wisdom. I am not OK with that, and it baffles me how anyone could be.
RedPhillips on 01 Jun 2012 at 12:11 am #
C Bowen, I am an anti-Federalist. I think we should have stuck with the Articles of Confederation. Almost everything the anti-Federalists predicted happened. But it isn’t a coincidence that some of the best Constitutionalists are really anti-Federalists. Following the Constitution as intended is a much closer approximation of anti-Federalism than is the mess we have today. I’m not sure how it helps our cause to disparage the Constitution. (I run into this among some neo-Confederates as well.) It seems to me that first you must convince people that we should actually follow the Constitution before we make the leap of returning to the Articles. Going from here to the Articles is simply a bridge too far. Also, the number of people who have issues with the Constitution from the big government left dwarfs the number who have issue with it from the limited government right, so it seems to me that bad mouthing the Constitution plays into the hands of the enemy.
That said, I’m not sure how this relates to birtherism unless you are making the connection that both Constitutionalism and birtherism are legalistic and technical appeals.
C Bowen (Hawthorne) on 01 Jun 2012 at 12:18 am #
Red;
I am not suggesting it would be good politics to be against the Constitution–I thought I was clear in delineating between the political and historical/philosophical but I will say again.
But that is my point.
For whatever reason, a material thing is of importance to the masses. As Sav noted, one cannot just question the legitimacy of an elected President, one needs some legalism to hide behind–enter your concluding point.
So yes, I am making a sort of point that the minds have been geared towards only having legalistic or technical appeals (e.g. I am against illegal immigration) because it does not compute to expand beyond, to assert one’s political sovereignty.
And if that is where my countrymen are, I will be a sympathetic voice.
Tis a fruitful topic.
C Bowen (Hawthorne) on 01 Jun 2012 at 12:22 am #
And BTW, that would make you an anti-Anti-Federalist. The anti-Federalists did not exist, and the Anti-Federlists played the role of Beautiful Loser (if with a nice bonus.)
Matt Weber on 01 Jun 2012 at 5:21 am #
Well yes, we have been over it. And you apparently have conceded that the birthers have continually moved the goalposts every time they’ve gotten what they wanted. What amazes me is that you can’t understand how this looks. There is absolutely no reason to believe that if the latest birther demand is satisfied, that they will finally give it up.
Also, if the controversy is no longer about Obama being possibly an illegitimate candidate by reason of birthplace, then there is no longer any standing to demand anything from Obama. He is not obliged to provide any information that he doesn’t feel like providing. If this refusal leads to people not voting for him, then that’s fair game. So no, this thing is over and Goode would be wise to distance himself from it as much as possible.
I understand the identity concerns, but this country has very real and mounting problems and we’re supposed to be concerned about birth certificates. It’s just madness at this point.