I have mixed feelings on this. I like that, among rational Americans who already knew better, this is now null and void. Hopefully we can leverage the absolute stupidity of the people who still want to talk about this is a weak attempt to really try and disclose their unease at a black President. However, as important as it is for a President to control the news cycle, it won't happen. Obama has been behind the 8-ball since day one in regards to this; he's always responding to accusations and never controlling the conversation. I don't know if this is because it's impossible in 2011 to do this anymore or if his PR team is really that bad. However, there it is. All of the points that were made about President Barack Hussein Obama II receiving the same treatment as another, hypothetical, candidate can be laughed at now. The birther issue was propagated amongst people in a declining demographic: older, white voters (a demographic that I will join someday). As they slip from relevancy while America becomes browner, they're desperately trying to be the loudest voice in the room. Having a President that sounds a foreign as President Obama just makes them uncomfortable.
Maybe Roswell was a bad comparison so howabout Vince Foster? Vince Foster rumors were getting major coverage too for a time but dignifying them by responding to them wasn't the right thing. Also consider the coverage of the birther issue, such as Anderson Cooper's interview of Trump, most of it was debunking the birther issue and exposing it for being lunacy. Consider again if this wasn't a fringe, in terms of unlikelihood of it being true, why would even Michelle Bachmann back off from it? Obama could have released the birth certificate at any time, and frankly I wouldn't have unless the media turned from debunking to purporting, but he didn't need to. While this issue was news it was one that wasn't doing more harm to the Republicans by making it harder for them to coalesce around other issues than it was to Obama.
FAKE! Silly to even acknowledge and respond to those claims. Seems way too defensive...at least at this point in the game. If anything, it should have been released when the issue first came up...not a couple years later. Just looks awkward.
as far as the public is concerned, only a handful of republicans have outrightly declared Obama is born in the US soil but they're grow fast because they'll be forced to because it became obvious that Trump didn't have anything else to add to the birther claims which were all debunked already anyway so while the public is still equating republicans = birthers boom Obama releases his birth certificate
Not exactly. Using another example. A few years ago NASA released photos from a telescope showing the Apollo landing site. That didn't shut up the fake Moon landing nuts (Mooners?) but gave them a brief moment of more coverage when they had largely faded back behind other conspiracies like Truthers. Legitimacy isn't just about how true the issue is but it is about how much attention is paid to it and in politics how much of a threat it is to political opponents. The Swift Boaters weren't legitimate in regard to the substance of their attacks but they were legitimate in terms of how much of a threat they were to John Kerry. The birthers weren't near that level of threat to Obama and there was no reason to elevate them by responding.
Birthers are getting a lot of coverage but they certainly aren't dominating news coverage or drowning out everything Obama is trying to do. If anything things like gas prices are a far far far greater threat to Obama's political chances than birthers. I mean its not like Rep. Ryan was bringing up the birther issue to counter Obama's budget proposals.
Trump's loving this, I'm sure, but it will be the end of his chances. He has little to no other plan besides trashing whoever is in the spot he wants, that's nothing new. This makes him move on to the next ridiculous attempt to discredit the President, and by the time he is in force on that front, he will be fighting just to be seriously considered by the GOP. I'm not sure it was a smart move or not, seems silly to do it now, but it will quash Trump's short term plan and put him back in line. I agree with those that say this boondoggle should have been allowed for a longer period before slamming them down, if only to let them focus on it. That said, I'm amazed Trump is even a viable choice at this point, if he truly is/was. Who in their right mind would vote for this guy considering the climate and problems of the past Decade?
He may not even run. That's why I think this is brilliant. Trump got publicly castrated on this while he was still a "viable" (lol) presidential candidate on the right. If he decides not to run and Obama hadn't done this, he would have lost the opportunity to slam the Republicans on the issue.
the birther hot air balloon has reached it's peak with Trump (leading republican presidential nomination in polls) for the public, republicans = birthers but recently, it was obvious that trump as a dead end which means its on its way down to crash. A handful republicans have publicly bailed out and more will So before more republicans followsuit, Obama releases his birth cert to the public so now the birther hot air balloon has crashed with majority of repubs in the publics eyes
He never was. As you said, "Who in their right mind.." Trump would never make it past a Primary, if he even got that far. He would contribute very little to nothing, as shown by all his recent outbursts that make him look ridiculous. He can't even run his own business without going bankrupt multiple times.
I'm looking at this from a campaign perspective. Not my own. Obama gains nothing from this in terms of reelection momentum. He looks weak by bending to a group of invalid conspiracy nuts and legitimizes his critics at the same time. He should have either crushed this back in 2008 or just ignored it altogether.
True, but I don't really think it matters in the grand scheme of things. The election will not be won or lost on this 'issue,' regardless who runs against him. Anyone who believed the birther argument had no intention of ever voting for him. Anyone who didn't, won't base their vote on anything related.
No they weren't - Vince Foster rumors never made it into the mainstream. They never made it to GOP Presidential Contenders. They never made it into State legislatures. You never had 30%+ of Americans questioning whether they might be true. And yet, that's time that Anderson Cooper is not talking about the GOP Medicare Plan or the budget debate. It doesn't matter what the coverage is - it matters how much it's getting.
Not when he has the upperhand in the budget discussions and is trying to pin the Paul Ryan budget on the GOP. The GOP would love nothing more than to NOT have to talk about their support for dismantling Medicare.
The rare voice of reason in this thread. The topic had been quiet for a long time until Trump came on the scene. The certificate would have likely never been released if Trump did not stir up this talking point. That said, this is not a clever tactic that Obama is just now using. Its a tactic of last resort and one that needed to be used. Diehard liberals hate labels, but the certainly have created one with the term "birther". In their view, if you did not fully accept that BHO was born in the US or had a question about the legitimacy, then you were a birther. Most of the individual (labeled as birthers) I have run across have been agnostic about the issue, like myself and Roxran. There is no definitive proof or disproof about the issue and accept him as president, just as the same applied for nearly every other president. Then you have those who are adamant that he was not born in Hawaii. These same people tend to associate him to being a Muslim and a terrorist. Its not going to be a great surprise when these same people will still question the long form. They will exist, just as there will be those who insist that Bush was behind 9/11. Its just best to ignore those type of people and move on.
