It proposes that a 18-year old freshman, without resources or connections, managed this conspiracy to fool the INS, within hours (or the birth announcement would not have been in the Hawaii newspapers). Nice trick for "not the sharpest tool in the shed" (in the real world, she got a doctorate in anthropology) operating from Kenya in 1961. (Have you any idea of what international phone lines were like in 1961? Even to Europe, let alone Kenya.)
It is a conspiracy without visible motive, unless she somehow foresaw that a half-Kenyan child would be in a position to run for President. ([cue theremin] O-O-O-O) The child of an American citizen would have gotten a residence permit, and would have been able to apply for citizenship in due course, around 1975.
The immediate effect (and purpose) of this conspiracy would have been to secure the issuance of a Hawaii birth certificate in 1961. The physical evidence will therefore show, even if this pipe-dream is correct, that the birth certificate was issued in 1961, because it was.
(Even nonsense conspiracies should avoid nonsense details. If all this were true, they would have picked Hawaii for the obvious, if minor, reason, that the Dunhams were already living there; she'd met Obama Sr while studying at the University of Hawaii.)
I am duly grateful for the mental exercise, and the evidence that the Right is, as much as in the days of Alfred Dreyfus, at war with Reason.
Hilsoy, at Obsidian Wings, has more:
Is there any response to this, other than using Karl Rove's position, that any investigation (even a completely independent one, by a Special Prosecutor, or a bipartisan committee of non-officeholders, which are what Gibbs is ruling out) is partisan?
That is a declaration, long implicit in the Party of Treason, that there is no such thing as objective justice, only Republican or Democratic justice. That is the cry of totalitarianism everywhere, since Thrasymachus in Plato declared justice to be the interest of the stronger; it is false, and must be ignored.
(And if it were true, what then? If we must choose between Republican and Democratic justice, I know which I choose.)
- Mood:
enraged
I fully support an investigation, by whatever means will get it done, of the charges of torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
I hope that Robert Gibbs' remarks tonight in opposition to an independent commission of investigation do not represent the considered views of the Administration. To move on as the only response is to fail in the essential requirement of credible change: we must find out what happened if we are to make sure it doesn't happen again, under any President. To paraphrase Santayana: those who would ignore history are condemned to repeat it.;
As a lesser detail, leaving the matter uninvestigated leaves all those who served in the Bush administration under a cloud of suspicion, no matter how innocent (or even how courageous in opposition) they actually were. Secretary Gates appears to recognize this, even if Gibbs doesn't.
This does not mean, of course, that I regret voting for Obama in November; one of the chief pressures against investigation is John McCain of Arizona - may he be reminded hereafter why torture is a bad thing.(note to self: if these links need fixing, they're AP and AFP, respectively.
- Mood: infuriated
Now questioned by Alan Keyes, who is calling Obama a communist into the bargain. Keyes really should have mentioned this when he moved to Illinois in August 2004, to lose to Obama in November. (Does this mean I can call Keyes a reactionary carpet-bagger?)
With thanks to Talking Points Memo.
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osewalrus , so many of you will have seen it; but I encourage you, especially those from Maine, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and other states encumbered by an apologetic Senator of a compromising kind, to do the same:Time for us to decide if we will be the Generation of the Desert or if we will be the Generation of Joshua. Will we die in the wilderness, or dare to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land?
Doubtless, there will be claims that Obama isn't President because he wasn't sworn in using the Constitutional oath; this will be from the same people that claim the Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified, and therefore they don't have to pay income tax.
Fortunately, Obama's people were persuaded to have the Chief Justice come over and do it again:
“Are you ready to take the oath?” Chief Justice Roberts said.
“I am,” Mr. Obama replied. “And we’re going to do it very slowly.”
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. Nope, not unless you count Grover Cleveland twice (or maybe Taft); but I can see the speech-writers going back and forth on this one. Do you quote, correctly, gild refined gold and paint the lily in a speech intended to convince? You will distract the audience.
(Speaking of which, did you hear Roberts bobble the administration of the Presidential oath? he said President to the United States, but I think Obama knew better. I feel so confident that the Supreme Court knows the Constitution.)
Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]. Those ain't Washington's words; it's from the first Crisis, by Tom Paine. Is it good that we have a President who quotes Paine? or is it worse that he would prefer not to admit it? As always, time will tell.
I missed some of Warren's invocation, but as far as I could tell, he spoke no word of intolerance. On the other hand, like the invocation at Gettysburg by Thomas H. Stockton (on the day of a certain minor speech by another President) it was a prayer that wanted to be an oration. So was Lowery's, when it didn't want to be a protest song or Strong's concordance; between them they took up more time than President Obama did. (And I think Warren got the daughters' names wrong.)
I saw this with undergraduates. Biden's oath was an applause line, oddly enough; it may be that it was noon, since Warren made the proceedings run late; it may be "preserve protect and defend the Constitution", which would be nice.
Addendum: This collection of speech-writers' responses suggests that we don't have the quality of speech-writers we used to; one of them fell for the suggestion that the quote was Washington's. Another of them says that Obama checked his history with David McCullough; I hope not, but if so he got it right; Congress did bail out of Philadelphia before the Battle of Trenton.
And the honeymoon was over before the inaugural, if this piece of mischief is any indication; well, maybe Obama will rein in his optimism.But above all, that was a Democratic speech, with its recognition of everybody, not just the few, the rich and the well-born. Whether it was a Democrat with valiant new fixes (like Lyndon Johnson) or a Democrat of compromises going along with The System (like, well, Lyndon Johnson, vintage 1967) we shall see, like the Paine question above. The Nation has recognized the quote; we'll see when our Liberal </irony> Media does.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your favorite Scripture that you kind of lean on that sort of keeps you going?
GARRETT: Obama's answer not exactly rooted in Scripture but in the ballpark.
OBAMA: -- the Golden Rule. It's very simple. I mean, it's a very simple concept. I think what he asks of me is that I treat my brother as -- and my sister -- as I would have them treat me.
I suppose this might mean nothing more than that Obama did not quote the KJV literally. But this will be their Senior White House correspondent.Hat off to Media Matters.
A post which asks the question, among others: Suppose it were Michelle Obama who had had a little addiction problem. Would her husband have been nominated, much less elected?
- Mood:
mischievous
Carmen pacis saeculare
Venit Angelus cantare,
Et deorsum pacem dare
Capronensi populo.
Dabit pacem eternalem,
Sine morbo immortalem,
Sine pugna triumphalem,
Capronensi populo.
En diabola albata
De Caprona expulsata,
Missa pax et virtus data
Capronensi populo.
This song, from Magicians of Caprona by Diana Wynne Jones, sums up my feelings about the election; my reason is more skeptical. (Jones gives an English "translation", but although written first, it has the cheesy feel of most translations of mediaeval Latin verse.)
But the Log just lay there and did nothing; the frogs got bolder and bolder, and eventually one brave frog, since made a hero, danced from end to end of the log. The frogs thought Zeus had misunderstood them, and prayed for a King that would get things done. And they got one; Zeus sent them a Stork, who ate them up.
So with the United States, for forty years and more: we have had King Logs, who have done little, and so done little harm, and King Storks, who have done much, and made things that much worse. (This is not partisan: the elder Bush was as much a Log as Clinton, and Ford as much as Carter.)
Now, we are left with the contest between King Log, the second Democrat from the right, who has defeated Queen Log, the rightmost of the Democratic candidates. He faces King Stork, who would do many things, none of them helpful or clueful. I heartily support King Log; but I expect little of his administration.
I hope to be agreeably surprised.
