BIRTHERS vs. TRUTHERS: WAR OF THE LOONS
It is a titanic battle of the witless, a struggle to determine which paranoid, idiotic, nonsensical, and just plain loony tunes conspiracy nutcases take the booby prize for being the biggest threat to rationality and common sense in our politics.
In truth, I wouldn’t want to live off the difference. The fact is, a sizable segment of both the left and right have allowed their hatred for a president to so cloud their judgment and befuddle their minds that they have descended into a pit of irrational idiocy, and are drowning in their own bilious delusions.
There is no need to look very far for explanations. Driven by the internet, which is tailor made for attracting and gathering like minded twits into communities of conspiracy nuts who feed off each other’s flights of ever more spectacular illogical fancies, the Truther-Birther nexus can be found in how our information society has so splintered and fractured our national polity, that offshoots like these are inevitable.
Previous to the widespread use of the internet to get the bulk of one’s news about what’s happening in the world, information was a linear proposition; a straight line could be drawn directly from a small number of newspapers, magazines, and TV stations to the consumer of news. Alternative publications and viewpoints were out there but one had to expend an effort to find them.
While this may have led to a conformity that put enormous power into the hands of a few, unelected editors and publishers, it also prevented the nutcases from getting their hands on the means to widely disseminate their deranged theories and attract the dullards, the less educated, and those who lacked the critical thinking skills to differentiate between logic and logical fallacies.
Today - as was true in the past with Bush and a lesser extent (only because the internet was in its infancy) Clinton, hatred and fear are the driving force behind these irrational notions. Is it ideological or something deeper? Do blogs and talk radio contribute to the fact of their existence or do those media simply fan the flames of an already out of control conflaguration of stupidity?
I don’t like pat answers to those questions as both left and right pretend to have figured out what’s wrong with the other side. “It’s racism and Glenn Beck” screams the left! “It’s Bush hatred” screams the right. While I have no doubt all of that plays a role in what apparently drives perfectly normal (otherwise) people to believe demonstrably stupid things, I believe that at bottom, it has more to do with the times in which we live rather than any specific reason you can point to in order to explain the aberrant thinking.
Some Americans are afraid. They are afraid of crime, of their neighbors, of neighborhoods that are changing to reflect a more diverse society, of a world where globalization is making the future uncertain, and they are afraid of change. Most of us deal with these fears rationally. We buy good locks for our doors. We don’t walk alone at night. We accept the growing diversity of American society as part of our growth as a nation. We put the prospect of losing our job someday out of our minds.
For some, President Obama’s election represents all of those fears rolled up into one big bundle of trouble. He is their fears made flesh and his radical notions of change have some trying desperately to find a way to stop him. Couple that with the relative powerlessness that conservatives feel at this moment in history and the Birther Movement seems inevitable.
For the Truthers, September 11 knocked us off our comfortable moorings that we were a safe port in a sea of violence while the enormity of the attacks carried out by a handful of crazy terrorists didn’t quite balance out the books. Here you have this enormous world-historical event and it was perpetrated by people to which we have little more than feelings of utter contempt. “Towel heads” or “Ragheads” who blew themselves up, believing crazy stuff about going right to heaven for killing us could not possibly have carried off such an enormous attack.
For Democrats - 35% of whom believed in 2007 that George Bush had advance knowledge of the attacks - it was an acceptable way to express their bigotry against Arabs and hatred of Bush by rejecting the notion that he - or any other president ever elected - would have acted swiftly if foreknowledge of such a devastating attack would have presented itself. (Note: Please don’t bring up Roosevelt’s supposed foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor - nonsense that has been royally debunked by a wide variety of historians.)
To acknowledge that President Bush would have tried and prevent the attack rather than allow it to happen (or, in the extreme Truther-created world, actively plan and assist it), would be granting the object of their deranged hatred the benefit of good intentions - an impossibility if you actually believe that Bush was the second coming of Hitler.
Both Birthers and Truthers are trapped by their own fears, unable to break free and see the light of reason because they are in a comfort zone of having contact with like minded conspiracy floggers any time they wish. Alternative explanations - even when that information is compelling enough to satisfy the vast majority - are ignored because the Birther-Truther believes they are privy to the “real facts” and any challenge to their orthodoxy is a result of plots by the enemy (government, the press).
Should it surprise us that so many Republicans believe that Obama wasn’t born here or that so many Democrats believe Bush was evil enough to allow terrorists to attack us despite knowing in advance? Not when believing these theories allows one to see themselves as possessing knowledge that no one else is given the ability to understand. Interpreting the “facts” correctly - being able to connect the dots, no matter how scattered and fanciful they might be - is a way for the conspiracists to feel superior to the rest of us.
And they cloak this air of superiority in what they convince themselves is stellar research and hidden facts, with only those possessing superior insight able to discern the truth.
A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates “evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it.
As I have written before, this becomes a self-reinforcing feed back loop where the denizens of these conspiracy cultures try and outdo each other in positing ever more fantastic theories about what “really happened,” leaving reason and rationality even further behind.
Birthers who either fake or are taken in by a fake birth certificate of Obama’s
want to believe so badly, that the obvious becomes obscure. Truthers who want to believe in a government plot for 9/11 (or that Bush knew of the attacks), take similar “evidence” as gospel despite scientific findings that contradict it or the bulk of testimony that debunks it. The binds that tie these pathetic people together is their simple inability to accept the facts as the rest of us know them to be. This says more about humanity than it does either conservative or liberal ideology.
Talk radio on the right has pretty much rejected the Birther’s arguments. But they are not guiltless. Their out of control, exaggerated, hyperbolic criticisms of Obama have created a climate where one can believe anything bad about the president. The atmosphere of fear that they are deliberately ginning up to get ratings and audience is contributing in no small way to the Birther phenomenon.
Perhaps some strong statements against the Birther movement by Limbaugh, Hannity, and a few of the bigger names in the business might bring that 28% number down, just as strongly worded criticisms of by the Democratic leadership against Truthers would help dispel at least some of the paranoia on the left about Bush.
But as long as Democratic congressmen give credence to theTruthers while Republican congressmen refuse to categorically come out and say that Obama was born here and is an American citizen, the Birther-Truther problem will be with us to bedevil our politics.
“For Democrats - 35% of whom believed in 2007 that George Bush had advance knowledge of the attacks”
Your link to the article doesn’t indicate how the question was phrased. Based solely on the “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside The United States” Memo, I may have answered yes (Independent, not Dem) even though I firmly believe he and the Administration had nothing to do with the attack, nor did they know it was coming and choose to let it happen. But “someone’s trying to attack” “yeah, whatever, you covered your butt, let me get back to golf” could be interpreted as “advanced knowledge” dependging on how the pollster worded the question without the attendant implication of being a Truther.
btw, the article also said 14% of Republicans and 18% of Independents believed he had advance knowledge. Any data on the Birther spread across parties?
The question said advance knowledge of September 11 attacks. How anyone can interpret that to mean the PDB would fit I can’t see. Besides, there aren’t more than 10% of any party who was even aware of the PDB so your theory is hogwash.
The indie-Dem spread on Birtherism is about the same - 7% for Dems and about 12% for indies
ed.
Comment by busboy33 — 8/3/2009 @ 12:43 pm
It would be possible to do both of these *at the same time*:
- Say that the “Birthers” are completely nuts and have no argument whatsoever without responding to or understanding the arguments of any of them, and
- Point out that the MSM has consistently lied about this issue.
Moran is doing the first, but he’s not doing the second for some reason. In fact, neither is anyone else. The answer is here.
Comment by 24AheadDotCom — 8/3/2009 @ 12:57 pm
There is undoubtedly a small fringe that truly believes in the birther argument, but, I think that the majority of citizens that do not want Obama in the office of president are simply willing to go along with the scam to discomfort the opposition. They really believe that Obama’s citizenship is not in question.
They see the furious yelling of pundits defending Obama and slamming anyone that seems to believe in the birthers, and then draw the conclusion that giving life to the idea is very troubling to the Democrats, which, in their mind, is a very good thing. So long as the focus is on this scam, it isn’t on selling Obama’s program.
Further, since they know that they themselves don’t really believe the birthers, the Democrat’s reverse slam on Republicans for signing up to such fantasy simply rolls off their backs.
In their opinion, Obama is in lots of trouble anyway, and if the birther argument helps his negatives along, so be it. The only way out of the current mess, in their opinion, is to put the Republicans back in office, never mind the silly and eminently forgettable accusation that ALL Republicans think like birthers. After all, in years past, Bush was voted into office twice, even if narrowly once, so the Republican votes are out there still to be had.
The shriller the invective, especially from the Left, the more effective the scam appears to be!
Most good Republicans/conservatives, however, do not play this game.
Comment by mannning — 8/3/2009 @ 1:08 pm
Unfortunately, the birthers and truthers are very vocal and impassioned, and it’s hard for the mainstream to keep up with that energy. It still surprises me that people get their hackles raised more by people denying that Obama was born in the US than they’re bothered by people believing that the US Government killed 3000 of it’s own citizens.
Comment by Joemoke — 8/3/2009 @ 1:53 pm
Unlike the 9/11 crowd, the following statement would put the whole birth thing to rest
“I, Barak Obama, authorize the release to the media and the general public, all my records from Hawaii”
Instead he’s spending money in court seeking to not release records. The appearance of a coverup is more damaging than anything that could be in the records. Unless it’s not.
The only damage accruing to anyone in this matter is the damage to individual birthers who appear deranged - especially if they believe this issue is harming Obama one iota
ed.
Comment by Locomotive Breath — 8/3/2009 @ 2:03 pm
“The question said advance knowledge of September 11 attacks. How anyone can interpret that to mean the PDB would fit I can’t see.”
If the question is read “had advanced knowledge that an attack was going to specifically happen on Sept. 11″, then I agree the Memo is irrevelant. If you interpret the question to mean “advance knowledge that an attack was coming, like the one that occured on Sept. 11″, then the PDB could apply.
Maybe it is obviously one and not the other (coffee may not have kicked in for me yet), but the way its phrased here and at Rasmussen seemed vague. Of course, I habitually parse things looking for ambiguity, so the confusion may well be limited to me.
“Besides, there aren’t more than 10% of any party who was even aware of the PDB so your theory is hogwash.”
Not disputing that statement . . . but do you have a reference I could read to get more info? I find that shocking. Well, maybe not shocking. Staggeringly disappointing?
You’re assuming that most people - most Democrats - are into 9/11 arcanity like the PDB or the actions of the FAA that day. Not one in 10 Americans know much of anything about the 9/11 Commission’s work.
ed.
Comment by busboy33 — 8/3/2009 @ 2:10 pm
Nice attempt at a diversion from your own party’s shame, Rick.
Your “democratic congressmen” is who, Cynthia McKinney? No longer in office, no longer a Democrat, and never taken seriously by anyone in Democratic leadership?
And citing that poll question is a sad effort. As Busboy hints, the question is so vaguely worded I could have answered yes. Of course he had “some” advance knowledge. He knew there was an Al Qaeda, he knew they wanted to attack American targets, he knew they’d gone after the trade center before. That question doesn’t identify Truthers.
When did a significant number of Democratic congresspeople co-sponsor a piece of Truther legislation as your congresspeople have done?
Weak tea. Very weak.
The Democratic party has nuts. The Republican party is nuts.
Comment by michael reynolds — 8/3/2009 @ 2:17 pm
They said the same thing about Monica Lewinsky. Until she produced that stained blue dress and it turned out the President was the liar. Over eight years later Clinton is still a punch line. Damage him much?
Barak Obama’s life is nearly a completely blank book. Apparently it’s “deranged” to want him to fill in a few lines.
Comment by Locomotive Breath — 8/3/2009 @ 2:18 pm
This may all be nonsense…but then, why doesn’t Barack simply release the full length birth document…?
There may well be something on it he does not want to share.
Comment by Increase Mather — 8/3/2009 @ 2:49 pm
Rick -
I agree with you up to a point. Not one “mainstream” Democratic politician ever gave credence to the truthers.
On the other hand, you have DeMint, Blunt, and several other elected GOP politicians giving support to the Birfers.
Sad, but true.
If you haven’t seen it, head to TPM and watch the “leader” of the birfer movement in all her glory. If anyone can take this woman seriously after that performance today on MSNBC, then those people need help.
That is incorrect. Those legislators are pandering to them, not supporting them overtly.
In a similar fashion, John Conyers held impeachment hearings on Bush and invited truthers to testify. True, it wasn;t a real committee hearing in that it was held in the Rayburn basement. But talk about encouragement! He broached the idea of onearticle of impeachment on Bush failing to prevent 9/11.
That’s loony.
ed.
Comment by JerryS — 8/3/2009 @ 3:45 pm
Rick,
You’re an honest dude… BUT:
ROY BLUNT: “What I don’t know is why the President can’t produce a birth certificate. I don’t know anybody else that can’t produce one. And I think that’s a legitimate question. No health records, no birth certificate.”
That is “supporting them overtly,” not just pandering.
You want the link to the video?
JS
Yeah - forgot about Blount. But those others introduced the birth certificate bill and said that they believe Obama was born here.
ed.
Comment by JerryS — 8/3/2009 @ 3:55 pm
Of course the troofers are morons but they never got the party support that the mouth breathing birthers are getting from Republicans. I thought it was the left that was supposed to be in thrall to relatavism.
Comment by yoyo — 8/3/2009 @ 5:57 pm
Limbaugh jumped on the birther bandwagon briefly. This is actually a pretty common belief among the conservatives I know.
Comment by giantslor — 8/3/2009 @ 6:21 pm
“But those others introduced the birth certificate bill and said that they believe Obama was born here.”
That’s called talking out of both sides of your mouth. Or having your cake and eating it too. They’re smart enough to say they believe Obama’s a US citizen and that this bill has nothing to do with him, while pandering to nutso birthers who know the bill has everything to do with Obama. They’re crypto-birthers.
Comment by giantslor — 8/3/2009 @ 6:27 pm
Rick
Good analysis. I like that rather than investigate the WHAT you have investigated the WHY. And therein lies the key.
WHY do conspiracy theories abound with Presidents in this day and age?
A lot of it comes from just plain old misinformation. Urban legends and chain letters have increased [I don't know a 500%] in the past 15 years because of the internet and a lot of people fall for the nonsense. However, when the nonsense is about cell phones cooking eggs we can shrug it off and so can the people who believe it. But when dealing with politics there is always a segment of people who will hate a politician so much that they immediately move from skepticism to conspiracy and believe crazy stuff without investigating. And they will not investigate because that is seen as defeat. And no one likes to feel they have to eat crow. So they would rather keep believing the conspiracy or stay on the fence [like some of the Republican politicians] because it serves their interests – political or otherwise.
I don’t see this ever changing. But somehow I think we can ignore these folks and instead discuss real issues with the saner and sounder heads.
I will add [and maybe you will disagree] that the same thing that feeds this are those who claim Bush was a Fascist because of the Patriot Act or that Obama is a Marxist because he is proposing Universal healthcare. These are scare tactics used to freak out the lowest common denominator.
Comment by ML — 8/3/2009 @ 7:20 pm
“Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?”
Is that the text of the 22% question? If so, it’s simply disingenuous to imply the question can be read to mean “any” advanced knowledge of Al Qaeda or that attacks “could” happen. You’re parsing the question well beyond what a typical respondent would.
If that’s the text of the question, it’s clearly asking specifically about THE attack on 9/11…not any attack in a general case. If that’s not the actual text, can someone help me find it?
In any case, both the birthers and the truthers are fringe given too much exposure and credit.
The internet is tailor-made for conspiracy buffs: anonymous voices with a large eager audience.
Comment by sota — 8/3/2009 @ 8:02 pm
Suspicions of serious problems implanted in the minds of mentally weak or biased voters can have serious consequences for politicians. To gauge this effect you have to go out into the counties and listen to the guys at the local gathering spots, visit a tea party, or a political meeting. Rightly or wrongly, there is a large discontent in the land focused on Obama, and such poison as berthers ladel out gets heard and absorbed. I suggest that the birther meme has hurt Obama in the unsophisticated camps of the Right.
Comment by mannning — 8/3/2009 @ 8:07 pm
The three most influential people in the Democratic Party: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and (for the moment) Max Baucus.
The three most influential people in the GOP: Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Orly Taitz.
Comment by michael reynolds — 8/3/2009 @ 10:02 pm
Is it “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” or “when the cat is away, the mice will play?” I guess Manning is right with “Suspicions of serious problems implanted in the minds of mentally weak or biased voters can have serious consequences for politicians.” I don’t think these people are of much consequence in the long run. Over time with the occasional hick up, sane minds will prevail.
Comment by funny man — 8/3/2009 @ 10:41 pm
Well played, Reynolds, well played.
Comment by Chuck Tucson — 8/3/2009 @ 11:45 pm
@funny man:
“Over time with the occasional hick up, sane minds will prevail.”
For almost 4 decades I’ve held fast to that belief. I won’t lie . . . I’m starting to doubt.
Comment by busboy33 — 8/4/2009 @ 2:29 am
@ funnyman: “Over time…etc”
The time you refer to must be centuries. We have not had all that much sanity in the political world for several decades, beginning with FDR, and landing now in the Obama administration and its profligate spending programs.
The push me/pull you of our system has been won mostly by the liberals, who apparently do not have any economic common sense whatsoever–far less than the Bush administration, anyway. Bush played with billions, while the current crazies play with trillions.
Who was it that said, paraphrasing: “When the citizens realize that they can vote themselves money that will be the end of our republic.”
Comment by mannning — 8/4/2009 @ 12:43 pm
Rick…did you ever think that some may be against this program because it is not only for Americans as they would like you to believe. Many don’t like the fact that a large amount is for illegal aliens. I’m sure you have an answer for that but some in the working class resent paying for a program for illegals. It is a well known fact that there are those that will not sign up and they can’t make them sooooooo do we throw the baby out with the bathwater and they will get cpverage anyway!!What has changed nothing for them but our healthcare has been jeopardized to say the least.
Comment by Carole Sluis — 8/4/2009 @ 2:31 pm
How do you not know the real Legal reason that Obama is not a Natural Born Citizen? His father was not a Citizen when Obama 2 was born. Natural Born Citizen are born in the US of 2 Citizen Parents. This is NOT about US Citizenship, it’s about Natural Born Citizenship (the requirement to be POTUS) DUH> Are you really that uninformed?
Where in the Constitution does it say both parents have to have been born here? You are mouthing a definition from a treatise published 10 years before the constitution was even written - never seen by Madison or anyone else.
He was born here and born of a parent who was a citizen. That’s all the requirement necessary.
Are you really that much of a loon?
ed.
Comment by Mick — 8/4/2009 @ 2:59 pm
On who’s authority is born here to 1 parent citizen a Natural Born Citizen? You are just as bad as the WSJ in the spread of Propoganda, AND you don’t know what you are talking about. Maybe you should do a little investigation before spreading falsities on your blog.
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/wall-street-journal-caught-spreading-false-legal-propaganda-via-james-taranto/
Comment by Mick — 8/5/2009 @ 3:36 pm
Who was it that said, paraphrasing: “When the citizens realize that they can vote themselves money that will be the end of our republic.”
Just because someone said this doesn’t mean it’s true.
Name one historical, empirical example of this happening. Name one republic/democracy that was ended by the people voting themselves money. Rome? No. Athens? No.
Seriously, are there any examples of this at all or is it just a theoretical prediction that has never actually come true in the history of Democracies?
Comment by angulimala — 8/6/2009 @ 5:00 am
Rick,
Madison never heard of Vattel? How dumb are you? Are you that much of an apologist? You are certainly No Conservative.
Emerich de Vattel was a Swiss jurist, whose textbook “The Law of Nations” was highly influential in the period from 1758 to 1900. The Founding Fathers were very familiar with Vattel, who stated “natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”
Ben Franklin wrote of Vattel’s book, “It . . has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress.” The librarian at Carpenters Hall reported that Vattel was the primary source read by the delegates of the Continental Congress. Chief Justice John Marshall quoted from Vattel more than from any other author.
Vattel’s definition was repeated by the Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1885): “It was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves . . . natural-born citizens.”
Furthermore, in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) Justice Gray re-affirmed the Minor v. Happersett interpretation: “In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite . . . said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.” And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision.”
By the way, Minor v. Happersett and Wong Kim Ark were after the 14th Amendment. Notice how they both say that the definition is not in the Constittution. Well the 14 Amendment was already there, so it’s not in there! Notice how Vattel is quoted almost verbatim in Minor? Why don’t you do some research since you supposedly have a radio show (which of course I already know that I would never listen to), and a supposedly Conservative Blog. Duh.
For someone who refuses to acknowledge that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you certainly are a persistent cuss. Up is not down. Black is never white. And the idea I am an Obama supporter because I can see the nose in front of my face is absurd - as anyone with an ounce of intelligence would know if they read anything I’ve ever written.
Oh - other obvious things you deny? Obama is the legitimate president of the United States - recognized by the Congress, the state of Hawaii, and about 98% of the American people.
Duh.
ed.
Comment by Mick — 8/6/2009 @ 3:27 pm
Why, of course not, ang. Just because you said that doesn’t make your complaint true either.
The statement is attributed most of the time to Voltaire. Fortunately,to my knowledge, it has not been tested by the known democracies–not yet, anyway, but we are heading there. That it hasn’t been tested yet doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Common sense would tell you that once the national treasury has been totally emptied, and the national debt exceeds our yearly revenue by, say,100, 200 or 300%, by representatives voting exactly as their constituents demand for the people to get a payoff of some kind, and we are further mortgaged by the President signing these excessive spending bills, the nation is broke, out of money to pay salaries, bills, service on the debt, military operations and procurements, paying for jet fuel…the whole business of the US as a nation grinds to a halt. We are then bankrupt.
There is a limit to the amount the government can realize by taxing the people, too. Once that limit is reached in every income level, there is no more revenue for the government to be had.
What might the citizens ask for?
Universal health care, universal college education, all mortgages underwritten by the government, cash for clunkers, transfusions by the billions and trillions to various industries such as autos and the financial sector (please save my job, gov!), rampant government growth and inefficiencies, ballooning welfare payments, paying for 1 to 2 million convenience abortions a year, allowing all plastic surgeries to be underwritten, guarantees by the government to the financial sector for their prior mistakes coming to light, perhaps a new war breaking out to drain us heavily, all lead to an empty treasury and a massive, unrepairable national debt.
If there are no truly massive multi-trillion dollar loans from other nations to be had, or the loans run out and are called after a year or so for lack of payment of interest, what then?
One might think that a full financial collapse would be the end of our republic. Don’t you agree?
Let us hope that the current clowns in government are stopped and thrown out of office far, far short of bankrupting the nation completely.
Comment by mannning — 8/6/2009 @ 4:58 pm
Rick,
You need to educate yourself as to the meaning and significance of the Natural Born Citizen requirement for the POTUS and VP. You obviously know nothing about it or you would have responded more specifically to my specific historical cite for the legal definition of the term, as stated by the Supreme Court. Instead you respond like most other uneducated radio hosts and bloggers, with “Looney birther” insults and nothing specific. That’s just the point Rick, he is a USURPER not legally qualified for the office, and people like you are helping him cover that FACT with the “Birthers are Loony” insults. That is what the Birth Certificate is supposed to do, create a diversion from the real issue which needs no further documentation. Obama has already admitted that, at his birth, his citizenship was “governed” by the British Nationality Act of 1948, due to his father’s Kenyan Citizenship. He was a dual citizen at birth, and as such could never be Natural Born, as the term prevents divided loyalties. Natural Born Citizen is one born on US Soil to 2 CITIZEN PARENTS. He could have been born in the White House, and still not be Natural Born. Now run off and do some Real journalism. You are now a useful tool of Obama.
Comment by Mick — 8/12/2009 @ 7:21 am