No, A. J. Delgado, Clinton supporters did not start birtherism.

[SunSeeker]

As Chris Hayes told you last night when you said that lie, a man named Andy Martin, a Republican (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Martin), started the birtherism campaign against Obama.

As reported by the NY Times:

Theories about Mr. Obama’s background have taken on a life of their own. But independent analysts seeking the origins of the cyberspace attacks wind up at Mr. Martin’s first press release, posted on the Free Republic Web site in August 2004.

Its general outlines have turned up in a host of works that have expounded falsely on Mr. Obama’s heritage or supposed attempts to conceal it, including “Obama Nation,” the widely discredited best seller about Mr. Obama by Jerome R. Corsi. Mr. Corsi opens the book with a quote from Mr. Martin.

“What he’s generating gets picked up in other places,” said Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who has investigated the e-mail campaign’s circulation and origins, “and it’s an example of how the Internet has given power to sources we would have never taken seriously at another point in time.”

Ms. Allen said Mr. Martin’s original work found amplification in 2006, when a man named Ted Sampley wrote an article painting Mr. Obama as a secret practitioner of Islam. Quoting liberally from Mr. Martin, the article circulated on the Internet, and its contents eventually found their way into various e-mail messages, particularly an added claim that Mr. Obama had attended “Jakarta’s Muslim Wahhabi schools. Wahhabism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging jihad on the rest of the world.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13martin.html

[Bradical79]

1. Wow, good investigative work

Had no idea it started that far back. Also, I'm a little surprised I didn't see this posted more during primaries here (or anywhere really). I'll add it to my bookmarks.

[SunSeeker]

2. Before that 2008 NYT article, Chris Hayes wrote about Martin in 2007:

On August 10, 2004, just two weeks after Obama had given his much-heralded keynote speech at the DNC in Boston, a perennial Republican Senate candidate and self-described “independent contrarian columnist” named Andy Martin issued a press release. In it, he announced a press conference in which he would expose Obama for having “lied to the American people” and “misrepresent[ed] his own heritage.”
...
Martin raised all kinds of strange allegations about Obama but focused on him attempting to hide his Muslim past. “It may well be that his concealment is meant to endanger Israel,” read Martin’s statement. “His Muslim religion would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles where Obama now enjoys support.”
Within a few days of Martin’s press conference, the conservative site Free Republic had picked it up, attracting a long comment thread, but after that small blip the specious “questions” about Obama’s background disappeared. Then, in the fall of 2006, as word got out that Obama was considering a presidential run, murmurs on the Internet resumed. In October a conservative blog called Infidel Bloggers Alliance reposted the Andy Martin press release under the title “Is Barack Obama Lying About His Life Story?” A few days later the online RumorMillNews also reposted the Andy Martin press release in response to a reader’s inquiry about whether Obama was a Muslim. Then in December fringe right-wing activist Ted Sampley posted a column on the web raising the possibility that Obama was a secret Muslim. Sampley, who co-founded Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry and once accused John McCain of having been a KGB asset, quoted heavily from Martin’s original press release. “When Obama was six,” Sampley wrote, “his mother, an atheist, married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim, and moved to Jakarta, Indonesia…. Soetoro enrolled his stepson in one of Jakarta’s Muslim Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad on the rest of the world.”

On December 29, 2006, the very same day that Sampley posted his column, Snopes received its first copy of the e-mail forward, which contains an identical charge in strikingly similar language. Given the timing, it seems likely that it was a distillation of Sampley’s work.

Despite the fact that CNN and others have thoroughly debunked the smear, the original false accusation has clearly sunk into people’s consciousness. One Obama organizer told me recently that every day, while calling prospective voters, he gets at least one or two people who tell him they won’t be voting for Obama because he’s a Muslim. According to Google, “Barack Obama Muslim” is the third most-searched term for the Illinois senator. And an August CBS poll found that when voters were asked to give Obama’s religion, as many said Muslim as correctly answered Protestant.

Oh yeah. And the e-mail continues to circulate.

“Everybody started calling me” when the e-mail first made the rounds, Andy Martin told me. “They said, ‘Hey, did you write this?’ My answer was ‘they are all my children.’ “

The New Right-Wing Smear Machine | The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/new-right-wing-smear-machine/

[truebluegreen]

3. Fwiw claiming Obama is a Muslim is not the same

as claiming he is not a citizen, i.e. "birtherism."

[SunSeeker]

4. Martin was a Republican birther who sued HI claiming Obama's birth certificate was fake.

On October 17, 2008, Martin filed a lawsuit against the state of Hawaii calling for the public release of Barack Obama's birth certificate and other vital records.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Martin


So you disagree with Chris Hayes? Do you agree with A. J. Delgado about who started Birtherism?

[truebluegreen]

7. Read your posts again.

According to your posts and links, the "secret Muslim" posts started at FreeRepublic in 2004, the birtherism lawsuit was filed in Hawaii in 2008. The fact that both originated in the fever swamps of the right does not make them identical. Which is what I said. Which is all I said.

[SunSeeker]

10. Both the "secret Muslim" and the birth certificate attack originated with Martin.

The point of my post was that birtherism originated with Martin, not Clinton supporters, as the OP title states. Which is what Chris Hayes told A. J. Delgado.

But I appreciate your deep concern for accuracy.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with any animus against Hillary.

[truebluegreen]

11. I appreciate your sureness in all things.

And I don't give a rip what some random supporter of Hillary thinks or thought about Obama.

back atcha for getting your panties in a wad over nothing.

[SunSeeker]

13. Truth may be "nothing" to you but it matters to me.

BTW my "panties" are just fine. I'm not the one who spent time shitting on someone's OP over "nothing."

[truebluegreen]

14. It doesn't show.

[SunSeeker]

15. You show a lot.

[truebluegreen]

16. Happy to help in your pursuit of the truth.

[SunSeeker]

17. You don’t seem very happy. All you did was pointless shitting on a thread -- not helpful.

[truebluegreen]

18. Ah, the dulcet tones of a call-out.

Shame shame shame

[SunSeeker]

20. What an ironic post.

[malaise]

9. Huh? Since when is heritage religion?

"n it he announced a press conference in which he would expose Obama for having “lied to the American people” and “misrepresent his own heritage.”

[erpowers]

5. It Does Not Matter Who Started Birtherism

Donald Trump is a grown man. He was in his late 60s when he started gleefully pushing birtherism. He had a mind of his own and he knew better. No matter who started birtherism Trump made an adult decision to be a part of birtherism and become probably its biggest supporter.

We need to go back to the standard of making people take responsibility for their actions. When I was a kid adults would respond to children who pointed a finger at someone else as an excuse for their bad behavior by saying, "If little Johnny jumped off a bridge would you follow him?". When the kid responded no. The teacher would respond with something like, "Well okay do not blame Johnny for this bad behavior.".

So, Donald, if someone would have jumped off of a bridge would you have followed them off the bridge? If your answer is no, stop blaming everyone, except yourself, for your support of birtherism. You were a grown man who made an adult decision and, for a time, boasted about the decision. Now, take responsibility for your decision.

[SunSeeker]

6. I think we should call out Trump campaign lies. I'm funny that way. nt

[boston bean]

8. Clinton was accused of here all throughout the primary season.

Facts matter little to people who hate her.

[democrattotheend]

12. In 2004 Hillary was raising money for Obama and was really impressed with him

According to the beginning of "Game Change." She had no reason to want to bring him down then. She probably saw him as being on her short list for VP in 2008. I recall reading that she was pretty shocked that he decided to run in 2008.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Don't forget Orly Taitz

http://www.salon.com/2009/08/13/orly_taitz/