Gov. Mike Huckabee
Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee stunned this observer with a really bizarre remark made in a radio interview on the Steve Malzberg talk show yesterday (2/28/2010) as reported at Politico.com.
If you think about it, his [Barack Obama’s] perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.
I would think that anyone from planet Earth knew that Barack Obama was raised largely in Hawaii by his maternal grandparents and was never even in Kenya until he was an adult. But then I daresay that Hawaiians have a different view of the Brits than Mike Huckabee, who hasn’t figured out that Hawaii was not a British colony.
Is this another alternate theory of Barack Obama’s life to debunk? A Huckabee adviser did not have an immediate explanation for Huckabee’s comments to WOR, according to the Associated Press.
Interview audio available on the MediaMatters web site. The AP story has been picked up by numerous outlets across the country.
Update: It appears Huckabee (who mentioned the so-called snub against the British when a loaner bust of Churchill was returned) likely got his idea from a misunderstood Newsweek article, last year:
Maybe it’s no surprise that Obama wouldn’t want Churchill watching over his shoulder. After all, it was Churchill who, in 1952, ordered a crackdown on the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule in Kenya, Obama’s ancestral homeland. Obama’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was labeled a subversive during the uprising and spent months in detention.
It’s only a small act of imagination to create a false childhood for Obama to explain the so-called influence. It’s so very “birther” don’t you think? In fact, President Obama never met his grandfather and barely knew his father.
H/t to Rickey for the link to the Newsweek article.
Without looking into the facts, he probably conflated Indonesia with Kenya and pontificated form there. Just my guess.
politico.com is covering the story and it’s already an item for discussion on freerepublic.com
I’ve said much the same thing on another thread as he has previously made it clear he holds no truck with the Kenyan birth allegations and there’s really nothing in it for him to take such an easily debunked line of argument now. Careless preparation for the interview by someone who is clearly not very erudite in the first place.
On the other hand some might say that with these words (even allowing for the confusion over the countries concerned) he’s actually lent support in broad principle to those who state that suggestions of Obama having some kind of inbred “allegiance” to Britain are absurd. He suggests the opposite is the case.
Or maybe he made said what he really thinks when he is speaking off the “cuff” so to speak and not going off a prepared statement….Or it is a wink and not to the birthers….Either way it was a bad move for him. He is either a fool or desperate. Anyone that has been remotely paying attention knows that he grew up in Hawaii and had minimal contact with his father. So unless Huckabee is dumber than Palin, he knew what he was saying was wrong. It seems he was going along with the hosts opinion, who seemed to be a bit sympathetic to the birther nation.
The comments you quoted aren’t even the most jaw-dropping things Huckabee said in the interview. He went on to say…
“The only reason I’m not as confident that there’s something about the birth certificate, Steve, is because I know the Clintons [inaudible] and believe me, they have lots of investigators out on him, and I’m convinced if there was anything that they could have found on that, they would have found it, and I promise they would have used it.”
Huckabee apparently isn’t persuaded that the COLB or the 1961 birth announcements prove that Obama was born in the United States. While he’s on a roll, someone should ask him whether he has “questions” about whether we landed men on the moon.
And this guy wants to be President of the United States? Puhleez…
I suspect that Huckabee either read or has heard about (probably the latter) the Obama hit job by Dinesh D’Souza which was published last fall. That is the one where D’Souza claimed to have figured out Obama’s “anti-colonialist” feelings which he supposedly inherited from his father.
Mark my words: this is a taste of the coming
GOPReptilian campaigning. This is going to make Watergate look like child’s play. Don’t think they are not trying to incite a lone wolf – it’s not just Terrorist Taitz.In addition to France and the Netherlands, I am looking at Denmark. Denmark has the least discrepancy between incomes.
Huck knew exactly what he was doing.
Here’s more from Mullah Mike: “what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards”
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/11/few-words-from-mike-huckabee.html
Could somebody please post a link to where the state dept defines what a birth certificate is please. I’ve lost mine and have a birther outbreak of “COLB not a birth certificate” to put down lol.
Update: It appears Huckabee (who mentioned the so-called snub against the British when a loaner bust of Churchill was returned) likely got his idea from a misunderstood Newsweek article:
It’s only a small leap of imagination to create a false childhood for Obama to explain the so-called influence. It’s so very “birther” don’t you think? In fact, President Obama never met his grandfather and barely knew his father.
H/t to Rickey for the link to the Newsweek article.
http://www.newsweek.com/2009/02/20/busted-the-churchill-flap.html
Huckabee’s camp is now claiming that he “misspoke” and meant to say Indonesia. That of course is nonsense. If he knew that Obama didn’t grow up in Kenya, why the reference to the Mau-Mau uprising? And if he knew that Obama wasn’t raised by his father and paternal grandfather, why did he say that Obama “probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather?”
To the Judge, here is the statutory definition of birth certificate, as duly enacted by Congress and signed by the President, as posted here many a time and oft:
“(3) Birth certificate.–As used in this subsection, the term
`birth certificate’ means a certificate of birth–
“(A) of–
“(i) an individual born in the United States; or
“(ii) an individual born abroad–
“(I) who is a citizen or national of the United States at
birth; and
“(II) whose birth is registered in the United States; and
“(B) that–
“(i) is a copy, issued by a State or local authorized
custodian of record, of an original certificate of birth
issued by such custodian of record; or
“(ii) was issued by a State or local authorized
custodian of record and was produced from birth records
maintained by such custodian of record.”
The source is in the note following Title 3, U.S.C. sec. 301. The link to Justia is:
http://law.justia.com/codes/us/title5/5usc301.html
This definition APPLIES TO ALL FEDERAL AGENCIES:
“(a) Birth Certificates.–
“(1) Standards for acceptance by federal agencies.–
“(A) In general.–
“(i) General rule.–Subject to clause (ii), a Federal
agency may not accept for any official purpose a certificate
of birth, unless the certificate–
“(I) is a birth certificate (as defined in paragraph (3));
and
“(II) conforms to the standards set forth in the regulation
promulgated under subparagraph (B).”
I do not think the regulations have been issued yet. In the meantime, this definition is the law applicable to all federal agencies. That includes the Presidency, the Congress, and all the federal courts, up to and including the Supreme Court. If your BC meets this definition, and shows birth in the US, then you are eligible, unless by some chance you renounced citizenship or were born to a diplomat or a hostile invading military force.
So as lawyers say, that is the Black Letter Law. The Hawaiian COLB meets the defintion. It is a birth certificate under federal, binding, legal law. It was “issued by a State … custodian of record and was produced from birth maintained by such custodian of record.” It is an open and shut case.
Now the Constitution says: “Article IV, Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”
So this definition looks to me like one of the “general Laws” by which Congress “prescribe[d] the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”
This is binding on the States. The States HAVE to give full faith and credit to the public records of their sister states. This general law prescribes the manner and effect by which those records shall be proved.
It the certificate meets the requirements of this statute, then it is valid and must be accepted. Texas and Tennessee and the rest of the birther states are bound by its terms. The Texas form that Leo is waving does NOT meet the definition because no state authorized custodian ever touched it.
Now, a State might require all kinds of extraneous information on its own birth certificates. But it cannot impose those requirements on other states, since it is bound to accept those public records. The 49 mainland states cannot tell Hawaii that it will not accept its certificate unless Hawaii has listed witness, midwife, physician, hospital, wing, taxi medallion number for taxicab weddings, or the name of the video camera operator.
I have been posting this law here and elsewhere ever since I found it (by google, b’gosh). I have yet to read a birther response. (One guy at Volokh feebly said that is applied only to “this subsection” without seeing that it bound all federal agencies. Pathetic.) I have been waiting a long time to get into a debate about this, but I have heard nothing from the birthers.
Not a word from Donofrio or Apuzzo that I have seen. I would be glad to see any links to any comments that anyone here may have seen.
So, to Leo, you gotta know when to fold ’em, and now is the time.
Say goodnight, Mario. Say goodnight, Leo.
I’m with Rickey. Huckabee knew what he was doing. This was intentional “dog whistle” politics to a certain audience.
Huckabee is still in the midst of “considering” if he’ll run for president vs. just stay on the comfortable payroll for Fox.
Until he “officially” decides one way or the other, he’s got a cruise and a book and other ways to milk money out of folks interested in if he’s a “hot commodity potential frontrunner”.
Huckabee has been one of the leading “front runners” in most polls for the 2012 GOP nomination, especially amongst social conservatives and most interestingly, in a recent poll of GOP voters with a tinge of “birtherism”.
The release of that particular poll and most of its subsequent analysis quickly pointed out the irony, by pulling up the most solid quotes smaking down birtherism as nonsense by almost anyone on the GOP side ever.
This obviously presents a problem for such a “potential candidate” and his lead base of support.
Therefore, I think Huckabee’s statements were FULLY intentional – to reshore up that potential base for him.
Not a colony per se, but would be an easy mistake to make: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Hawaii
…Much easier than placing the Mau Mau uprising against the British in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0311/Huckabee_didnt_mean_it.html).
Well done Vince!
Thanks Vince…..superb.
Well, I’ll give a response. I don’t believe the Presidency itself is a federal agency. The President is head of the federal agencies, just as he is Commander-in-Chief, but not a member of the military.
Federal Executive Branch
The president is the head of the executive branch of the government, which includes many departments and agencies.
http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/Executive.shtml
Doc,
In the article below, Huckabee’s statements have been transformed into a new birther theory that never existed before and to which you alluded to in your post:
“Is this another alternate theory of Barack Obama’s life to debunk?”
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Mr Obama posted a copy of his birth certificate on his website to confront persistent rumours. It did little to assuage sceptics who are convinced by internet rumours and conservative talk radio hosts that Mr Obama was raised in his father’s homeland.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8356132/Leading-Republican-claims-Barack-Obama-grew-up-in-Kenya.html
Charo, you might be a bit confused as to federal agencies & birth certificates. AFAIK, the White House doesn’t require anyone to show evidence of birth, but many agencies do. When my immigrant father applied for his Soc. Security benefits, he had to write back to the Old Country to get a copy of his BC for the SSA. The State Dept. requires evidence of birth for passports. What the law means is that anything meeting the statutory meaning of a BC must be accepted as prima facie evidence of birth. Anything meeting this statutory definition would surely be accepted in any legal proceeding.
I have a great idea for an opera about Huck in Israel:
Here’s the plot: Huck goes to Israel, and visits a synagogue on the West Bank. While alone, Godot walks in. “Hey, I’ve been waiting for you,” says Mike.
He then spends the rest of the opera singing about how waiting for the lord, brought Godot. At the end, he’s committed to an Israeli psych hospital, where everyone on the staff is a secular Jew.
Are you with me?
I have the greatest admiration for Churchill, or de Gaulle or that matter, but let’s not forget the Brits themselves voted him out. (As the French did to de Gaulle later.)
Go ahead. Don’t believe the Presidency is a federal agency. That is pathetic. What is it, then, an agency of the Intergalactic Federation?
Moving along, are the federal courts federal agencies? Yes. They may not accept a birth certificate unless it meets the definition. So all those lawsuits demanding the birth certificate were and are doomed, even if a court ever reached the merits.
How about Congress? Another federal agency. When it counts the ballots from the Electoral College in December after the election, it may not accept a birth certificate in a challenge unless it meets the requirements of the law which Congress itself enacted.
One more time. Congress enacted and the President signed a law defining “birth certificate.” That is clear. It is the law. There is no other federal law with a different definition.
How about military courts? They are federal agencies. They may not accept a certificate unless it meets the definition.
So, even if Lakin’s court martial had agreed with his demand to produce a birth certificate for the President, it would have been bound by federal law to accept the Hawaiian COLB.
I tried to warn Lakin about this by posting a comment to his article at the American Thinker, but they banned me. Had he had listened, he would not be where he is today.
http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/from-vince-treacy-lakin/
Lakin talked to some seasoned military lawyers before this episode, and they all told him not to do it because he would lose. Lakin did it, and lost, just as predicted.
Giving money to the fundraisers who landed Lakin in all this trouble is worse than useless. It is just making the fundraisers rich, and leaving Lakin holding the bag. The contributors bear some responsibility here.
It happens to me all the time. Just like Palin talked about the country of Africa. Or, ‘you can see Russia from here.’
In the video below, Chris Matthews himself calls Africa a “country” of 57 countries while questioning Palin’s staffer, who answered that it is not possible that she didn’t know Africa is a continent.
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/chris-matthews-calls-africa-a-countryis-chris-matthews-a-monumental-ignoramus/question-188004/
“When talking about what she says is her foreign policy experience, Sarah Palin told ABC news ‘…you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.’ That quote made us want to go to that island.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/30/you-can-see-russia-from-here/
AC found out you can see Russia from that island, an island of Russia that is a remote military outpost; the point was relating it to foreign policy experience, a big reach that he explains after actually investigating.
“I’m with Rickey. Huckabee knew what he was doing. This was intentional “dog whistle” politics to a certain audience.”
I’m with Ricky. It was a dog whistle thing. He conflated a bunch of anti-Obama memes into one by agreeing to the hosts comments and added a new made-up context of being raised by foreigners with anti-western values in Kenya.
The facts are beside the point. His target is a low-information, older, white listening to AM talk radio. This radio format has a lot of reach in rural ex-urban areas – its all regilgion and syndicated RW talkers.
The fact that his explantion directly conflicts with other Obama myths and actual reality of graduating from high school in Hawaii is not a problem. These people are not double-checking – Kenya or Indonesia – does not matter – they coild not find either on a globe.
They believe or sorts of nonsense.
This is a list of agencies of the United States federal government.
The executive branch of the federal government includes the Executive Office of the President
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_agencies
I apologize for saying in a respectful way that I didn’t believe the presidency was a federal agency.
Wait a minute, when I went to the link of the Executive Office of the President from above, it did not include the President himself:
The Executive Office of the President (EOP) consists of the immediate staff of the President of the United States, as well as multiple levels of support staff reporting to the President.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States
charo: he probably conflated Indonesia with Kenya
Yes, problem is he also “conflated” the Mau Mau with PETA, Yomo Kenyatta with Mohamed Hatta (Oh, it rhymes) and the Brits with the Dutch.
That bust was of course Queen Wilhelmina’s. Another Winny. Yes, a reasonable mistake.
Why are birfers monopolizing the Tardis? This way, Dr Who will never be able to get to London during the Blitz and tell the other Winny that them Darkies, oops, I mean those Darleks are not his best allies.
The question would be could the proposed legislation reject a birth certificate to show eligibility for the presidency when that same birth certificate meets the statutory definition of a birth certificate? It doesn’t add any further requirement: it doesn’t change having to be a natural born citizen, at least 35 years old and a resident of the US for 14 years. I see this as a public “vetting” of the President. I myself think a COLB is sufficient to prove eligibility, at least until there is some kind of strong proof that the COLB is not reliable. In this age of technology, could that change? I don’t know. The law could always be changed at a later point to require a “long form” to be generated.
Some Americans (I honestly don’t know how many) have odd views of history. I remember seeing a sign during an anti-(Iraq) war protest on TV that said something like “Napoleon-Hitler-Bush Tyrants” or something to that effect.
One can certainly argue about the good and bad sides of Napoleon’s governance (e.g.: his introduction of the civil code vs ruinous military campaigns) but he wasn’t a tyrant; Further a man who sold the whole middle of the US for $15 million (which even then wasn’t much) should be almost revered in the US as a Founding Father and not be the butt of such animosity.
I blame the British, of course. 🙂
People should read the comments….Those numbnuts are insane…..For a minute I thought I was reading the Post and Fail or WND with how crazy the posters are….Definately a right leaning site….
Please share what you find out. Depending on which Republican gets the nomination, I may be looking to emigrate myself, although Canada is much more likely than anywhere in Europe….
Charo, so where is the federal statute that defines “birth certificate” for President and Vice President? Answer, there is no separate statute for them because 3 USC 301 note applies to them. There is only one federal statute defining “birth certificate.”
No answer yet on why the definition would not apply to a military court. The answer is that a military court is bound by the law.
And, of course, the federal courts are bound by the law.
I might have believed his excuse that he really meant Indonesia except Indonesia did not go through a Mau Mau uprising.
Even so, Obama only spent 2 years of his childhood living in Indonesia.
Not a big fan of Dr Who huh?
It’s Daleks, not Darleks.
Poetic License is not allowed when talking about Dr Who.
4.
Canada is too friggin cold for me!
I’d rather move to New Zealand.
That was a wisecrack.
Earthquakes.
It was intended as a wisecrack but this article actually makes it into a theory is what I meant.
There is none because the statute has to do with the running of the departments and their employees. The POTUS and VP don’t have to present their birth certificates to anyone. Federal employees do.
You may find Andrew Sullivan’s blog post on this interesting. It considers Huckabee’s broader statement and its context and finds Huckabee’s statement to be even more ridiculous than it seems at first glance.
Whether the presidency is or is not a Federal agency is irrelevant. The issue is who has to accept the birth certificate, not the position held by the subject of the birth certificate. The President isn’t going to be asking to see anyone’s birth certificate.
The point is that any agency of the Federal government which might demand a birth certificate from Hawaii – whether it is Congress, a Federal court, whatever – has to accept the Hawaii COLB. It fully complies with all of the statutory requirements for a birth certificate.
As I have said before, over 95% of births are submitted electronically. Long forms are obsolete. About the only folks nowadays who have long forms are those who were born at home. Cue the irony.
“There is none because the statute has to do with the running of the departments and their employees.”
This is getting ridiculous. It say no agency may accept a birth certificate unless it meets the definition. It applies to the public as well as to employees. US State Department cannot accept a BC unless it meets the definition. It HAS to reject a hospital souvenir.
That is why Donofrio is so wrong, once again. The Texas COLB does NOT meet the definition because it was not signed by the state custodian of official records, but only by a private doctor.
State will accept a Hawaii COLB under this definition. It did issue passports to Obama.
This Charo is flailing at straws. If this is the best that can be argued….
If these birther bills are passed, the Obama campaign will present the COLB and cite this statute and the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
Result.
Obama on the ballot in 2012.
Outta here on vacation, closing down computer. Charo had a chance.
That is why I put “long form” in quotes. I think you have said before that such a form could be generated, although that is not what is given now to those making requests.
You’re probably already gone, but I am not disagreeing with that.
Regarding whether the presidency is a federal agency, I like correcting inaccuracies, and was even willing to do so for myself. From what I understand, the birth certificate would be presented to the Secretary of State. IF (a big if) the Secretary of State refuses to acknowledge the certificate presented, then the candidate would argue that it meets the definition of a birth certificate according to the federal statute which defines “birth certificate.” There would have to be finding of unconstitutionality to refuse to accept a certificate that would suffice for a federal employee.
The second constitutional ground that you mentioned, Full faith and Credit, would require one state to accept the public record of another state. That would be interpreted as the originating state itself acknowledging that its COLB is proper proof for the purpose of presidential eligibility (and not identifying oneself) for a passport, employee records, benefits, etc. If one state finds that the COLB is not proper proof for presidential eligibility (which seems to be the case in the “birther” legislation), there is a conflict. The “birther” state would accept the COLB for other purposes but not eligibility. A court will have to make that decision and it seems very likely to me that the COLB will be sufficient at this point, unless there is strong evidence of potential fraud. That may be the case in the future, but right now, it doesn’t seem that difficult to push the issue through the courts to rule: you must accept the COLB to prove presidential eligibility, and that would be if it is constitutional to prove eligibility. On that point, I myself do not see it as a hindrance. None of the qualifications for the presidency changes by requiring proof of eligibility and it is not a hardhsip to get a COLB and present it to the Secretary of State.
As for the legislation I have seen permitting X number of days for anyone to challenge the COLB, I would have to know more. In local elections, people can challenge eligibility: see for example Rahm E.
(and not identifying oneself)- I mean not merely to identify oneself for passports…
One should keep in mind that from the beginning stories of Obama’s Kenyan birth included a hasty trip back to the USA and a fraudulent registration. All another COLB would do would be to discredit the Polarik/Pollands of this world who maintain that the Internet image of the COLB is a fake. I would argue that the fake COLB smear was always a distraction and irrelevant to the central conspiracy theory.
In my opinion, the benign birther bills, such as the one in Montana, will have no impact on birtherism. The most optimistic view (one too optimistic for me) is that it will shut up those who argue that presidential candidates aren’t vetted.
Does anyone have a citation for whether or not a president (and family) is automatically issued a passport? I believe it does not expire once issued.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Republican presidential candidate in 2012 is somebody who was born in a state with a current Governor who is a Democrat and that state refuses to issue anything but a so-called “short form” to the candidate! 😉
Not everything you are looking for.
http://www.slate.com/id/1007828/
Thanks, that is actually where I got the information that the passport once issues does not expire.
I don’t, and I doubt that you will find anything that mentions the President separately. Presidents travel on official business with a diplomatic passport (see: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2010/08/white-house-releases-obama-passport/). Diplomatic passports are valid for a maximum of 5 years.
The rules for obtaining a diplomatic passport (http://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/1877.htm) say:
Obama, who has traveled internationally several times (for example, to Indonesia, Kenya, India, Pakistan and Russia) before becoming President has a former U. S. passport.
For the specific laws involving diplomatic passports see 22 C.F.R. secs. 51.3(c), 51.4(d), 51.4(e).
http://law.justia.com/cfr/title22/22-1.0.1.6.33.html
> The “birther” state would accept the COLB for other purposes but not eligibility. A court will have to make that decision and it seems very likely to me that the COLB will be sufficient at this point, unless there is strong evidence of potential fraud.
It is not “very likely”, it is not even a point. If one state says they would accept a scribbled note on a cocktail napkin as valid proof of identity for the purpose of eligibility, passport or whatnot, Full Faith And Credit immediately implies the “birther state” will have to accept that.
A court will not and need not (and, I think, can not) rule whether it considers the document “sufficient”. In any such case, the state will testify that it considers such a document sufficient and the court will have to accept that, even if it “thinks” that the state’s standards are “too low”. It is simply not up to the court to decide.
> unless there is strong evidence of potential fraud
Well, the issuing state will always be able to clarify that. Somehow birthers dream that the court will choose to assume that the state itself is somehow complicit in a massive fraud and deliberately issues a fraudulent document to the candidate. And that the court will call in the FBI or the national guard (or whatever birthers will consider “not part of the conspiracy”) to subpoena the state’s archives and make up its own mind whether the records are legit or not. Not gonna happen.
WND Embraces Huckabee’s Kenya Remark; NewsBusters Tries to Spin It Away
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Mike Huckabee’s remarks on Steve Malzberg’s radio that President Obama grew up in Kenya delighted WorldNetDaily, where Joe Kovacs devoted a March 1 article to repeating the remarks and how Huckabee thinks growing up in Kenya “has helped form the president’s worldview.”
One thing Kovacs curiously doesn’t do: explicitly state that the claim is false.
While Kovacs does note that Huckabee’s spokesman later said that he “meant to say the president grew up in Indonesia,” at no point does he state that there’s truth to Huckabee’s statement that Obama grew up in Kenya. Even WND has not made that claim.
Instead, Kovacs launches into standard WND birther boilerplate. But he’s hiding facts here too; Huckabee himself later issued a statement saying that “I don’t believe there is an issue with Barack Obama’s birth certificate.”
While WND is trying to claim Huckabee as a birther, NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard is furiously spinning to deny any such link, howling in a March 2 post that MSNBC hosts “cherry-picked” Huckabee “in order to depict the possible Republican presidential candidate as a birther.”
But Sheppard doesn’t explain how Huckabee’s statement about Obama growing up in Kenya — which, unlike WND’s Kovacs, he concedes is “100 percent wrong” — is not linked to Huckabee’s statement about how Obama “probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”
That, of course, is the main thesis of Dinesh D’Souza’s discredited book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.” As Salon’s Steve Kornacki writes:
The problem here is that Huckabee didn’t just say that Obama was raised in Kenya — he made specific reference to the Mau Mau Revolution, claiming that Obama, by virtue of his upbringing, would have a very different understanding of it than Westerners. That’s much different than accidentally saying “Kenya” when you meant to say “Indonesia.”
And the birther issue is a red herring. This story isn’t about whether Huckabee specifically subscribes to the view that Obama wasn’t born in the United States; maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. The issue here is that Huckabee has just demonstrated that his main critique of President Obama’s foreign policy is rooted in a belief that is demonstrably and laughably false. What other objections to Obama’s policymaking does Huckabee have that are based on beliefs like this?
The Washington Post adds:
Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony, known as the Dutch East Indies. The British controlled Malaysia, which is kind of close to Indonesia, but the Mau Mau uprising took place in Kenya in the 1950s. Churchill, the British prime minister when the uprising erupted in 1952, put it down and Obama’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was detained during the conflict.
[…]
So Huckabee’s whole statement kind of falls apart, especially when Kenya is replaced by Indonesia. What was he really thinking?
Sheppard should explain why Huckabee’s embrace of the Mau-Mau theory is a reasonable thing for a potential presidential candidate to believe.
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/blog/
If the legislation passes (with the “long form” requirement), then it will be up to the Secretary of State to either follow the law that was enacted, or not follow it. If the SOS does not, can you not foresee someone bringing the case, IF the legislation passes? A court will then decide it. If the legislation doesn’t pass, the whole issue is moot.
And if a state tried to do that, it would immediately be hit with a restraining order prohibiting it from denying the candidate a place on the ballot. The individual states have no authority to rule on the eligibility of candidates for Federal office. The states probably can demand the production of a birth certificate and an affidavit attesting to eligibility, but it is not up to individual states to decide if a candidate for Federal office is eligible. In the case of candidates for President, that’s the responsibility of the electoral college and Congress.
In local elections, people can challenge eligibility: see for example Rahm E.
Yes, but different rules apply for state and local offices.
These birther bills are absurd. Can you actually foresee a scenario under which a state would try to deny an incumbent President of the United States a place on the ballot? And that the state could get away with it?
> If the SOS does not, can you not foresee someone bringing the case, IF the legislation passes? A court will then decide it.
Sure there will be a case. But the court will not decide on much but simply say “FFAC”. The birther state can argue against the COLB until the cows come home, the court simply won’t entertain it if Hawaii says “OK for us”.
Why would he be denied a place on the ballot?
That is what I said.
The last paragraph should not be in italics.
Let’s say someone like Mike Huckabee runs for President. One or several of the states pass legislation to require proof beyond a COLB. He gets a birth certificate generated from Arkansas that meets the standard of the legislation. He presents it to the Secretary of State of those/that state(s) that require it. Who would make the legal challenge and at what point? The legislation gets struck down. Huckabee: “I showed my long form.” Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it anyways, even if the legislation fails. What is there for him to lose now? He already stuck his foot in his mouth.
I was stretching things a bit – get it closer to darkies.
I was wrong, of course. I should have gone for the bust. I have now found where Huckabee saw Winny’s bust.
This is where ex-Arkansa governor Huckabee last saw Winny’s bust and got his confuzzlement:
http://images.travelpod.com/users/texastravelgal/3.1287933375.queen-wilhelmina-state-park-arkansas.jpg
Damn furrignurs with their Jerry names.
Media Criticize Huckabee’s “Gibberish” Defense For Obama/Kenya Comments
March 02, 2011 12:20 pm ET — 22 Comments
Mike Huckabee has claimed that he “simply misspoke when I alluded to President Obama growing up in ‘Kenya’ and meant to say Indonesia.” Numerous media figures have noted that Huckabee’s defense is implausible: he made the false assertion twice, said Obama grew up “with a Kenyan father and grandfather,” and claimed that Obama’s learning about Kenya’s Mau Mau Rebellion led him to develop a deep-seated hatred of the British.
Huckabee: “I Simply Misspoke … Simple Slip Of The Tongue”
Huckabee: “I Simply Misspoke.” A March 1 statement by Mike Huckabee:
On Monday, while on Steve Malzberg’s radio show on New York’s WOR Radio, I was asked about the President Obama’s birth certificate issue. In my answer, I simply misspoke when I alluded to President Obama growing up in ‘Kenya’ and meant to say Indonesia.
As I have stated on page 1 of my new book ‘A Simple Government’ and in numerous interviews with dozens of reporters – I don’t believe there is an issue with Barack Obama’s birth certificate. However, I do believe there are serious issues with the President’s policies, and I have been openly opposed to the President’s world view.
I’m not surprised the NY Times chose to sensationalize this story. In fact, the New York Times, the AP, and other news organizations ran with the “sensationalized story” despite being specifically told by Steve Malzberg himself that they were incorrect in their assessment of the sound bite. You just can’t help but laugh when my simple slip of the tongue, becomes a huge story – and a certain Presidential candidate claiming to visit all 57 states, gets widely ignored. [HuckPac.com, 3/1/11]
Media Figures: It Wasn’t Just a Slip Of The Tongue
TIME’S Sullivan: “Huckabee Still Not a Birther–But His Pants Are On Fire.” In a post headlined, “Huckabee Still Not a Birther–But His Pants Are On Fire,” TIME magazine senior editor Amy Sullivan wrote of Huckabee’s explanation:
As for his repeated false assertion that Obama grew up in Kenya with his Kenyan father, the Huckabee camp now tells CNN and ABC that the governor simply misspoke. Several times. He meant Indonesia.
It’s tempting to believe him. After all, Huckabee’s charm as a political figure is his willingness to speak off the cuff, without the careful consideration of most politicians. So it’s believable that he might have just been careless with his words or yammering on about a subject with which he really wasn’t familiar.
Except for that whole comment about the Mau Mau Revolution, which took place in Kenya between 1952 and 1956. It’s not the sort of vague reference that you just sort of toss off. And there’s the bit about Obama growing up with his father and hearing about his Kenyan grandfather being persecuted. Obama only met his father once, which would have made it difficult to grow up steeped in tales of his Kenyan grandfather. Another misstatement, perhaps? Or is this the GOP playbook for 2012? [Time.com, 3/1/11]
TIME’s Klein: “Lie That He Really Meant Indonesia.” TIME political columnist Joe Klein wrote:
Huckabee was never an entirely plausible candidate for President–could we actually ever elect a man who has his doubts about evolution? whose comments about Israel seemed to indicate a literal interpretation of the Bible and the Rapture myth?–but he always struck me as a good guy, more concerned about working-class America than most of his rivals. These comments, however, and his subsequent lie that he really meant Indonesia not Kenya, really show a demented, perverse sensibility, and they demonstrate some of the ugliness at the heart of Obama hatred.
I’m talking about the Mau Mau comment, especially. When I was growing up, Mau Mau was shorthand for: Extremely Scary Black People. The brutality of the Mau Mau rebellion was legendary (and, who knows, perhaps even accurate). It became a term of art in the sixties: to mau-mau was to intimidate white people. (As a young reporter in Boston, I covered a would-be black militant group that called itself, with brilliant irony, De Mau Mau.) To associate Barack Obama with the Mau Mau rebellion is to feed all the worst, paranoid fears of Glenn Beck’s America–and, as any sane person knows, completely ridiculous.
But with Newt Gingrich–who endorsed Dinesh D’Souza’s obscene theory that Obama had internalized his father’s alleged view of the world even though he met his father only once, briefly, when he was a child–about to enter the presidential race, the question of where and how Barack Obama grew up should be a bright line test for every Republican candidate. If a candidate is willing to endorse, or equivocate, on these racist fantasies, we of the wildly powerless Mainstream Media Priesthood should shun and shame him or her. At the very least, a candidate who seeks to run against Obama should know where and how Obama grew up: in Hawaii, with a four-year detour to Indonesia, raised mostly by his white, Republican, Kansan grandparents. [Time.com, 3/2/11]
Wash. Post Fact Checker Kessler: “Clarification Raises More Questions.”* From a March 2 Fact Checker post by Glenn Kessler:
We all make mistakes. A slip of the tongue can easily happen, especially to a politician during an interview.
But Huckabee’s claim that he misspoke when he said–twice–on the Steve Malzberg radio show that President Obama was born in Kenya raises more questions. That’s because of the context in which Huckabee made his claim.
[…]
Try substituting Indonesia into those comments and it makes little sense.
Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony, known as the Dutch East Indies. The British controlled Malaysia, which is kind of close to Indonesia, but the Mau Mau uprising took place in Kenya in the 1950s. Churchill, the British prime minister when the uprising erupted in 1952, put it down and Obama’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was detained during the conflict.
[…]
But in any case Churchill had nothing to do with Indonesia, where Obama lived for five years, until he was 10.
So Huckabee’s whole statement kind of falls apart, especially when Kenya is replaced by Indonesia. What was he really thinking?
We asked a Huckabee spokesman for an explanation and will post an answer if we get one. [WashingtonPost.com, 3/2/11]
NY Mag’s Amira: “That Is Gibberish.” New York Magazine assistant online editor Dan Amira noted that Huckabee’s explanation “makes no sense” when you replace Kenya with Indonesia:
This is pretty much what we expected the clarification to sound like. Obama did spend a few years in Indonesia as a child, so maybe Huckabee just misspoke. He said Obama grew up in Kenya, but he meant to say Indonesia. Except that the entire train of thought revolved around Kenyan colonial history and how growing up there, specifically, influenced Obama. Plug in Indonesia and the whole thing makes no sense. Indonesia has no relation to British colonialism or the Mau Mau revolution, for example. … That is gibberish. [NYMag.com, 3/1/11]
Serwer: Huckabee’s Explanation “Doesn’t Make Sense.” Adam Serwer wrote on The Plum Line:
You can’t unblow a dogwhistle like this, but a Huckabee spokesman tried to walk it back saying that, “The governor meant to say the president grew up in Indonesia,” which (a) isn’t true (he only lived there for four years) and (b) still doesn’t make sense in the context of Huckabee’s remarks about Churchill and”Mau-Mau guerrillas.” [The Plum Line, 3/2/11]
Wash. Monthly’s Benen: “If Huckabee Thinks This Is Simply About ‘Misspeaking,’ He’s Fooling Himself.” From Steve Benen:
If this were simply a matter of a verbal slip — Huckabee meant “Indonesia,” but said, “Kenya” — this walk-back would more or less put the matter to rest.
But if Huckabee thinks this is simply about “misspeaking,” he’s fooling himself. In his little on-air tantrum yesterday, for the former governor didn’t just confuse two foreign countries, he engaged in an ugly, layered smear.
Remember, as part of the tirade, Huckabee emphasized Kenya as part of an effort to argue that President Obama is hostile towards Great Britain and “imperialists.” The Kenyan part was clearly wrong, but the larger argument echoed the disgusting D’Souza/Gingrich argument connecting the president to “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.”
It is the cheapest and vilest of the right-wing smear campaign against the president, and Huckabee had to know better than to engage in such nonsense.
What’s more, Huckabee’s entire case is deeply stupid. After screwing the countries, Huckabee argued Obama offended the British by returning a bust of Winston Churchill (that never happened; Obama moved the bust from the Oval Office to the White House residence), misidentified the family members who raised Obama, and suggested there are legitimate questions about the president’s birth certificate.
This was a pathetic display, intended once again to cater to right-wing pathologies about the president being The Other. Huckabee “simply misspoke”? I’m afraid he did much more than that. [WashingtonMonthly.com, 3/2/11]
Salon’s Kornacki: Huckabee “Made Specific Reference To The Mau Mau Revolution.” From Salon.com news editor Steve Kornacki:
How does Huckabee, who has been on the national stage for four years now and who may be the front-runner for the GOP nomination if he decides to run, not know that Obama wasn’t raised in Kenya? The statement that Huckabee’s spokesman just gave to ABC News doesn’t address this question:
“Governor Huckabee simply misspoke when he alluded to President Obama growing up in ‘Kenya.’ The Governor meant to say the President grew up in Indonesia. When the Governor mentioned he wanted to know more about the President, he wasn’t talking about the President’s place of birth — the Governor believes the President was born in Hawaii. The Governor would however like to know more about where President Obama’s liberal policies come from and what else the President plans to do to this country — as do most Americans.”
The problem here is that Huckabee didn’t just say that Obama was raised in Kenya — he made specific reference to the Mau Mau Revolution, claiming that Obama, by virtue of his upbringing, would have a very different understanding of it than Westerners. That’s much different than accidentally saying “Kenya” when you meant to say “Indonesia.”
And the birther issue is a red herring. This story isn’t about whether Huckabee specifically subscribes to the view that Obama wasn’t born in the United States; maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. The issue here is that Huckabee has just demonstrated that his main critique of President Obama’s foreign policy is rooted in a belief that is demonstrably and laughably false. What other objections to Obama’s policymaking does Huckabee have that are based on beliefs like this? [Salon, 3/1/11]
http://mediamatters.org/research/201103020020
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
“American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” is a non-fiction book by Chris Hedges
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Fascists:_The_Christian_Right_and_the_War_on_America
Because various birther bills (including the Georgia one) purport to reject the legitimate, official,, birth certificates issued by various states. Since hardly any states currently issue certifications that are duplicates of the so-called “original”, and since compliance with multiple state laws would require candidates to secure multiple certified copies (they couldn’t just hand over the tattered document their mom saved to state #1, even if it still could be located, because then they wouldn’t have anything to give state #2) — then the majority of candidates are going to submit docs that look pretty much like the Hawaii COLB.
The irony of this whole thing was that if these sorts of laws had been on the books in 2007, Obama would have been on the ballot (Hawaii birth certificate)…. but McCain would have run into barriers, given that he could not possibly produce a birth certificate showing himself to have been born in the U.S.
Assuming just for argument that the legislation stands, you don’t believe that all of the candidates could procure such a certificate form their home state, even if it has to be specially generated?
In the case of the Tennessee bill, I doubt any candidate could meet the requirement. It requires the name of the physician AND “witnesses” (plural) in attendance. I’ve never seen a birth certificate with signatures of more than one witness, and that one is the doctor. The mother signs the form, but that is to testify to the facts of her name, the father’s name etc. Only the doctor signs that the child was born alive.
[This is why it is so absurd to say that a “Certificate/Certification of Live Birth” is issued to an out of state birth or foreign born adoption.]
The documentation required by the Arizona bill disqualifies any candidate from Arizona born after 1985 or something. They don’t do ‘long forms’. Period.
How would you go about forcing your home state to issue a document different than the one ordinarily issued, if you wanted it? Do you think that being a candidate for public office somehow confers rights that other citizens don’t have?
Three and a half or four years between ages 6 to 10 does [b]NOT[/b] constitute “growing up” by any stretch of the definition.
Sure they are important years in “growing up” but so are years 1 to 6 and 11 to 18.
“Slip of the tongue” or no, it is a lie concealed in a smear hidden in an ulterior motive.
Charo,
If you go and have a look at the various Birther Bills and they are Birther bills, make no mistake about it, they (almost) all are fundamentally unconstitutional.
The requirements to stand, run and be seated as President are simple and laid out in the Constitution.
35+ years of age
A Natural/Native Born Citizen (in law and the Comstitution and by SC rukling these are interchangeable and mean the same thing)
14 years a resident (this means an ACCUMULATED 14 years not a CONSECUTIVE 14 years).
That’s it, end of story and and all other requirements are illegal and unconstitutional.
The very same Constitutions says that Congress (as the Federal government) gets to define documentary requirements AND that all said documentation, when met to standards will be accepted across all other states
LOL……Huckabee has probably really angered some birthers as well….seeing as he seemed keen to give credence to what he thinks is a case of Obama’s obvious distaste for the British…….can almost hear them…….but, but, but, but…..what about all that dangerous “allegiance” he has to Britain…….shut up Mike, shut up!
It seems like the Huckster is still “misspeaking”…
Huckabee And Fischer Agree That Obama’s Childhood Instilled “Fundamentally Anti-American Ideas” In Him
The AFA’s Bryan Fischer spent the first hour of his daily radio program doing what he usually does: railing against gays and Muslims.
But today he kicked off hour two with a special guest: Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee was there ostensibly to promote his new book but most of the interview spent with Huckabee lashing out at those who have criticized him for claiming that President Obama grew up in Kenya.
Huckabee insisted that he simply misspoke but then agreed when Fischer asserted that Obama’s childhood is responsible for instilling some “fundamentally anti-American ideas” in him:
Huckabee: And it’s really an indication of just how pathetic some of these folks are who claim to be journalists and reporters and have failed to do a decent job. You know, I admitted that I misspoke on that, but I corrected it. But what I have never done is taken to position that Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia or anywhere other than Hawaii where he claims to have been born. Frankly Bryan, that is not a popular position with conservatives but it is the position I have consistently taken and I just am very amazed at the firestorm this has caused, especially in light of the fact that the talk show host himself has said there is nothing to it.
Fischer: Well Governor, what got lost in all the shuffle was the legitimate point that you were making which is that we may have a president who has some fundamentally anti-American ideas that may be rooted in a childhood where he had a father who was virulently anti-colonial, hated the British – might have something to do with the President returning the bust of Winston Churchill back to England. You know, I was struck by the fact that when he made his tour to Indonesia, he made a point of going to an Indonesian memorial that celebrated the victory of Indonesians over British troops – again, part of that anti-colonial thing. And so I’d like you to comment on that; you seem to think that there is some validity to the fact that there may be some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president.
Huckabee: Well, that’s exactly the point that I make in the book and I don’t know why these reporters – maybe they can’t read, I guess that’s part of it because it’s clearly spelled out and I’m quoting a British newspaper who really were expressing the outrage of the Brits over that bust being returned and the point was that they felt like that due to Obama’s father and grandfather it could be that his version and view of the Mau Mau Revolution was very different than most of the people who perhaps would grow up in the United States. And I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.
Later in the interview, Fischer asked Huckabee his thoughts about the news that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum had been been suspended by Fox News as they mull presidential bids and Huckabee admitted that part of the reason he is in no rush to make any public decision about a run of his own is that, if he does, he’ll also lose his gig with Fox.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/huckabee-and-fischer-agree-obamas-childhood-instilled-some-fundamental-anti-americanism-him
This is one of those crazy lame arguments, like the silly “teleprompter meme” that doesn’t make any sense.
Um, hello RWNJs… What part of how America was founded by throwing off colonial control by the British did you fail to stay awake for in history class? *sheesh*
The whole fake “bust return outrage” is also lame nonsense. It was on loan to us. It is now returned. That is not a slight, that is how “on loan” works. Happens in our museums all the time. We have objects from other countries “on loan” and at some point, we return them. *sheesh*
Yeah, Huckster…the whole repeated “Mau Mau Revolution” references ARE exactly what you’re deservedly being called on the carpet for. For one, they prove that your whole backtracking claims of meaing “Indonesia” instead of “Kenay” are complete bogus and two, prove that all you are doing is trying to give red-meat “dog whistles” to the parts of your base that find black people scary and dangerous.
It is nothing but an obvious and disgustingly cynical attempt to appeal to racists and this defiant defense of those statements, including a double-down on mentioning the Mau Mau Revolution is just as blatently obvious in its intent.
So, Huckabee says some really stupid bigoted lies and then makes it worse trying to explain it away with this loaded statement of nonsense.
First of all, “madrassas”??? Really? Nice attempt there to add some fake radical muslim character assassination assinuations there.
Sorry, Obama NEVER attended any madrassas. Not during his time in Indonesia. Not at any other time either.
Sorry, not all males in the US were Boy Scouts either or had families attending Rotary Clubs. Not even a majority of us. So that’s not some requirement to be an American.
Some of the other interview stuff I’ve heard had him referencing “American sports”…
…Well, got news for ya, Huckster. Obama played a lot of basketball growing up and was darn good at it too. That is one of the quintessential American sports. He spent a good part of his youth being raised by his grandparents. His grandfather was a WWII vet who fought for America and then bettered himself afterwards on the GI Bill. That sounds to me to be a pretty patriotic and wholly American background story, if you ask me.
The Huckster is right in that President Obama has a distinctly different world view than him. We have a President who actually thinks in terms of the world, instead of isolated, me me me terms.
I understand from the Newsweek article that the bust was not actually returned, but sits in the President’s residence in the White House.
So, being anti-British make one anti-American? Such would have been news to Thomas Jefferson among others. It’s interesting that in 1940 many Republicans opposed Roosevelt because he was too sympathetic towards Britain. Now they believe failing to be sufficiently pro-British makes one anti-American. My head is spinning.
I have been reading most everywhere that “[a] bronze bust of Winston Churchill was loaned to President George Bush after the 9/11 attacks. ”
That wasn’t the case.
Remarks on Accepting a Bust of Winston Churchill and an Exchange With Reporters
July 16, 2001
The President. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
I think I casually mentioned to the Ambassador, right after my swearing-in, that I lamented the fact that there was not a proper bust of Winston Churchill for me to put in the Oval Office. He’s a man of great action, because here sits a bust on loan from Her Majesty’s Government that I accept gratefully and will place right here, where the flowers are, beneath one of my favorite west Texas paintings. I accept gratefully, and I look forward to looking at Sir Winston on a daily basis.
People said, “Why would you be interested in having the bust of an Englishman in your Oval Office?” And the answer is, because he was one of the great leaders in the 20th century. He was an enormous personality. He stood on principle. He was a man of great courage. He knew what he believed, and he really kind of went after it in a way that seemed like a Texan to me. He wasn’t afraid of public opinion polls. He wasn’t afraid of—he didn’t need focus groups to tell him what was right. He charged ahead, and the world is better for it.
He also had a great sense of humor. There have been a lot of Churchill stories, some of which you can repeat on TV, some of which you can’t, Mr. Ambassador. One that came to mind was, after he lost office in the election in 1945, King George VI offered him the Order of the Garter. And here is what he said: “I could hardly accept His Majesty’s offer of the Garter when his people have given me the order of the boot.” [Laughter]
Churchill reminds me of two things— one, we need more humor in the public arena. He had a great wit. He had a fantastic way of making people smile and laugh. And secondly, he reminds me of the importance of our relationship, the relationship between Great Britain and America.
As the Ambassador mentions, in a couple of days’ time I will go to confirm and renew that relationship. Not only will I have the honor of meeting with Her Majesty; I will also spend some quality time again with the Prime Minister. We’ve got a strong personal relationship that is most helpful to making sure our countries continue the tie that binds.
I’m looking forward to my trip overseas. And a perfect way to begin is to stop off in London and then eventually go to Chequers and then—and have a very constructive and honest and straightforward dialog about areas where we cooperate to make the world a better place.
In the meantime, Mr. Ambassador, I’m honored that you came by. Thank you very much for bringing Sir Winston. I look forward to visiting with him. Sometimes he’ll talk back; sometimes he won’t, depending upon the stress of the moment. But he is a constant reminder of what a great leader is like.
…
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=73620
I only link the above to show how something gets repeated over and over without a source. Stating that the bust was loaned after 9/11 was repeated on conservative/progressive/liberal sites, all. The above link seems to be accurate
It doesn’t matter the what the date was — the point is that the bust was loaned to GW Bush early in his administration, apparently because it is something he wanted to have because of his admiration for Churchill.
It is customary for new Presidents to redecorate — keeping artwork they like, moving what they don’t — and obviously Obama has different preferences. (Apparently, from the news reports, Obama is more of a Lincoln buff. it is probably news to many Obama-haters, but one difference between Churchill and Lincoln is that Lincoln was American)
Dumbass Fischer apparently doesn’t realize that Indonesia was a Dutch colony, not a British colony.
Huckabee: …it could be that his version and view of the Mau Mau Revolution was very different than most of the people who perhaps would grow up in the United States.
How many Americans have any idea what the Mau Mau revolution was?
Somebody should ask Huckabee if he is pro-colonial.
Thank you for that clarification. There’s been so much overblown hoopla on this over-inflated non-story, its been hard to keep straight what really happened.
It’s very similar to the bogus claims of damage and theft to White House items by the Clintons when Bush came into office. Lots of taxpayer money was spent on a GAO report that concluded that there was no more damage other than normal wear-and-tear, and the story was a Fox news smear.
Dr. C said the following in the article on top of the thread:
“…I would think that anyone from planet Earth knew that Barack Obama was raised largely in Hawaii by his maternal grandparents and was never even in Kenya until he was an adult….”
In Sept 2006 Illinois State Senator Obama, while on an international trip, was interviewed by Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times.
An excerpt from the article:
“…Obama’s next big international journey will be in 2007 – he’s looking at China, India and Indonesia, “where ironically I actually have more of a childhood than I do in Kenya.”
Question for Dr. C or other Obama supporters:
It seems to me that the previous sentence implies that Obama was in Kenya during his childhood, though it was a shorther period than in Indonesia.
Knowing his biography, the only time when he could have been in Kenya during his chlidhood was in August 1961.
What do you think – wasn’t that an addmission that he was (born) in Kenya?
Before you jump to any conclusion please read every word in his statement and think about its meaning.
*sigh* Yeah, you really struggle with understanding the simple basics of english language don’t you?
HINT: SOME (a few young childhood years in Indonesia) is more than NONE (Kenya).
Simple as that. *sheesh*
When speaking in conversation, it’s common to leave out obvious words, or not to say every word one is thinking. What Obama obviously meant was “where ironically I actually have more of a childhood [influence] than I do [from my father] in Kenya.” His childhood Kenyan influence came from his father. So no, Barack Obama did not admit he was in Kenya as a child. His father’s brother, Sayid, says in a video that Obama’s first time in Kenya was as an adult.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/01/obama-uncle-confirms-not-born-in-kenya/
In my previous post I forgot to include the link to the Chicago Sun-Times article:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2006/09/obama_africa_lessons_look_ahea.html
It is not that simple, that was the reason I asked in my post that you consider every word and its meaning. You forgot to consider the meaning of the word “ironic” in Obama’s statement. Let me help you with the definition of word ironic:
1. using words that mean the opposite of what you really think
2. strange or funny because something (such as a situation) is different from what you expected.
If the official birthplace story (born in Hawaii) were true there would be nothing funny or strange about the fact that he spent more time in Indonesia vs. Kenya.
However, if he was born in Kenya – his statement would make perfect sense.
The only think obvious here is that you are using standards to stretch Obama’s words that you would not concede to those questioning Obama’s birth story.
On top of it, the stretch you used is not even a particularly good one: the flow of thougths in the original sentence is more natural than in your contrived example.
No. It *is* that simple and you obviously have a poor grasp of how the english language works.
Dr. C’s reply addressed this aspect as well…which you again fail to grasp.
The IRONY here is that Obama is describing is that he has more of a connection to places such as Indonesia (where he lived a few of his childhood years) and that region of the world than to Kenya, where his own father was from (which he never visited until his mid 20s).
If anything, it is a telling critque on the absense of his father in his life.
*DUH*
nc1 – You have no idea what you are talking about. The only thing that is obvious is that you have a laughably poor grasp of how the english language works and is used. You only continue to show what a fool you are with how off the mark and incorrect your statements are.
That’s your opinion. I don’t agree.
I think I am pretty consistent in how I read things using some basic principles:
1) If a person says something plainly and then says something related open to interpretation, the most likely interpretation is what they said plainly elsewhere.
2) If a person says something, the interpretation that they mean something that they have no way of knowing is wrong.
3) Experts tend to interpret things in their area of expertise correctly.
4) People generally don’t talk “in code” when they make public statements.
I think those are reasonable standards. When have I violated them?
You forget that many birthers seem to see the world as a vast, secret conspiracy, Doc. Reasonable standards don’t apply to them, as there is nothing reasonable about their thinking process (or apparent lack thereof).
Hence they probably view every public statement (or heck, just about every conversation out there) as some sort of bizarre coded message that only their priviledged tin-foil minds can decipher, with a truly astonishing need to excessively parse every word and phrase to complete reducto ad absurdium. As Patrick over at Bad Fiction would say, birthers receive coded messages from their Rice Krispies every morning…
===================================================================
In another thread you ignored the context and used a first sentence by itself to ridicule proposed Georgia law.
Nothing in the Chicago-Sun Article indicates that there was a discussion about Obama’s childhood influence. That was your invention.
Since NC1 and the other birthers have absolutely no evidence, they need every little “coded” message to prove their already decided theory. Quite simply, it must be simple desperation.
Also, many states (most? Doc?) are using electronic submission of vital statistics or are moving towards it in the near future.
how does a ‘specially generated’ form satisfy the requirement that the candidate submit a copy of the ‘original long form’ when such a document never existed in the first place?
Farah To Huckabee: Come To The Birther Dark Side
Topic: WorldNetDaily
While NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard has been trying to deny the evidence of Mike Huckabee’s birther tendencies, WorldNetDaily would like Huckabee to embrace it.
Joseph Farah’s March 5 column is an open letter to Huckabee challenging his claim that if there was really some dirt in Barack Obama’s past, Hillary Clinton would have used it against him during the 2008 presidential primary:
First of all, you seem to have a very high regard for the Clintons. That worries me. Should we just have the Clintons determine for the nation who is qualified to serve as president – instead of some legitimate controlling legal authority according to the specific constitutional criteria? Do you really believe the Clintons are infallible – even with regard to political campaigning?
Has it ever occurred to you the Clintons might have been just as suspicious about Obama’s eligibility as most Americans are but didn’t have sufficient documentation to make the case?
Did it occur to you that Hillary was the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination when the primaries began and, as the front-runner, made a calculated decision not to raise that divisive issue because she had more to lose than gain?
Is it possible that, when she found herself in a close race, raising the questions might have made her look desperate and mean?
Has it escaped your notice that Hillary got a plum job in the Obama administration?
Quite honestly, it sounds like a cop-out to me.
Or perhaps you just haven’t familiarized yourself with the central issues of this controversy.
Farah and WND, of course, have repeatedly misled and lied about those “central issues.” Nevertheless, Farah takes a whack at Huckabee for falsely claiming that Obama grew up in Kenya:
Could it be, at this late date, you are still so woefully ill-informed about Obama’s actual story?
And since you were mistaken about where Obama grew up, is it possible that you might also be mistaken in your unwavering confidence in the Clintons?
Is this really the way we should select presidents in America in the 21st century – on the basis of a tacit blessing from Bill and Hillary?
Farah, it seems, would rather base it on the hateful rantings from a fringe website. That’s not an improvement.
Sheppard Whiffs Again on Huckabee Defense
Topic: NewsBusters
In a March 2 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard takes another stab at defending Mike Huckabee over his factually dubious remarks about President Obama’s background — and doesn’t do much better on the fact meter than Huckabee did.
Sheppard dutifully repeats Huckabee’s defense that when he said Obama grew up in Kenya, he really meant to say that Obama grew up in Indonesia, and that in his newly released book, “clearly what I wrote was about his childhood in Indonesia, about his Kenyan father and grandfather who he says was tortured by the Brits during the Mau Mau revolution. All of that is spelled out.” Sheppard then relates the story told by Obama’s grandmother that his grandfather was jailed during the Kenyan independence movement, adding:
This report was all the rage that month in 2008, even getting quoted by the far-left website the Huffington Post.
As such, all Huckabee was citing in his book and repeated on Monday was established history of Obama’s family.
Is this suddenly verboten? Was Arianna guilty of hate speech for mentioning Obama’s Kenyan father and grandfather at her website? Or are only liberals allowed to bring this up?
Both Huckabee and Sheppard get things wrong here. Salon’s Justin Elliott, unlike Huckabee and Sheppard, actually researched the issue, pointing out that Obama’s family was never a part of the Mau Mau rebellion, and the prison time his grandfather served took place three years before the rebellion began. Elliott also quoted historian David Anderson about events in 1950s Kenya, when the Mau Mau rebellion occurred:
To portray the Obama family as being part of Mau Mau is stir-fry crazy. Let me explain why: The Obama family come from western Kenya, which is about as different from Nairobi and the Kikuyu area as Utah is from New York City. And it’s almost as far way. They come from an area where there was no rebellion, there was no Mau Mau. So while his father and his grandmother may well have been nationalists — I’m sure they were — they weren’t directly involved in the Mau Mau rebellion.
The other thing is, if you’ve read anything about Churchill, you’d know that, although he was the head of the government at the time of the Mau Mau rebellion, he was trying as best he could to get the British in Kenya to negotiate and to end the fighting. Churchill was not supporting or condoning the violence. He is actually one of the few British politicians who comes out of this smelling of roses.
Elliott sums up Huckabee’s (and Sheppard’s) apparent views on the issue:
So a fleshed-out version of Huckabee’s theory would go like this: Obama’s grandfather hated the British because he was (supposedly) tortured in prison under the colonial regime a few years before the Mau Mau uprising. Therefore, President Obama must take a different view of the Mau Mau uprising — in which his family played no part — than Huckabee, who apparently supports the brutal measures used by the British to defeat the rebellion. And because of all that, Obama replaced a bust of Winston Churchill — who himself wanted a peaceful solution to Mau Mau — with a bust of Abraham Lincoln.
All of which makes Sheppard’s defense that Huckabee merely made “a simple mistake the man has already acknowledged and apologized for” nonsensical because Obama’s upbringing in Indonesia has nothing whatsoever to do with the Mau Mau rebellion.
That makes strike two in Sheppard’s defense of Huckabee. Will he give it one more shot — and, presumably, go down swinging?
Cashill: Huckabee Needs To Read My Book!
Topic: WorldNetDaily
With Mike Huckabee in hot water over claims about President Obama that range between wild and false, who should offer to come to his rescue but … conspiracy theorist Jack Cashill!
Cashill writes in his March 3 column:
No reason for any of it. Let me here take Huckabee at his word. “I would love to know more,” he told Malzberg. Well then, Mr. Huckabee, let your education begin.
As a good place to start, in the Republican spirit of free enterprise, I would recommend my new book, “Deconstructing Obama,” and a close and daily reading of WND.
The first Republican candidate to educate himself on this issue, and to turn the tables on his tormentors, will likely be the next president of the United States.
More likely, the first Republican candidate to do that will end up a lot like Cashill — stuck spinning goofy conspiracy theories somewhere in the Midwest.
Or multiple voices in their head…
More ficticious nonsense from Dr Kate’s house of hatred….
ALIPAC Forums – Barack Obama’s citizenship questioned
March 5, 2011 at 4:36 am
Gov. Huckabee certainly did misspeak. He is not knowledgeable about the usurper and his history. Barack Obama II departed Kenya shortly after his birth and did not return until 1981, as part of his trip to Pakistan.
I have no record or evidence of Anna Dunham Obama’s presence in Hawaii between her marriage to Barrack Snr. in Maui on Feb. 2, 1961, and his departure for Harvard in the summer of 1962.
On Aug. 4, 1961, Barack Hussein Obama II was born to Barrack Hussain Obama, Snr., and Anna Dunham Obama at Coast Province General Hospital, Mombasa, Kenya.
Fifteen days later, on Aug. 19, 1961, Anna Dunham Obama began night classes at the Univ. of Washington in Seattle. She rented an apartment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, which she shared with her baby boy for the ’61-’62 school year. When Barrack Snr. left Hawaii for Harvard, she returned to Honolulu, where she attended the Univ. of Hawaii (BA ’67). While there, she divorced Barrack Snr. in 1964, and in 1965, she married Lolo Soetoro, whom she had also met at UH.
After UH, Soetoro returned to work in Indonesia, followed by Anna and son in 1967. Soetoro adopted (or acknowledged) Barry as his son, which enabled Barry to attend government schools in Indonesia. In 1971, Anna took Barry to her parents in Honolulu for him to live with them. Barrack Snr. met them there to briefly reclaim his son from Lolo Soetoro, so that Barry II could be adopted (or whatever they called it) by Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. They enrolled him in the Punahou School – perhaps the most expensive school in the U.S. – from the fall of 1971 until he graduated in 1979.
Barry Soetoro, a.k.a. Soebarkah, attended Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years (1979-1981). Then he supposedly attended Columbia Univ. in Harlem, graduating in 1983. But at that time, Pastor James David Manning was studying at Union Theological Seminary, across the street from Columbia. He never saw Mr. Obama there, and neither did 400 others interviewed by FOX NEWS who were at Columbia Univ. between 1981 and 1983.
So where was he, after he traveled to Karachi and Islamabad, Pakistan, in the summer of 1981? Pastor Manning states that Mr. Obama remained there for 3½ to 4 years, working for the CIA as an Arabic-speaking, Mus|im-acculturated, liason to the Taliban, funneling guns, supplies, and funds to the mujahideen for their war against the Soviet aggression in neighboring Afghanistan.
In 1985, Mr. Obama returned to the U.S., not to Hawaii or New York, but to Chicago, where he worked as a community organizer. He attended Harvard Law School from 1988 to 1991, graduating with a J.D. magna cum laude. He became a lecturer in Constitutional law at the Univ. of Chicago from 1992 to 2004. He was an Illinois State Senator from 1997 to 2004 and a U.S. Senator from 2005 to 2008.
On Nov. 5, 2008, the day after the election, he proclaimed his ascension to the “Office of the President-Elect,” thus initiating the present usurpation.
http://drkatesview.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/supremes-to-conference-on-obama-eligibility/#comment-24611
We don’t know what the context was because it is an article about an interview, not an interview itself. As far as I can determine, there is no transcript available. It may not have been recorded. We can only surmise what questions were asked. However, the “irony” is clear if you actually take the time to learn what happened during Obama’s 2006 trip to Africa. Although he had been to Kenya only twice before, thousands of people lined the streets of Nairobi to catch a glimpse of him. He was being hailed by Kenyans as one of their own, even though he had spent little time there.
Of course, we have seen this tactic from you many times before. You parse every word of what was an off-the-cuff remark and try to instill meaning to it which does not exist.
There are news stories about Obama’s 2006 trip to Africa which include phrases such as “a rousing homecoming celebration.” Then there is this:
“He is truly a son of Africa, his election means something to them personally,” Kenyan TV said. “Barack Obama was born to a Kenyan father who hailed from a sleepy little village in Kogelo, Siaya district. And this village will perhaps be more eager to welcome their son home.”
To the birthers, “son of Africa” and “welcome their son home” means that Obama was born in Kenya. Those of us who live in the reality-based world know better.
What The Huck?
WorldNetDaily, NewsBusters, and Newsmax take different approaches to Mike Huckabee’s remarks on President Obama, from whitewashing them to complaining they didn’t go far enough.
By Terry Krepel
Posted 3/10/2011
——————————————————————————–
Possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s remarks on Steve Malzberg’s radio show that President Obama grew up in Kenya tended to get attention in the ConWeb based on the particular proclivities of a ConWeb component: The Media Research Center’s NewsBusters division sought to spin the remarks away, WorldNetDaily complained that Huckabee wasn’t fully embracing his birther dark side, and Newsmax chose to perpetuate a related falsehood about Obama.
NewsBusters
The MRC’s point man on Huckabee, NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard, began by furiously spinning to deny any such link, howling in a March 1 post that MSNBC hosts “cherry-picked” Huckabee “in order to depict the possible Republican presidential candidate as a birther.”
But Sheppard didn’t explain how Huckabee’s statement about Obama growing up in Kenya — which he admitted was “100 percent wrong” — is not linked to Huckabee’s subsequent statement about how Obama “probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”
That, of course, is the main thesis of Dinesh D’Souza’s discredited book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.” As Salon’s Steve Kornacki noted:
The problem here is that Huckabee didn’t just say that Obama was raised in Kenya — he made specific reference to the Mau Mau Revolution, claiming that Obama, by virtue of his upbringing, would have a very different understanding of it than Westerners. That’s much different than accidentally saying “Kenya” when you meant to say “Indonesia.”
And the birther issue is a red herring. This story isn’t about whether Huckabee specifically subscribes to the view that Obama wasn’t born in the United States; maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. The issue here is that Huckabee has just demonstrated that his main critique of President Obama’s foreign policy is rooted in a belief that is demonstrably and laughably false. What other objections to Obama’s policymaking does Huckabee have that are based on beliefs like this?
The Washington Post added:
Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony, known as the Dutch East Indies. The British controlled Malaysia, which is kind of close to Indonesia, but the Mau Mau uprising took place in Kenya in the 1950s. Churchill, the British prime minister when the uprising erupted in 1952, put it down and Obama’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was detained during the conflict.
[…]
So Huckabee’s whole statement kind of falls apart, especially when Kenya is replaced by Indonesia. What was he really thinking?
That’s not an area, however, that Sheppard seemed interested in exploring.
Sheppard took another stab at defending Huckabee on March 2, failing to do much better on the fact meter than Huckabee did.
Sheppard dutifully repeated Huckabee’s defense that when he said Obama grew up in Kenya, he really meant to say that Obama grew up in Indonesia, and that in his newly released book, “clearly what I wrote was about his childhood in Indonesia, about his Kenyan father and grandfather who he says was tortured by the Brits during the Mau Mau revolution. All of that is spelled out.” In fact, Media Matters found that not only did Huckabee’s book not “spell out” the story of Obama’s childhood in Indonesia on the page Huckabee specified it was on, the word “Indonesia” appears nowhere at all in the book.
Sheppard then related the story told by Obama’s grandmother that his grandfather was jailed during the Kenyan independence movement, adding:
This report was all the rage that month in 2008, even getting quoted by the far-left website the Huffington Post.
As such, all Huckabee was citing in his book and repeated on Monday was established history of Obama’s family.
Is this suddenly verboten? Was Arianna guilty of hate speech for mentioning Obama’s Kenyan father and grandfather at her website? Or are only liberals allowed to bring this up?
Both Huckabee and Sheppard got this wrong. Salon’s Justin Elliott, unlike Huckabee and Sheppard, actually researched the issue, pointing out that Obama’s family was never a part of the Mau Mau rebellion, and the prison time his grandfather served took place three years before the rebellion began. Elliott also quoted historian David Anderson about events in 1950s Kenya, when the Mau Mau rebellion occurred:
To portray the Obama family as being part of Mau Mau is stir-fry crazy. Let me explain why: The Obama family come from western Kenya, which is about as different from Nairobi and the Kikuyu area as Utah is from New York City. And it’s almost as far way. They come from an area where there was no rebellion, there was no Mau Mau. So while his father and his grandmother may well have been nationalists — I’m sure they were — they weren’t directly involved in the Mau Mau rebellion.
The other thing is, if you’ve read anything about Churchill, you’d know that, although he was the head of the government at the time of the Mau Mau rebellion, he was trying as best he could to get the British in Kenya to negotiate and to end the fighting. Churchill was not supporting or condoning the violence. He is actually one of the few British politicians who comes out of this smelling of roses.
Elliott summed up Huckabee’s (and Sheppard’s) apparent views on the issue:
So a fleshed-out version of Huckabee’s theory would go like this: Obama’s grandfather hated the British because he was (supposedly) tortured in prison under the colonial regime a few years before the Mau Mau uprising. Therefore, President Obama must take a different view of the Mau Mau uprising — in which his family played no part — than Huckabee, who apparently supports the brutal measures used by the British to defeat the rebellion. And because of all that, Obama replaced a bust of Winston Churchill — who himself wanted a peaceful solution to Mau Mau — with a bust of Abraham Lincoln.
All of which makes Sheppard’s defense that Huckabee merely made “a simple mistake the man has already acknowledged and apologized for” nonsensical because Obama’s upbringing in Indonesia has nothing whatsoever to do with the Mau Mau rebellion.
Sheppard seemed to be growing weary of figuring out how to defend Huckabee. He started off his March 5 NewsBusters post by trying to go after George Will’s Washington Post column criticizing Huckabee and pointing out the dearth of plausible Republican presidential candidates. Sheppard first attempts to dismiss Will as someone who is “no stranger to leaving the reservation,” but then finds himself approvingly quoting Chris Matthews — who just a few days earlier Sheppard was bashing as a “shill” and a “so-called journalist” for his “multiple Obamagasms” — saying that people care more about the economy than fabulism about Obama’s background. Sheppard continued:
This battle over Obama’s background may have had its place in 2008 despite many on the right believing the fight never occurred because the junior senator from Illinois and his devotees in the media didn’t let it happen.
Maybe that’s so, but do most Americans, in particular independent voters, want to discuss the President’s upbringing instead of issues that we’re facing right here at home such as high unemployment, high gas prices, high food prices, low housing prices, and burgeoning revolutions in Africa and the Middle East that could quickly threaten our national security?
Don’t we have far bigger fish to fry in 2011 than where the President was born and what influenced his worldview as a child? If he couldn’t be beaten with such tactics in 2008 when he was just a totally unqualified junior senator, how can that possibly be a winning strategy now that he’s got over two years presidential experience under his belt?
That could be seen as more spinning for Huckabee by trying to portray the questions Huckabee raised as not worthy of coverage. But later, Sheppard is fully agreeing with Will:
Sitting presidents are difficult to beat. Despite the ongoing housing crisis and high unemployment, Obama’s favorability rating has remained quite high, making defeating him even tougher.
Will like most conservatives desperately wants this to happen sending the current White House resident packing, and therefore most certainly wants what he believes is best for the Republican Party to accomplish this.
What he’s saying is that some potential presidential candidates are focusing on extraneous issues that not only don’t resonate with the majority of the public but also detract from the stronger message.
“[T]he nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.”
In sum, the vast majority of Americans don’t care where Obama was born, and care even less about his father and his grandfather. The more Republicans talk about such things rather than jobs, gas and housing prices, exploding deficits and debt, and a totally unstable Middle East and African continent, the less the public cares what such they have to say.
Bill Clinton’s motto in 1992 was, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
To a certain extent, Will is saying the same should be true for Republicans 20 years later.
Sheppard is throwing Huckabee under the bus, even if he won’t come right out and admit that’s what he’s doing.
He took it all back, though, in a March 7 post bashing Matthews for comparing a column by George Will criticizing Huckabee “to William F. Buckley Jr. banning anti-Semitic writers from the National Review in the ’50s” — a column whose sentiments Sheppard ultimately agreed with. Sheppard ridiculed Matthews’ comparison, then retreated to spin mode:
No matter what Matthews thinks of the current White House resident, he is indeed one man. Gingrich and Huckabee are entitled to their opinions of this man which, contrary to what Matthews and other pathetic so-called journalists routinely claim, are not borne of racism.
What the “Hardball” host has continually missed in the past five business days as he’s focused so much attention on this issue – he once again began and ended his program excoriating Gingrich and Huckabee – is that the concepts they’ve both addressed regarding Obama’s worldview were first offered by Dinesh D’Souza in a Forbes article published last September.
As such, what they are saying is nothing new, and really shouldn’t be getting this kind of attention. Matthews likely wouldn’t care at all about Gingrich and Huckabee if they weren’t amongst the front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination.
[…]
For Will’s part, if he disagrees with Gingrich and Huckabee, he’s entitled to offer his opinion which I myself found enlightening enough to share with my readers.
As I wrote Saturday, I agree with Will that candidates focusing on Obama’s upbringing and background rather than his policies not only distracts from the issues, but is also likely to turn off independent voters that are far more concerned with high unemployment, high gas prices, high food prices, exploding debt, and violence spreading throughout Africa and the Middle East threatening our national security.
But does that make Will’s column as historic as Buckley banning anti-Semitic writers from his magazine which I myself have had the great honor of contributing to?
Hardly, and the mere suggestion is offensive.
If Sheppard agrees with Will, why is he working to dismiss what Huckabee said as old news and yet valid opinions (if not ultimately helpful to the GOP in regaining the White House)?
Sheppard then sniffed: “I’d say that Matthews and his bosses should be ashamed of themselves for making such a comparison, but that seems futile.” The same thing could be said about Sheppard’s partisan shamelessness.
WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily, meanwhile, was initially delighted by Huckabee’s remarks; Joe Kovacs devoted a March 1 article to repeating the remarks and how Huckabee thinks growing up in Kenya “has helped form the president’s worldview.” One thing Kovacs didn’t do: explicitly state that the claim is false.
While Kovacs does note that Huckabee’s spokesman later said that he “meant to say the president grew up in Indonesia,” at no point did he point out that there’s no truth to Huckabee’s statement that Obama grew up in Kenya — even WND has not made that claim. Instead, Kovacs launched into standard WND birther boilerplate. which is at odds with Huckabee’s later statement that “I don’t believe there is an issue with Barack Obama’s birth certificate.”
Jack Cashill chimed in with his March 3 column, asserting he hadn’t gone nearly far enough:
No reason for any of it. Let me here take Huckabee at his word. “I would love to know more,” he told Malzberg. Well then, Mr. Huckabee, let your education begin.
As a good place to start, in the Republican spirit of free enterprise, I would recommend my new book, “Deconstructing Obama,” and a close and daily reading of WND.
The first Republican candidate to educate himself on this issue, and to turn the tables on his tormentors, will likely be the next president of the United States.
More likely, the first Republican candidate to do that will end up a lot like Cashill — stuck spinning goofy conspiracy theories somewhere in the Midwest.
Joseph Farah’s March 5 column is an open letter to Huckabee challenging his claim that if there was really some dirt in Barack Obama’s past, Hillary Clinton would have used it against him during the 2008 presidential primary:
First of all, you seem to have a very high regard for the Clintons. That worries me. Should we just have the Clintons determine for the nation who is qualified to serve as president – instead of some legitimate controlling legal authority according to the specific constitutional criteria? Do you really believe the Clintons are infallible – even with regard to political campaigning?
Has it ever occurred to you the Clintons might have been just as suspicious about Obama’s eligibility as most Americans are but didn’t have sufficient documentation to make the case?
Did it occur to you that Hillary was the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination when the primaries began and, as the front-runner, made a calculated decision not to raise that divisive issue because she had more to lose than gain?
Is it possible that, when she found herself in a close race, raising the questions might have made her look desperate and mean?
Has it escaped your notice that Hillary got a plum job in the Obama administration?
Quite honestly, it sounds like a cop-out to me.
Or perhaps you just haven’t familiarized yourself with the central issues of this controversy.
Farah and WND, of course, have repeatedly misled and lied about those “central issues.” Nevertheless, Farah takes a whack at Huckabee for falsely claiming that Obama grew up in Kenya:
Could it be, at this late date, you are still so woefully ill-informed about Obama’s actual story?
And since you were mistaken about where Obama grew up, is it possible that you might also be mistaken in your unwavering confidence in the Clintons?
Is this really the way we should select presidents in America in the 21st century – on the basis of a tacit blessing from Bill and Hillary?
Farah, it seems, would rather base it on the hateful rantings from a fringe website. That’s not an improvement.
Farah teed off on Huckabee again in his March 9 column, grousing that “Huckabee assumes that the Clinton smear machine is so efficient that it could never possibly miss a vulnerability in an opponent,” adding of the Clintons: “They’re creeps – nothing more, nothing less. They got away with murder, time and again, because the Big Media loved them.”
Newsmax
Newsmax, though, was content with perpetuating a falsehood it have previously treated as fact. Jim Meyers wrote in a March 2 article:
Malzberg noted that Huckabee was referring to a bust of Winston Churchill, a gift to the White House from Britain, that Obama ordered returned after he took office.
“The bust of Winston Churchill, a great insult to the British,” Huckabee continued.
“But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”
In fact, Obama did not order the Churchill bust to be returned. The British Embassy confirmed that the bust was “uniquely lent” to Bush, and was scheduled to be returned at the end of Bush’s term. According to the Associated Press, the bust is now in the White House residence — in other words, it hasn’t been returned at all.
Why would Meyers embrace such an obvious falsehood? Perhaps because Newsmax is where the falsehood got started. As ConWebWatch detailed, a March 2009 Newsmax column by James Humes purported to quote Obama saying of the bust, “Get that goddam thing out of here.” But there is no evidence whatsoever to back up Humes’ claim that Obama said anything like this. Rather than retract the column and apologize, Humes merely edited his column to state that the claim “was never fully substantiated, despite frequent repetition on radio talk shows.” But that’s a lie too; Humes never identified any talk show host who made the claim, or where specifically he picked it up from.
Humes even concocted the Mau-Mau theory to back up his illegitimate claim: “Perhaps Obama, who grew up in Kenya, took umbrage at Prime Minister Churchill’s actions in 1953 of wiping out the Mau-Mau, the Kenyan terrorists who made a specialty of slitting throats of sleeping white and Black Kenyans.”
Humes, as far as we know, was never punished for his falsehood. To the contrary: Newsmax rewarded it by giving him a speaking slot on a cruise it sponsored last year.
No wonder Meyers thinks the Churchill bust story is true — his employer let the perpetrator of the falsehood get away with it.
It just so happens that as this controversy was brewing, Newsmax was offering a special deal for its readers on Huckabee’s latest book — a discount price plus the usual assortment of free trial subscriptions to Newsmax magazine and a financial newsletter that require the recipient to cancel in order to avoid being automatically charged for a year’s subscription.
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2011/huckabeekenya.html