Brilliant move. He strung them along for a while riling up their base...all the while forcing the hands of the TEA/Repub party leadership/news agencies to further marginalize the Birthers from their own base. THEN he releases the Cert they so clamored because he knows they wont be satisfied at all and move on to the next conspiracy, further creating a vision of idiocy these people follow to the majority of educated electorate. Obama essentially is fracturing his opponents into two camps: Birther and Nonbirther with a wider rift than ever before. Thus creating a smaller voting base for this opponent next cycle. PLUS to the moderates they view these people all the in the same boat so if its a contest between lesser of two evils OBAMA WINS.
No, I asked those who do believe Obama was born in the United States and those who don't believe it to "show me the money," i.e. prove their case one way or the other. (Do a search or just go back to the original thread.) Because I do not have blind faith in the cult of Obama, you and others want me in the "birther" camp. As I explained, the whole issue is a tempest in a teapot with little importance because Obama is the elected president. IMO Obama came out with his birth certificate (and I sincerely hope unbiased experts verify it) because his credibility is so low that he was forced to disclosure. He has lied so often and so egregiously that a growing segment of the American people is having serious doubts about him, both politically and personally. Once he was sworn in as president, I have not regarded the birth certificate issue as important. The issue was a smokescreen by both sides, with Obama using it to as a smokescreen to keep his supporters from examing his serious changes of heart on virtually every issue on which he campaigned. I make no secret that I will work for any candidate who runs against him because his policies and practices are anathema to the preservation of the United States.
More possible political strategery here. Trump is showing no signs of backing down - do other GOPers now have to publicly defend Obama or risk being associated with what will now be viewed as even more ridiculous? http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0411/Trump_and_the_GOP.html?showall NBC's First Read makes a good point, and one that likely played into the White House's decision today: Trump has the potential to do his party serious harm here: The question is no longer whether Donald Trump has disqualified himself from being a serious presidential candidate (because he has, a long time ago). Instead, it's whether he's staining the GOP by association. How much longer can serious Republicans stay silent as Trump — who visits New Hampshire today — hijacks this whole process? Simply put, what Trump is doing is the equivalent of a GOP presidential candidate in 1995 campaigning on the Vince Foster rumors, or a candidate in 1968 suggesting that LBJ was connected to the Kennedy assassination. It is crazy conspiracy talk that has gone mainstream. And while Republicans quietly dismiss Trump as a sideshow, they aren't saying a lot publicly. What are they afraid of?
Well, he had plenty of time to craft a pretty convincing document. What with having the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s best guys working on it and all. Right, thumbs?
They're letting Trump ask questions and go where none of them can. A serious GOP backed candidate could never get away with this kind of beligerence. I'm starting to ask the question, why bother running anyone that can challenge Obama? He's doing the GOP's dirty work for them. Six months ago I would've thought Obama would be a sure lock to lose. But now, I'm wondering if it's not in the GOP's best interest to have him stay. He'll get all of the blame for the economy, warrented or not. And that may get more congressional seats for the GOP and set up a completely dominate position for the next election.
Sam Fisher already answered this for me but to summarize yes Vince Foster rumors (Fosters?) were getting a fair amount of coverage. I don't recall if anyone had done any polling data on it but I wouldn't have been surprised if there was a fair amount of Americans who believed Bill and Hillary had Vince Foster killed especially among the Republican party. The key point here was that Clinton and his Admin. deigned to address that topic and it faded into obscurity. Of course the Republicans went onto another scandal to try to get Clinton. I will agree you have a good point there that this may be distracting from Medicare coverage but frankly I'm not seeing it. I strongly doubt addressing the birther issue will swing the focus back onto Medicare, I suspect gas prices will be more of an issue. For that matter this move just guarantees that for the next few days this issue will dominate the news cycle. This issue was riding on Trump and given that coverage seems mostly negative towards Trump and major Republicans were backing away from this it was likely going to fade away on its own. Trump more likely on his own would do more damage to the birther cause. Perhaps Obama was sick of the Royal Wedding taking up news so he decided to derail that coverage with the release of his birth certificate.
Agreed - and that worked fine while Trump still had a miniature leg to stand on. But now it's much more of a problem if he continues as the face of the GOP. If you think you can predict anything about how the country will look in 2016, you're fooling yourself. Giving up on the policy agenda for 4 years in the hopes of winning an election down the line is fool's gold. Doing that for just one year won them a midterm election at the cost of health care and financial reform that had virtually no input or shaping from conservatives.
That rift was already happening. Republican leadership hasn't been very happy with birther madness and even Michelle Bachmann knows that. Obama releasing his birth certificate now is probably more of a political benefit to Republican leadership than it is him.
