John Cole: Good Thing He Released the Long Form, Ehh Sully?

[n2doc]

Why, oh why, didn’t he release the long form long ago? It could have stopped all this:

Texas state legislator Leo Berman, a Republican, has introduced a bill that would require proof of citizenship from presidential candidates. It’s one of many such bills in the states. And according to Sharon Guthrie, Berman’s legislative director, the legislation is still needed and the long-form birth certificate released by the White House today does not satisfy its requirements.
“What I’ve seen online, what they produced today, still says certificate of live birth across the top,” she told me. And she’s right.
But why isn’t that just a nomenclature issue? Why does it matter?
“We want to see a ‘birth certificate,’” Guthrie explained. “The one that we have that says ‘birth certificate’ is from Mombassa, Kenya, with his footprint on it. He has still not produced an American birth certificate.

snip:

Wait, what? Nothing is going to be good enough for these people, and this just proves how wrong Sullivan is to assert that Obama waited too long to produce something that was unnecessary. You can’t play “rope-a-dope” with people who question the existence of the rope, the dope, and the ring.

more

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/04/27/good-thing-he-released-the-long-form-ehh-sully/

[n2doc]

1. Another good rant from Cole on this

*** Update #2 ***

I know Sullivan’s reaction shouldn’t be pissing me off as much as it is, because he really can’t help himself. He really is just a stooge for whatever bullshit the right spews, either intentionally or accidentally. He doesn’t mean to be, I don’t think, just his self-identity as a conservative is so strong that he simply can not come to grips with the fact that conservatism is dead in the United States, and that those who call themselves conservative are just crazy people. But Andrew so yearns for a “sane conservatism” that he just can’t help himself, and as such, advances bullshit narratives like the Ryan plan being “serious” or it being Obama’s fault that he didn’t release this information earlier. Sully just can’t help himself.

But still, I find it infuriating. Our President spends several years having people question his citizenship, his commitment to this nation, his eligibility to be President, and so on, simply because his dad was black and he himself is black. And this persists even after it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he is a citizen. The Supreme Court has laughed it off. The military has court martialed birthers. Orly Taitz is one frivolous lawsuit away from being deported to Ukraine or wherever she was spawned. There simply is no doubt that the President is American, and there has never been any doubt. These claims have been nothing but specious, ugly, racially motivated charges, yet today, after the redundant “long form” is released, Sullivan and Newt Gingrich know who the real villain is- President Obama.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/04/27/finding-fault-where-there-is-none/

[ljm2002]

2. This phrase jumped out at me in Sullivan's piece:

"...and yet resisted until the country's polity was almost paralyzed with distraction..."

I'm sorry, this is such a f***ing crock. He admits it's a distraction, yet he blames Obama for that fact. The FACT is, the crazies are the ones who have almost paralyzed our political discourse. The FACT is, the powers behind the scenes love it and encourage it, because the FACT is they cannot win the debate when the debate is about the FACTS, so they use every opportunity to muddy the waters and pollute the debate and distract anyone and everyone and play on their anger and their deep rooted racist feelings so they can avoid our political discourse developing into what they fear most: An honest rational debate of the issues facing us today and how best to resolve them, in a manner that is fair to all and in particular, that serves the population well.

This distraction has served their purposes well. It is downright INFURIATING. It reminds me of the town hall BS during the health care reform "debate", when a year went by with all the shouting and lies, and at the end of it all there was never any honest and informative discussion of the real issues at hand. People are still uninformed and misinformed, and that is by design.

We are killing ourselves with this nonsense.

[ellenfl]

3. who the f*&% is sullivan? eom

[n2doc]

4. Andrew Sullivan

Blogger/writer at the Atlantic magazine. He gets posted at DU whenever he supports Obama's policies, mainly on war.

[ellenfl]

7. thanks. i know who he is but apparently missed the link. eom

[blogslut]

5. I just called Berman's Austin office

Told the young woman that answered to let the congressman know that this Texan thinks his birther bill is nothing but racism.

[calimary]

6. Excellent. These asshole RACISTS need to be called on it, and called What They ARE.

Which is - RACISTS. We're just helping them out of the closet since they seem to have gotten their foot caught somewhere (in their mouths probably).

[jmowreader]

8. If Berman's bill sweeps the nation, no one will ever be able to be president again

Listen very close, lurking birthers: ALL of the birth certificates issued to children that lived say "certificate of live birth" on them. There is now a national standard format for BCs; it says "certificate of live birth" on it. It has to: there is also a "certificate of stillbirth" for miscarriages after 20 weeks.

I think we should encourage Leo Berman to disenfranchise the entire State of Texas, though, because it's going to be a lot harder for Republicans to win the presidency without the 34 electoral votes Texas routinely gives them.