Breitbart Birther Exclusive: Obama Born In Kenya – Or Not

The kids at Breitbart News, or as I call them, the Breitbrats, are giddily wallowing in their “exclusive” discovery of “evidence” that President Barack Obama is indeed a secret Kenyan usurper to the American presidency.

Breitbart News

That’s right. Now it finally comes out. “Obama’s Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: ‘Born in Kenya'” This is front page news at the Breitbrat site. And why not? It proves that the President is an illegitimate occupier of the White House. Maybe now the Breitbart Tea Partiers can revoke health care and make all the tax cuts for the wealthy permanent while expanding offshore oil drilling and outlawing abortion and gays.

Except that, for some reason, the article heralding this monumental news is prefaced by an editorial disclaimer saying…

“Andrew Breitbart was never a ‘Birther,’ and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of ‘Birtherism.’ In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.”

Hmmm. That sort of contradicts the whole point of the article. Or rather, the article contradicts the whole point of the disclaimer. Either way, it reflects the amateurish efforts of the Breitbrats as they endeavor to smear Obama regardless of whether their assertions make any sense.

The article by Joel Pollak is an unfocused rambling of accusations that lead nowhere. He aimlessly recites the content of a pamphlet that is promoting the clients of a literary agency that includes a young Barack Obama, and he bores readers with his description of the typography, as if it had some special significance. Then he seeks to impress with his questions directed at individuals associated with the agency, except that he doesn’t get any actual answers. And all the while he insists that his examination of the evidence that Obama is Kenyan isn’t really an attempt to suggest that Obama is Kenyan.

Perhaps even worse is a follow up article by Breitbrat John Nolte who begins his harangue by stating that…

“Never once have I doubted that President Obama was born in Hawaii. There’s no way in the world that little constitutional issue would ever have got past the Clintons during the 2008 Democratic primary. Now that we’re clear on that…”

So the only reason he discounts the claims that Obama is not an American is that Bill and Hillary would have told him if it were true. He does not discount them because they are demonstrably false and that documentary evidence is readily available. The big problem, as Nolte defines it, is “the abject failure of the mainstream media to vet” Obama, and this clipping from a twenty year old pamphlet is proof of that even though he denies that the pamphlet proves anything. Still, Nolte considers the existence of this pamphlet as proof that the media has fallen down on its duty to investigate the President.

Let’s look at that claim a little closer. Nolte is saying that the media failed because they didn’t discover and report on a pamphlet that Nolte concedes means nothing. So according to Nolte, in order for the media to have done their job properly, they should have published this story about a meaningless blurb in an old pamphlet that has zero significance to Obama’s identity. Seriously. Nolte goes on to ask “what will the humiliated media do?” But I still can’t figure out how they were humiliated if the pamphlet, by Nolte’s own reckoning, is not indicative of anything.

Not to be deterred, Nolte insists that “there are plenty of follow-up stories here; plenty of questions to ask and reporting to do.” But the only questions he suggests are “If it wasn’t a mistake, let’s ask why. If it was a mistake, let’s ask how.” But he just finished making repeated assertions that it was a mistake and that he is certain that Obama is an American citizen born in Hawaii. That leaves the only question to be how the mistake was made. I think the answer to that would be “Who cares?” It was just a mistake. And the media cannot be regarded as irresponsible for not reporting that a mistake was made twenty years ago on a promotional pamphlet that was never distributed to the public.

Nolte and Pollak need to make up their twisted little minds as to whether this is a trivial error that in no way reflects on the President’s lineage, or it is proof that the Birther conspiracy has been revealed. And via their repeated declarations, they obviously believe that Obama was born in Hawaii and, therefore, this pamphlet has no news value and the media are blameless for not harping on it – the way the Breitbrats are.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

For the record, a real journalist actually did what journalists do and contacted the person responsible for the pamphlet. Taegan Goddard then reported that Miriam Goderich, of the literary agency that produced the pamphlet, issued the following statement to Political Wire:

“You’re undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”

Case closed. Except for all the hysteria that still embroils the infected brains at Breitbart News and their fellows in the Birther community. And the ghost of Andrew Breitbart rolls his eyes.

Pro-Romney SuperPAC Calls Obama A Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln

I can hardly wait for this ad to hit the air. Joe Ricketts, A pro-Romney billionaire, is considering a new political attack on President Obama centered on his past association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The campaign would be funded by $10 million of Ricketts fortune and produced by his SuperPAC, Ending Spending Action Fund.

In a document obtained by the New York Times, the group of “high-profile Republican strategists” is planning on revealing Wright’s “influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way.” Finally! The secret story of Rev. Wright that was suppressed by the liberal media four years ago will be exposed to a nation that has never heard of him and his power over our puppet-like president. Never mind the fact that according to the PEW Research Center, the controversy generated by Wright “made more news than both Hillary Clinton and John McCain” in the spring of 2008 at the height of the presidential primaries. By summer PEW’s analysis showed that…

“The story-line or event that has received the most coverage so far is Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which accounted for 6% of all stories and dwarfed all of the other episodes or storyline of the campaign that didn’t have to do with the horse race itself.”

Metrosexual Abe LincolnNow Romney’s wealthy backers have determined that America was deprived of this highly pertinent information and they are promising to reach back to the past and dredge it all up again. The twist that they are proposing is to racialize this attack even more than previous attempts. The proposal refers to Obama as a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln” (whatever that is), and in order to to respond to any charges of racism, they plan to hire as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American.” I wonder if that’s anything like the IWSB (intelligent, well-socialized black) that noted racist John Derbyshire aspired to befriend.

The Romney campaign has issued a rather tepid response that merely stated their intention to focus on economic issues. That is in sharp contrast to the McCain campaign that decisively rejected these sort of character attacks, although some on his campaign (i.e. Sarah Palin) advocated for them. One of the strategists for the pro-Romney PAC, Fred Davis, is a former McCain adviser who pushed for more emphasis on Wright, but was shot down by McCain. Davis is also the genius behind the inadvertently hilarious “Demon Sheep” ad that so embarrassed Carly Fiorina in 2010.

The purpose of this project is clear. The extremists behind it have determined that they can’t beat Obama as long as he is regarded so favorably by a majority of the public. They note in their proposal that Americans “still aren’t ready to hate this president,” so they have taken it upon themselves to manufacture reasons to do so. It is a cynical and divisive strategy that concedes that Romney is so unlikeable that there is no positive argument to make for voting for him.

It didn’t work in 2008, and there is no rational reason to expect that it would work now. It would only serve to further embarrass those associated with such a repugnant effort to smear a president who is popular and well-liked. And that’s why I can’t wait see them follow through. Although there is already speculation that they are chickening out due to the publicity they are receiving. Too bad. But I have great confidence they’ll come up with something just as embarrassing before long. It’s what they do best.

[Update] Romney is now “repudiating” the Ricketts plan. However, his surrogates on the right are going all out in pushing the Rev. Wright theme. Sean Hannity is featuring the disreputable author Ed Klein on his program to discuss Wright. Glenn Beck has offered Wright $150,000 to tell him “the truth” about Obama. So Romney has merely stepped aside to let his comrades mount the attack.

Obama Surging Ahead Of Romney In Fox News Poll That Fox News Ignores

For additional evidence that Fox News is the PR agency for the Republican Party, note the feverishly excited treatment that Fox News gives to polling when the results favor Mitt Romney:

Fox Nation Polls

In the past two months Fox Nation has posted at least seven articles on election polling and every single one of them reported the results of polls that put Romney in the lead over President Obama. There were, of course, polls that had Obama leading, but the “fair and balanced” Fox Nationalists didn’t bother to report on those. Here are a few of the headlines from just April and May of this year:

  • Rasmussen Poll: Romney 50%, Obama 42%
  • Poll: Romney Beating Obama Among Women Voters
  • Poll: Romney Up Double Digits With Swing State Independents
  • NBC-WSJ poll: On economy, Romney Opens Up Lead Over Obama
  • Rasmussen Poll: Romney 48%, Obama 44%
  • Fox News Poll: Romney Edges Obama as Approval of President Drops
  • Two National Polls Show Favor For Romney

What makes this particularly interesting is that Fox News just released its own poll that showed the President pulling away from Romney. Obama leads in the Fox poll by 46% to 39%. But there was no mention of it on Fox Nation, and barely a mention of it on Fox News. So even when the poll was commissioned and paid for by Fox they bury the results if it looks good for Obama.

And it looks pretty darn good for Obama. Other results include a widening gender gap with women supporting Obama 55% to Romney’s 33%. Obama voters are far more satisfied with their candidate (74%) than are the Romney voters (59%) with theirs. That disparity could be because Obama’s supporters are backing him due to his job performance and positions (38%). Only 11% say they support him because “he isn’t Romney.” On the other hand, 43% of Romney’s supporters say they back him because “he isn’t Obama.” That sort of negative incentive from the Republicans often translates into low voter turnout.

There can be only one reason that Fox would so blatantly suppress these poll results. They obviously don’t want the public to be informed of the broad-based positive impression of the President that exists in the country. They have no problem publishing negative information about Obama. In just the past two days Fox published two stories that portrayed the Obama camp as worried about their allegedly dismal prospects. One article said that “Alarm Grows Among Dems About Obama’s Chances.” The other declared that “Team Obama Panics, and It’s Only May.” Both of those articles were analyses of recent election polls. But now that Fox’s own poll paints an entirely different picture, there is no corresponding article about how the Obama team is celebrating or how the Romney camp is panicking.

This is the way a public relations firm behaves on behalf of their client. And that is the best description of the relationship between Fox News and the Republican Party. It is 24/7 spin for GOP interests. And they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. When Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends introduced a segment on the Fox poll, he comforted the Fox viewers, before giving them the news that Obama was out in front, by inserting this little ray of hope, “If the election were held today – don’t worry they aren’t going to be…” Wasn’t it thoughtful of Doocy to be so concerned about the worries of the Fox audience?