Birth Certificate Stupidity – Sully, Rush, And World Net Daily.
A post I had been meaning to tackle, but didn’t have the time or motivation…. Until now.
Today, Andrew Sullivan notes Rush Limbaugh has dipped his toe into the “birther” pool. From a recent show:
The story originated at World Net Daily in this country earlier, and of course if it originates anywhere outside the mainstream press, the mainstream press will not acknowledge it. “Pressure was mounting on Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie today amid increasing confusion over whether President Obama was born there.” This is the UK Daily Mail. “Abercrombie said on Tuesday that an investigation had unearthed papers proving Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. He told Honolulu’s Star-Advertiser: ‘It actually exists in the archives, written down,’ he said. But it became apparent that what had been discovered was an unspecified listing or notation of Obama’s birth that someone had made in the state archives and not a birth certificate. And in the same interview Abercrombie suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health. He said efforts were still being made to track down definitive vital records that would prove Obama was born in Hawaii.”
BUT, there is something Sullivan ignored:
This is just toying. He knows that the birthers are a bunch of Looney Tune kook right-wingers, and he wants them illustrated as such. So he’ll toy with them, sort of like Charlie Brown and Lucy and the football. And the media went along with that, “Oh, that’s Obama. He’s really politically smart, really crafty here. He’s got these birthers looking like the Birchers that they are. He’s got ’em looking like the biggest kooks on the face of the earth,” and it went on and on and on that way. We have had several people of decent reputations file lawsuits in various states and they were thrown out. So the popular opinion has been, the consensus has been, “Yeah, he was born in Hawaii, isn’t any big deal.” They still can’t prove it. This is stunning to me. Still can’t prove it.
Now, it’s still entirely possible all this is a giant head fake. For me, ladies and gentlemen, the sophisticated political figure that I am, it’s really hard for me to believe that Neil Abercrombie just one day woke up on his own and without consultation said, “This birth thing bugs me. I’m gonna call a press conference, and I’m gonna tell people I was there when he was born, and I knew his mom and dad, and he was born here and I’m gonna prove it.” I said earlier, Abercrombie’s no fool. Many Hawaiians would disagree with me on that, many have. But if this guy is acting on his own as I have just described, that’s unbelievable. The alternative is he’s not acting on his own, this is all part of a continuing head fake and that at some point after a lot of people have gotten revved up cause now, the UK Daily Mail Online is more mainstream than anywhere else in America this has. Okay, so it ratchets up and ratchets up and then a couple years down the road, year and a half down the road, guess what, the thing’s found, and, oh, can you imagine the air that will be let out of people’s sails then?…
This guy is every bit as far left as anybody in the House is today and he’s running around saying he can’t find the birth certificate and he’s the governor. Yet the Department of Health director issued a statement on Halloween (I’m sure that’s a coincidence) of 2008. He’s seen it. “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.
“No state official, including [former Hawaii] Governor Linda Lingle [a Republican], has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii.” So the director of health for Hawaii says he personally saw it. I’ve got the PDF file of his statement. I could link to it. We could post it at RushLimbaugh.com. Now, out of the blue here comes the new governor, Abercrombie, saying he can’t find it. Now (sigh), folks, I’m just warning you: Be very, very careful on this.
It seems that Sully hasn’t done his research, and also that Rush is toying with the caller, just as he suggests the Obama folks are toying with the birther crowd.
Now, on to the source for the “Abercrombie can’t find the birth certificate” claim. Here’s the original misinformation at WND, and here is the relevant part:
The governor only suggested his investigations to date had identified an unspecified listing or notation of Obama’s birth that someone had made in the state archives.
“It was actually written, I am told, this is what our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives, written down,” Abercrombie said.
Not that WND would care to clarify, but I will. The governor is looking for documentation other than the long form to confirm the Hawaiian birth. From the same article:
Abercrombie told the Honolulu Star Advertiser he was searching within the Hawaii Department of Health to find definitive vital records that would prove Obama was born in Hawaii, because the continuing eligibility controversy could hurt the president’s chances of re-election in 2012.
They are looking for other records! Not the long form. AS was the case yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, last year…. Hawaii by law CAN”T release the long form without Obama’s permission. For this one instance, Rush IS right. Obama is making many people look like fools.
Of course, when Obama does release the long form next year during the re-election campaign, the true believers will claim it’s a fake anyway.
Politics / Law Stuff, Stupidity / Satire | Sonicfrog January 24, 2011 | 
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