Re: Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding...

On Thu, 28 Apr 2011, pcg wrote:
> There *wasn't* any doubt about Obama's birthplace. Never in his 
> academic, professional, or political career.

But did his birthplace *matter* in any of those careers?  I mean, there 
are *lots* of things I don't doubt because I never have any particular 
reason to think about them.

> His birthplace was never in question until somebody, somewhere, 
> *decided* that it was. Then, after sufficient legal documentation was 
> produced to debunk the bizarre and baseless accusation, this party 
> persisted with their objection.

Sigh.  I agree that the legal documentation that was produced should have 
been enough to make him eligible for the presidency.  However, a piece of 
paper that transcribes an unseen piece of paper (assuming there are no 
intermediate transcriptions) could, of course, be wrong.

Though I guess the birthers would then have to explain who faked the 
documents in the first place, and why.

And now, for some reason, I'm thinking of some of the more insane 
arguments I've seen in the field of historical-Jesus studies, specifically 
from those who claim that Jesus never existed.

> Why was the accusation raised in the first place?

Because Hillary Clinton was losing in the Democrat primaries.

> Why, after legal documentation was offered, did the accusation persist? 
> Why, after *further* legal documentationj has been offered, does the 
> accusation *still* persist?

Because some people got bees in their bonnets.

> What is it about Barack Obama, in particular, that engenders these sorts 
> of baseless accusations? What's different about him than about any other 
> President? Let's think hard.

Well, for one thing, his father was a foreigner who knocked up his mother 
while attending an American university for a few years.  It doesn't have 
to matter which particular nation or race that father came from.  As Mark 
Steyn once put it, Obama is the first son of a British subject to become 
president since the immediate post-Revolutionary period, and no one 
disputes this.  So that itself makes Obama seem kind of "foreign".

But if you're going to say that Obama Sr.'s *blackness* matters here, then 
all I can say is "sauce for the goose," etc.  Obama *based* his bid for 
the presidency on his blackness.  So if he can use race to his advantage, 
then why can't it be used to his disadvantage, too?

> Other Presidents have been accused of corruption, philandering, 
> back-room dealing, election-fixing, even murder; so why is it *this?"

Because Obama hasn't *accomplished* anything!  Not even corruption, 
philandering, back-room dealing, election-fixing or murder!  :)

> When one starts asking these questions, it doesn't take long to come 
> around to race, or to at least consider the possibility that race plays 
> a part. After all, he's the first non-white President . . .

Well, that we know of.  There were rumours about Harding.  :)

And didn't some black pundits call Clinton "the first black president"? 
Well, I guess they meant it metaphorically, which means they were playing 
on certain cultural stereotypes etc.  But anyhoo.

-- 
dadl-ot mailing list
http://mail.thehood.us/mailman/listinfo/dadl-ot_thehood.us
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot