“It’s racist. Just call it for what it is.”
— MSNBC president Phil Griffin
UPDATE: 1:47 PM & 2:22 PM & 2:41 PM July 29, 2009 The Birther Conspiracy Theorists Lou Dobbs has been promulgating various Wingnut Conspiracy Theories for years and has gotten away with it time and again.
Conspiracy Theorist Dobbs Discredits CNN
Media Matters.org July 29, 2009
Lou Dobbs argues questions raised about Obama's citizenship legitimate and the whole issue is a matter of opinion and not a matter of fact.
Lou Dobbs upset he claims that "left Wing groups" are attacking him unfairly. Poor multi-millionaire racist conservative anti-Obama Lou Dobbs is in his view the only voice of reason on TV even though he has created an environment of doubt about Obama's birth certificate and whether or not he is the legitimate president of the United States. Dobbs thinks he is out of the woods as it were by saying in his purposely nuanced manner " that in his opinion Barack Obama is an American citizen". Note he says "in his opinion" which means that he can not say with absolute certainty that Obama is an American citizen thereby giving himself and his viewers a great deal of wiggle room. So the whole issue is framed as being uncertain and a matter of opinion. Like other conservative anti-Obama media personalities Lou Dobbs denies he is fueling the right wing anti-Obama extremists. So he comes up with a half-baked sort of explanation which just muddies the waters more as he gives a wink and a nod to the lunatic fringe. Meanwhile what his viewers hear is tha their hero Lou Dobbs is being attacked on this issue and others for exercising his right to freedom of speech and the freedom of the press.
Lou Dobbs defends his Birther Remarks on Obama with new documents July 29, 2009
Donny Deutsch Calls Birthers "Hate-Mongering" "Fear-Mongering" "Racists" on MSNBC
July 28,2009
Klein Puts CNN's "Most Trusted" Brand at Risk by Eric E. Burns at Huffington Post, July 27
On July 23, CNN president Jon Klein acted like the head of a serious news network. On July 24, he acted like an intern for Lou Dobbs.
During the previous week, Dobbs had breathed new life -- and, as a CNN anchor, unprecedented legitimacy -- into a long-discredited conspiracy theory concerning the details of President Obama's birth. Other CNN hosts roundly debunked accusations that Obama wasn't born on U.S. soil. In fact, Kitty Pilgrim, who guest-hosted Lou Dobbs Tonight on July 17, used her time in his chair to do just that, stating, "CNN has fully investigated the issue, [and] found no basis for the questions about the president's birthplace." And yet Dobbs persisted. On July 20, he reported on the story again, summing it up this way: "A lot of questions remaining, and seemingly, the questions won't go away because they haven't been dealt with ... straightforwardly and quickly."
While Dobbs said that he personally believed Obama was a citizen, he had fueled the "birther" fringe by repeatedly complaining that Obama had yet to produce an original birth certificate listing a doctor and hospital.
..."Look, Lou's his own show," he told reporter and blogger Greg Sargent on July 24, the same day that Dobbs used his nationally syndicated radio program to ask, "Where is that birth certificate? Why hasn't it been forthcoming?" Klein wrote off Dobbs' critics -- not those pushing the conspiracy -- as biased partisans. "I understand that people with a partisan point of view from one extreme or another might get annoyed that certain subjects are aired." He reportedly claimed Dobbs' coverage amounted to "a few conversations with people representing a wide range of opinions." Klein also told Sargent that Dobbs was under no pressure to stop reporting the story. "I think no good journalist would ever say that a particular story will never be covered again. Every day brings new facts, new pegs."
...By saying one thing in private and another in public, Klein has blown a huge hole in CNN's credibility. CNN likes to characterize itself on air as "the most trusted name in news." But how can viewers trust anything from a network whose president deems "legitimate" the promotion of questions that even many conservatives have dismissed as lunacy, and their proponents "nutburgers"?
An April 27 New York Times article reported that Klein touted what he said was the network's commitment to high journalistic standards, differentiating it from its competitors. "We would do ourselves a disservice if we thought that our main competitors were the other so-called cable news networks," he said. "They don't have journalists on in prime time." He also expressed discomfort with Dobbs' highly opinionated style and implied that changes were under way. "If you watch Lou's show, he's doing more of a straight newscast than he's ever done before."
And, yet, notwithstanding Klein's dismissal of "the other so-called cable news networks," it was left to Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, to state the truth about the whole birther movement. "It's racist," said Griffin, according to The New York Times. "It's racist. Just call it for what it is."
Klein has a lot of questions to answer.
The next day, he went a step further, telling the L.A. Times that Dobbs' broadcasts had been, simply put, "legitimate."
From "dead" to "legitimate" in less than 48 hours.
Klein owes CNN's viewers an explanation. Does he harbor any doubt that President Obama is a U.S.-born citizen? Assuming he doesn't -- and his July 23 email was pretty definitive on that score -- what about the story, and Dobbs' actions, could possibly be considered legitimate?
"The Birthers in Congress: Seventeen men and women who are either enabling the fringe movement or having trouble admitting Obama is president" By Gabriel Winant Salon.com,July 28,2009
Salon has here in its (virtual) hand a list of 17 names of members of Congress who have either expressed support for, or refused to oppose, the idea that America has a foreign president problem. You'd be surprised how hard it is to get a member of Congress to say that Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen with the right to be president. Or maybe you wouldn't. Meet the Birthers on the Hill:
For Example:
...Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif.: Though he wasn't the first member of Congress to board the birther train, Campbell is perhaps the most infamous, thanks to an interview on the topic with an unamused Chris Matthews. Campbell cites the same talking points -- Romney, Goldwater and McCain -- as Posey did. "Nice try," responds Matthews, who then showed him the president's birth certificate. "You're verifying the paranoia out there. You're saying to the people, 'You're right, that's a reasonable question, whether he's a citizen or not.'"
...Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.: Probably the know-nothingest member of the Senate, Inhofe thinks climate change is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Coming in second, presumably, is the current fraudulent presidency. The Oklahoma conservative recently told Politico that the Birthers "have a point," adding, "I don't discourage it ... But I'm going to pursue defeating [Obama] on things that I think are very destructive to America." In a later clarification, he accused the White House of not doing "a very good job of dispelling the concerns of these citizens."
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.: Asked about the president's eligibility at an Alabama town hall meeting back in February, Shelby said, "Well, his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president." Almost immediately afterward, his spokesperson was saying that the local paper had distorted what happened, adding, "While [Shelby] hasn't personally seen the president's birth certificate, he is confident that the matter has been thoroughly examined."
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.: This Tennessee politician, a co-sponsor of the Posey bill, trusts that the president is a natural-born citizen, says a spokesperson. She just thinks it's mighty odd that candidates for office don't have to meet "the same basic identifying standard as a 16-year-old Tennessean aspiring to a driver's license." Obviously, as government bloats and journalism withers, the DMV is much easier to trick than the international media.
and see:
Birther Conspiracy Theory Going Global
" ‘Birther Movement’ conspiracy theory persists that Obama is not US citizen" THE GUARDIAN, WASHINGTON Jul 30, 2009
“It’s racist. Just call it for what it is.”
— MSNBC president Phil Griffin
It’s not because the president is black, of course. It’s because those upstanding Americans who cheered as US President Barack Obama’s predecessor rode roughshod over the Constitution in his “war on terror” have found a new enthusiasm for a strict adherence to the US’ supreme law. Specifically, they’re interested in a clause requiring the president to be born a natural-born citizen (although that doesn’t mean to say that they’re not still worried that Obama is secretly Muslim).
A long-brewing conspiracy theory has it that Obama entered this world as a subject of the British crown in east Africa because his father was Kenyan. A Hawaii birth certificate and birth notices in the Honolulu press went some way to dampen the feverish speculation when it emerged during Obama’s election campaign.
But now the issue has returned with a vengeance, driven in part by a high-profile CNN presenter, right-wing talk radio and a video of a woman haranguing her Republican congressman, prompting her supporters to recite the pledge of allegiance. Now, members of Congress are sponsoring a bill to require all future presidential candidates to show their birth certificates.
‘Birther’ Boom By Eric Etheridge July 22, 2009
“Slowly but surely, this meme is going mainstream,” says Allpundit.
“Did Lou Dobbs really GO THERE? Seriously? This is getting absurd,” says the First Read team at MSNBC.
Six months into his presidency, the charge that Barack Obama is — literally — un-American is gaining not losing steam. Yes, the Birther bump is growing.
Need some backstory? Allow The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder to explain: “Birthers, for the uninitiated, is a term used by the media to ridicule those who believe that the president’s Hawaiian birth certificate is fake and that because he was ostensibly born in Kenya, not the United States, he was never eligible to be president in the first place.”
"Lou Dobbs: Birther" at Lawyers,Guns and Money blog, July 21, 2009
also see: "BREAKING: Lou Dobbs’ Birth Certificate a Fake!" From The Left. Wordpress.com, July 28, 2009
and:
Petition CNNs Dobbs problem
As we have seen since Obama's inauguration the Republicans have been the Party of No and so are against anything the Obama administration says or does. As Monty Python once pointed merely saying "NO" or contradicting or naysaying whatever someone says is not a "real argument". Or as someone else pointed out it is like Groucho Marx's song " Whatever it is I'm against it ".
The anti-Obama faction in the United States is more than willing to distort the facts about policy and legislation of the Obama administration. For the Republicans and conservatives and their racist base they see the election of Obama as a declaration of war against traditional America an attack on its institutions and on American values. These values include racism, homophobia , sexism and elitism and Nativism and hyper-patriotism. They believe in My country right or wrong except when in their view a black man usurps the presidency. There is a segment of the American population who can not reconcile the fact that a black was elected legally to be president and the Republicans and their ultra-conservative Media spokespersons see nothing wrong in stirring up this sort of racism and paranoia.
People For The American Way has sent out a bulletin to clarify the confusion and lies and distortions of the Republicans and the conservative echo chamber concerning the "Hate Crimes Bill". When the Mainstream Media becomes saturated with this right wing propaganda it is difficult to counter act with facts and the truth since all such attempts on the part of Obama supporters is characterized as being being left-wing propaganda. For example the Hate Crimes Bill is characterized as being part of a hidden agenda according to the Right wing . The laws purpose they claim is to push forward the evil homosexual agenda and as a means to stop Christian ministers or pastors from calling Homosexuality as a sin etc. They make wild accusations that such a law would in fact protect sexual perversion or sexual deviance such as paedophilia . But they ignore the fact that this is not true and that paedophilia, or Necrophilia or sex with animals and other forms of sexual deviance are covered under other statutes as criminal acts. But a conservative or a Republican never allows facts get in the way of their opinions and beliefs or their wacky "Conspiracy Thories".
"As Senate Prepares to Take Up Hate Crimes Bill, Far Right’s Inflammatory Claims Should Not Be Taken Seriously" Lies should be refuted as a matter of record,
but demonstrably false and ridiculous attacks deserve to be dismissed Right Wing Watch People for the American Way
and so it goes,
GORD.
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