Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 10, 2009

It’s being discussed on CNN as a wacko conspiracy theory, though …

Mr Obama’s mother was an American citizen, so he is an American citizen, no matter where he was born. Or do the birther idiots think she was born in Kenya also?

These are folks who are not quite up to speed yet on the admission of Hawaii as the 50th state in 1959.

I wouldn’t care if he was born on Mars (as I was) if only he could clean up half the mess left by the previous Prez.

I have yet to meet a “birther”. I’m convinced these nut-jobs exist but in tiny numbers that the pro-Left media, politicians, and cartoonists are delighted to publicize out of proportion.

Instead I have encountered many, many normal people who oppose socialism and Obama for good and real reasons. They are the people the media, etc., try to downplay or slander by playing up the fringe.

For example, citizens who came to a Congressman’s town hall meeting to express their opposition to ObamaCare couldn’t get in because the Democratic event organizers had pre-loaded the building with early-arriving union-member shills. Then the citizens got characterized by the media as an “angry mob” when they become justifiably upset.

The rule both Left and Right has become, if you can’t defeat their arguments, attack people personally. And when someone tries to return to the issues, just call him an “idealogue”, a great insult these days.

(BTW: Calling a “nut-job” a “nut-job” is not “ad hominem” when they really are nuts. That’s true for “birthers” as well as Leftists who think the world is run by a “vast right-wing conspiracy”.)

Hawaii was indeed a state of the Union (officially admitted August 21, 1959) when Obama was born in 1961. Even if Hawaii was still a territory (pre-1959) Obama would still have been born an American citizen.

Although the US Supreme Court has never formally ruled on this issue, most legal scholars agree that the US Constitution’s mandate for the president to be a “natural born [US] Citizen” include those who were born in US territories and those born of American parents though outside of the judicial limits of the US.

Those of you who doubt Obama’s circumstance of birth should reflect that if John McCain was elected there would have been a very sharp controversy regarding the circumstances of his US citizenship and his subsequent eligibility for president. In 1936, McCain was born in a civilian Panamanian hospital unquestionably outside of American jurisdiction. The US Supreme Court would undoubtedly have been compelled to formally rule on this issue before McCain was sworn to the presidency.

Allow me to put this to rest. It is all a misunderstanding. The presidents mothers’ water broke while she was in Kenya, and she flew to Hawaii to give birth. It is just that simple.

You know who else I think is pretty nutty? People who think that so-called “Obamacare” equals socialism. They are just jumping right over the facts and proceeding to their fanciful notions of what Democrats stand for.

Look again at the bills on the table, folks. Not a single one of them does away with the private insurance industry. And not a single one of them will force a significant number of currently insured people onto a public plan. Those Lewin Group statistics that people have been misleadingly referring to don’t actually say what Republican leaders have been telling you they say.

Other than those conservatives whose objectives are to simply to irritate dim-witted Obama supporters, nobody takes the Kenya thing seriously.

It’s not the Republicans that healthcare reform advocates have to worry about. The Democrats own the Triple Crown…. they can pass any bill they want. You’re going to have to convince the people that it’s the bill they need, and so far that’s not happening for most people who already have good insurance.

It’s interesting that with all that could be commented on about our current president and congress, Gary chooses to comment about this non-issue. When is TOTUS’s honeymoon over, Mr. Trudea? 2012, when he’s been voted out?

John McCain was only born on American soil reto-actively..this is were this smear campaign can trace it’s beginnings…great job Karl Rove…I applaud you…

BTW, speaking of whacko conspiracy theories, supporters of which party believe that:

– O.J. is innocent;

– Bush shirked his National Guard duty;

– Sarah Palin’s infant child, Trig, was actually the child of her daughter;

– Justice Antonin Scalia threw the 2000 election to Bush so that his son could get a legal job with the Labor Department;

– Mumia Abu-Jamal was framed;

– Duke lacrosse players gang-raped a stripper;

– Bill Clinton did not have sex with “that woman”;

– Heterosexuals are just as likely to contract AIDS in the US as gays;

– John Edwards didn’t have an affair with Rielle Hunter;

– John Edwards’ campaign aide Andrew Young is the father of Rielle Hunter’s child.

– Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance?

Hint: it’s not the Republicans.

The Kenya thing is pretty tame compared to what passes as hard news in some circles.

pschearer wrote: ” I have yet to meet a “birther”.”

You can have all the ones that I have to deal with on a day to day basis. They are real and they constitute a large percentage of those who advocate a Palin presidency. They also make statements like “the morning after pill murders a living breathing baby ” and “stem cell research kills living breathing babies” and “Sandra Sotomayor is stupid” and “Sandra Sotomayor is an activist racist judge”.

pschearer wrote: “Instead I have encountered many, many normal people who oppose socialism and Obama for good and real reasons”

I oppose the socialism of the Bush administration, the Reaganites,the evangelicals (Acts 4:32) and the neoconservatives. IF AND WHEN Obama begins to advocate socialism, I’ll oppose that too.

pschearer wrote: “For example, citizens who came to a Congressman’s town hall meeting to express their opposition to ObamaCare couldn’t get in because the Democratic event organizers had pre-loaded the building with early-arriving union-member shills”

So, people who are upset with the current socialized medicine and the fact that health care in the USA is an utter f* up mess are shills but the clowns who want to continue watching health expenses skyrocket as quality sinks like a stone aren’t?

pschearer wrote: “The rule both Left and Right has become, if you can’t defeat their arguments, attack people personally. ”

Like calling them union shills? And the pejorative Obamacare?

pschearer wrote: “That’s true for “birthers” as well as Leftists who think the world is run by a “vast right-wing conspiracy”.)”

Ann Coulter told the Hartford Courrant that she was PROUD to be a member fo the vast right wing conspiracy.

I guess, in your opinion, that a trillion dollar disinformation machine isn’t really vast, is it?

misterwhite said, 26 minutes ago:

“They also make statements like … ‘Sandra Sotomayor is stupid’ and ‘Sandra Sotomayor is an activist racist judge.’”

There’s no excuse for that, regardless of your politics. Justice Sotomayor’s first name is Sonia.

There are native Hawai’ians who would argue that, since their last reigning monarch was forcibly deposed by a foreign power (the USA), and their nation was then illegally annexed as a territory by the United States, that therefore Hawai’i’s statehood is also illegal and void. It appears this is the only legal argument which the Republicans could use to prove conclusively that Obama was not born in the United States in 1961, but that means they might have to give Hawai’i back to the native Hawai’ians. We could live with that…

nemeys-

I’m a Liberal, OJ did it.

Bush went AWOL, and ABSOLUTLY jump 10,000 people to get in the Texas ANG. his hell spawn of a mother got that done.

Sara palin’s son Trig(he’s already smarter than bible spice sara) is hers not her Daughters. Bristol has her own kid, Abstinence only?!?!?

Scalia had an influence on the 2000 election. He flys on Haliburtons and Cheney’s private planes and then blocks the Freedom of Info act appealls to see why we were paying $4.00. a gal while the oil companies make record profits.

the rest is your unhinged rants. snap out of it.

I see that people from the south watch CNN primarily because they think any story broadcast from the south must be more truthful than that liberal FOX NOISE! The “STARS and BARS” gives some in-depth discussions of a truly important nature as the birther question more gravitas. Then again, Lou Dobbs appears to have a significant following here!

sigh People do realize that if Obama gets removed from office, we’ve got somebody who REALLY should just remain VP as the President, right?

“the rest is your unhinged rants. snap out of it.”

Mushroom, the point was not that all liberals believe that OJ was innocent, but that just about all who believed he was innocent were liberals.

Ergo, while all the nut cases who believe Obama is a Kenyan are conservatives, not all - or even 1% - of conservatives believe that. It makes no sense to paint with broad brushes, but if one chooses to, it works both ways.

Lighten up.

If Bush (shudder, gag) was in office now, could we call it Bushcare? Bushonomics? Bushbots? It’s just easier when your name begins and ends with a vowel, like O-b-a-m-a. Lots of fun stuff to do with that name.

It’s just so middle school fun, isn’t it? Riffing off a name.

And I just LOVE this: Marxism was his mother’s milk. So fun to say! So absolutely stupid! So pure in it’s uninformed but neatly concluded nature, no? A work of art in itself.

It won’t bother fringe right posters at all to say, in the very next post, that our president is a Kenyan Baptist Muslim socialist Marxist communist Hawaiian alien from that new planet they just found!!! Auggghhhhhh!

plus4, has Obama been caught living in C street? Has he acknowledged his soulmate in Argentina and explained, like Sanford, how tearfully hard it is to have a soulmate AND a wife, and one’s a hot argentine and one’s his wife, so THAT’S really complicated…

And has Obama ever taken a plane trip on taxpayer money, for sex? Then, in the (liberal) media, whine and cry on camera about it and beg understanding, while trying to destroy others’ careers using their morality as a club? My mistake. I thought Ensign, Vitter, Craig, Sanford, etc were republicans. So how is Trudeau bein’ unfair and everything?

So I’m not sure why the president should not be spared this topic. It’s not about him. Oh, but obviously for you, everything is about Obama hatred.

Oh, and plus4? Editorial/political cartoons are, um, editiorial, not articles. It’s the cartoonist’s choice and opinion, see?

If you are whining that Trudeau isn’t “balanced”, perhaps you’d be happier with Glenn MCCoy’s cartoons. Please let’s discuss his balance. This balance is required, I guess, for you to feel not victimized as a rightie.

misterwhite: “You can have all the ones that I have to deal with on a day to day basis.”

I’m curious…what do you do that entails dealing with them on a daily basis?

Or are you just referring to the news coverage?

Sooooooo sad…

Hopefully we will all survive long enough to see a real President take office. I think the last time was about 20 minutes before our hostages were released…

“obama-lama-boom-bam!” yes, it’s definitely got rhythm… thanx, @ezdeb, for pointing this out to me. It just rocks! I’ve seen so many offensive plays on his name, but now I see you can make fun ones too.

Americans (I’m not one), why not ENJOY your president?

Joe allen Doty:

No defense of shrub jr. Whom I never supported, but last time I knew, a reservist is not considered awol until he/she misses 6 drills or something like that. The key being that each day is counted as a drill. When I checked units back in 01-03, the reserves SOp was to send out letters to the person each time a drill was missed and after six drille were missed (3 weekends) they basically transferred him/her out and set out to recoup any bonuses or college loans. Maybe the guard functioned in the same manner back in the 60’s?

Jimmy Carter worked tirelessly and ultimately successfully, to win the release of those hostages. The new Ayatollah in Iran maximized the humiliation factor greatly; hectoring over minor points in the agreement. Khomeini announced his terms for the hostage release only two days before the presidential election of 1980 – timing the announcement so it would have the max effect on American voters going to the polls. Coincidentally, election day marked one full year of captivity for the hostages. Between November and January 1980, those minor points were stonewalled by Iran so that Reagan could announce (20 minutes after taking the oath! Amazing!) that the hostages were flying home. It made Reagan look awfully good. Too bad the Iranian Ayatollah made it happen for him. Reagan had a lot of bidness in Iran when you think about it, huh? I’m glad that REAL president and his stellar cadre of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush Sr didn’t, like, negotiate with Iran to supply illegal weapons to terrorists in Latin America and then lie about it and then hide behind the flag and patriotism to cover questionable activities.

By the way, did you know that the Blessed Ronny was a labor union leader and agitator? He twice headed the Screen Actors Guild and led its members in a long strike against the movie industry. What a leftist!

Disclosure: I quoted from “The American Presidents” by David Whitney, 9th Edition” for some of the Carter/Reagan points.

ezdab, I think raygun was also cooperating gleefully with HUAC as a SAG honcho.

Great story line Garry! I don’t know when I’ve seen so many comments in opposition to one another over a comic strip.

Keep stirring the pot…I love it!

Is this a political cartoon?

Hawaii’s a state??

@ GEE1A: Despising all [fill in label here] just ‘cause they are [fill in label here] is the definition of prejudice. Sorry, dude; it goes both ways.

@ P. Schearer: I too have yet to meet a “birther”, because I don’t get out much; but they certainly are all over the Internet, including here at Uclick/Gocomics. You must have just missed them.

Opposing socialism does not equal, and should not be confused with, opposing Obama.

In re: “ObamaCare”: I’m glad somebody cares, finally. I have never been able to get regular health care because I have never been able to afford insurance. By now I have so many things wrong with me I am crossing my fingers that some form, any form, of universal coverage will be provided before I up and croak. There really are people who need it. Probably you don’t meet many of them either; but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

@ Baslim: “Reptiles.” Tsk-tsk. Not helpful.

@ T. Penna: Thank you.

@ Nemesys: (1) O.J. absolutely did it. (2) Bush absolutely shirked his Guard duty and got off because Daddy pulled strings. (3) Couldn’t give a smaller fig about that family of trailer trash that used to live in the governor’s mansion in Alaska. (4) Hadn’t heard that about Scalia. (5) Have no opinion about Mumia. (6) The Duke lacrosse team didn’t rape the stripper; they were just the normal, law-abiding gang of adolescent troglodytes. (7) Bill Clinton absolutely did have sex with that and as many other women as possible, which was never anybody’s business but his wife’s. (8) Monogamous heterosexuals have the least risk of contracting AIDS of any sexually active group–except lesbians. (9) John Edwards absolutely did have an affair with Rielle Hunter (and probably it wasn’t his first); and see #7 above. (10) That poor kid’s paternity is not my business. (11) Bush did not know about the 9/11 attacks in advance; Bush has never known about anything in advance in his life. (11) See my remark to GEE1A above. (12) Alas, opinion on O.J. broke down pretty rigorously along racial, not political, lines. And (13) learn how to spell Nemesis.

@ Mister White: Thank you. But I think Ann Coulter was probably joking. ;-)

@ T. Penna, Joe Allen Doty, and Ezdeb: Thank you.

@ Missing N’awlins and Ushindi: >snerk<

Ushindi, we’re not sure at this point. No one has been able to find their state birth certificate, and all documents since Hawaii CLAIMED to have become a state could all have been forged. Why won’t they come clean? Just because we insulted them and threatened them and told them they couldn’t become a state when they asked to, and improsoned their queen in the U.S. and then annexed them when we found they might actually be useful, that’s no reason for Hawaii not to expect that we might mistrust such an “exotic” place.

Well, Hawaiians? We’re waiting! Just where DID you get all those vowels? KENYA??

It’s interesting to see a birther debate without any birthers present. (Other than those in the strip.)

I hope this is the last week of this series. This is almost as boring as that week that focused on how Donald Trump coifs his hair.

“Well, Hawaiians? We’re waiting! Just where DID you get all those vowels? KENYA??”

Oh, we know where they got them. Wales. Traded for some spare consonants and a flock of sheep to be named later.

The birthers are the sad result of a world view being shattered into bits. So convinced of their rightness, something HAS to be wrong with the face of the proof they had it backwards. Throw in the fact the face is black, and you have a recipe for criminal-grade insanity. I wonder how many of the people staging protests at town halls are on Medicare and fail to see the conflict? Oh, right. some of them carry signs saying “Get the government’s hands off my Medicare.”

OK, all who think the health care initiative being brought forth is socialized medicine, and who oppose socialism in general, I then challenge you to get through life in the US without using our Interstate Highway system, National Parks, and, when the time comes in your lives, Medicare and Social Security, so-called socialized, taxpayer-supported programs all. The truth is, a democracy is well buoyed by social programs as elements of the whole, and the stronger and healthier for it.

With Lou Dobbs creating the SPACE Website, it makes you wonder if Dobbs is even from this planet. Hmmmm.

http://www.space.com/news/dobbscnn010409.html

I second madtown’s idea! The “I hate (my representative) government” chant is getting old.

I’m a liberal and I don’t know anyone who believes that OJ was innocent. I do know plenty of folks who think Obama was born outside the US – they also believe that Bush was a good Christian teetotaler who was actually elected president.

To those who think Obama and his administration are not socialist:

Last year I gave a talk to a group on the three types of socialism that characterized the 20th century: 1) Communist, in which the government takes ownership of all major economic activity; 2) fascist, which maintains a pretense of private ownership while still centrally commanding the economy; and 3) welfare state, in which it is the tax-payer that is taken over by the government.

At the time I believed the U.S. was moving toward the Swedish-style welfare state, but that was before the election and Obama’s first 200 days. I would never have guessed that we could end up moving toward all three forms of socialism at once, as the government takes ownership positions in major industries and corporations, issues directives for those they don’t own, and moves toward eventual government take-over of health care.

BTW, it makes no difference that so much of this started under equally guilty Bush or earlier. This is not an issue of party politics but of political philosophy: what you think the purpose of government is. If you hold that the purpose of government is to defend individual rights, then government must be strictly limited to avoid becoming a violator of rights. But if you believe the purpose of government is anything else, such as running the economy or solving social problems, then there is no limit on how powerful government may become.

We in the U.S. are fortunate to have at least the tattered remains of the Constitution to slow down the march toward unlimited government, but even that is failing fast. The biggest danger is how many of you accept socialism as something good.

ezdeb - Hawai’i didn’t import our vowels from Kenya. Most of them were brought with us from Tahiti and Mo’orea, and the rest we just made up when we arrived because they seemed to fit. We’re just that way.

If we have too many, we could ship them to Croatia and Poland. Man, they really could use some vowels!