John Avlon Reveals Birtherism’s LEFT-Wing Origins
I beat up on the folks at the Daily Beast a lot for their left-of-center commentary, so it’s only fair to give ‘em some credit when credit’s due. Today, Wingnuts author John Avlon offers a surprising history of Birtherism’s conservative liberal origins:
But there’s an inconvenient truth liberals are going to have to confront: The Birthers began not on the right, but on the left.
Investigations for my new book, Wingnuts, revealed that the Birther conspiracy theory was first concocted by renegade members of the original Obama haters, Party Unity My Ass, known more commonly by their acronym, the PUMAs. They were a splinter group of hard-core Hillary Clinton supporters who did not want to give up the ghost after the bitter 50-state Bataan Death March to the 2008 Democratic nomination.
In the early summer of ‘08, message boards on sites like PUMAParty.com began lighting up with the ultimate reversal-of-fortune fantasy—that their party’s nomination could be overturned on constitutional grounds. “Obama May Be Illegal to Be Elected President!” read one representative e-mail: “This came from a USNA [U.S. Naval Academy] alumnus. It’ll be interesting to see how the media handle this…WRITE TO YOUR LOCAL newspaper editors etc. Keep this out there everyday possible. Also write to the DNC too!”
Avlon goes on to describe the exploits of longtime Clinton fan Linda Starr, revealing how it was she who brought prominent loon-lawyer Phillip Berg into play. The rest of the whole sordid, stupid affair, as they say, is history.
Refreshingly, Avlon refrains from implicating the Right as a whole in the Birther crusade, correctly laying the blame at the feet of WorldNetDaily and other fringe conservatives, even giving Andrew Breitbart credit for recently standing up to WND’s Joseph Farah on the issue (which is more than can be said for certain “conservative” bloggers).
I think the point can be taken even further, though: I submit that the broader Left doesn’t want the issue to die. As NewsReal and many other blogs have been endlessly documenting, the Left’s primary defense against any and all criticism is to smear their opponents as racist and conspiratorial extremists—and insisting that Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya fits both qualities to a T.
Indeed, a few weeks ago we learned that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee distributed a memo to candidates urging them to prod their Republican challengers into taking a stand on Obama’s citizenship, and Obama himself has condescendingly lectured his opponents that they can “question my policies without questioning my faith, or, for that matter, my citizenship.”
Rooting out true extremists and bad behavior in our midst is an important mission for principled conservatives, but we should never get so wrapped up in self-reflection or proving our own innocence that we assume all of the Left’s outrage is sincere, or we lose sight of the fact that whatever the Right’s failings may be, we still occupy the moral high ground in the battle for America’s heart and soul.
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Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College. He also blogs at the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online.
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Interesting perspective….but what do you make of the fact that Obama has spent $1.7 million in legal costs to keep all of his records sealed. Doesn't common sense inform us that he is trying to hide something? Also, you may not be aware that Obama's mother was enrolled in two night classes at the University of Washington, Seattle just 15 days after Obama's birth. Does it seem probable that she would pop out a baby in Hawaii, hop on a plane just days after the birth, land in Seattle and then rent an apartment, stand in long lines in the gymnasium to register for classes, and line up childcare so soon after birth?!
This whole issue is much murkier and nuanced than you non-birthers seem to realize. Perhaps the problems with his eligibility lie in his adoption by an Indonesian or which passport he travelled under or whether or not he entered American universities as a foreign student. You can continue to mock us birthers, but one day you will be wiping the egg off your face.
Thank you! There is a real question as to his eligiblity to run for the presidency. Was he a naturalized american citizen.
http://bigjournalism.com/kschlichter/2010/02/08/g...
The non-existent Michelle "Whitey" comment tape can be applied here. Originating from Hillary Clinton supporter Larry Johnson, the liberal MSM tried to place the blame on GOP operative Roger Stone. The recent Game Change book also reveals that it was the Hillary camp enthusiastically pushing the story that Obama was a drug dealer in Chicago.
The left's insincerity is duly noted.
They won't even release his SAT scores.
At $1.7 million in legal cost to keep all of his records sealed the first question is if you have nothing to hide why are you hiding and the next is where did a community activist/ professor, newbie senator get the $1.7miilion to pay to cover his ass!
TO ALL THOSE THAT WANT TO CALL THE BIRTHERS RACIST…THE FIRST BIRTHER I WAS AWARE OF WAS A BLACK MAN, Alan Keyes, who questioned his Natural Born Citizenship in a Senatorial race in 2004 to which Obama replied "Well, I am not running for President". I have questions: I thought that anyone running for President had to disclose to the American public all his important documents, like his college records, as well as that long form birth certificate showing hospital name & drs. signatures. Why is anyone mocked and called names that wonder why these records are sealed. They sure made sure that McCain disclosed his birth records. After all the debate regarding his birth all you can find is two flimsy excuses of proof on FactCheck. I was a birth certificate clerk for a hospital in 1971 & you didn't put down "African" for Race of the father because that is not a race & anyone could call in a birth announcement (13 days after the birth) and around the time his mother entered school in Washington. .
BECK who says QUESTION WITHOUT FEAR and TRUST BUT VERIFY mocked birthers for questioning Obama who is obviously hiding something about his important documents. Beck mockingly said '…the crazy birthers think that Obama must have GONE BACK TO THE FUTURE ..or HIS MOTHER MUST HAVE KNOWN HE WOULD BE PRESIDENT ONE DAY..No his mother would have any number of reasons why she would want to have an American birth certificat since she entered school in Washington within 3 wks after birth. . EVEN IF HE WAS BORN ON US SOIL.. HE IS NOT ELIGIBLE TO BE POTUS BECAUSE HE IS NOT NATURAL BORN…(not just born in the US but born by two American born citizens)…and he is a self admitted DUAL CITIZEN …His father was a British subject and as the father his being subject to the British crown makes his child subject to the British crown. FOR NO COMMANDER IN CHIEF IS ALLOWED TO HAVE QUESTIONABLE ALLEGIANCE
Can’t tell you how much I enjoy the fact that the birthers came to comment.