How did this stupid idea that Obama doesn't have a Birth Certificate get started?

[Bandit]

It seems to be picking up steam even though a high court ruled Obama does indeed have a birth certificate and would not take a case based on such an assumption..Where did it come from and why is it still being pushed?

[cali]

1. Philip Berg? That's where I've seen it traced to.

[WeDidIt]

10. He got it from some of the more militant pro-Hillary sites

like Hillaryis44 and CapitolHill.

They got it from some posters of dubious origins who, to the best of my ability to discover its roots, got it from Stormfront (or more likely brought to those sites from stormfront in a concerted infiltration).

[Solly Mack]

2. In the moldy and mildewed basement of some loser..

That had nothing better to do that day because his parents went out of town and left him to warm up his own TV dinner?

[L. Coyote]

3. Becaue he is a prophet created by DOG?

:rofl:

[underpants]

4. It was transported via black helicopters from Clinton's secret Arkansas drugrunning airstrip

[blm]

32. that wasn't Clinton's drugrunning airstrip, it was Poppy Bush's. Gov Clinton looked the other way

while Poppy and his thugs used that airstrip. Most Governors complied with Reagan and Bush back then, especially those who supported the overall policy of IranContra.

[gratuitous]

5. Might as well chase ghosts in a cave

But it's propagated by a bunch of folks who had no problem voting in 2008 for a candidate born in Panama, or a ticket in 2000 and 2004 composed of two residents of the same state. So, you have to figure the hypocrisy factor for both the birther liars and their media enablers begins at about 9.5 on a scale of 10.

[Yupster]

22. The Panama issue was settled

in the Supreme Court when Barry Goldwater ran for president. He was born in Arizona territory, and the Supremes ruled it was legal to run if you were born in a territory.

The two candidates from the same state problem is misunderstood by most people.

There is nothing wrong with voting for two candidates from the same state.

The Constitution prohibits electors from voting for a prez and vp from the same state. So had a court ruled that Chaney and Bush were both Teaxans, then everything would have been the same, but the Texas electors would have voted for Chaney for vp and ??? (Jeb Bush?) for President.

With no candidate getting a majority of the electoral votes it would have been up to the House, voting as state delegations to decide the new president. Since the House was Republican and many more states had Republican majorities than Democratic majorities, Bush would have been elected anyway.

Of course that's if they followed the Constitution which is not a given.

[gratuitous]

28. Certainly McCain was a legal candidate

But I figure since the "birth certificate" fraudsters are so pre-occupied with meaningless minutiae, it's perfectly meet and proper to fling the fact of John Sidney McCain III's birth outside the United States back in their hypocritical faces.

[WeDidIt]

6. I've tried to follow it back

Best I can tell is the entire meme of Obama not being a citizen was started on Stormfront. It was spread by Stormfronters to places like CapitolHill and Hillaryis44 very innocuously and finally showed up in all the usual rightwing sites.

[get the red out]

7. One of those dirt books

I think it was in one of those books that the conservatives got out during the election to spread lies and try to destroy Obama. Then the usual suspect conspiracy theory web sites and online pod casts picked it up by interviewing the author. Since it was a guy writing a hit piece book, the Republicans can deny creating the idiotic crap. I also remember it being spread through viral emails that were sent over and over.

A lot of conspiracy theorists out there were Ron Paul supporters, so they got some attention by seeming like they hated both parties, which after Bush's abysmal failure was the politically correct thing for a "true conservative" to do. I feel like some of those guys helped this silliness stick in the minds of the irrationally terrified set.

[WeDidIt]

11. JErome Corsi got the meme from the rightwing sites

who brought it over from sites like Hillaryis44 and CapitolHill.

IT was brought to those sites by people who got it from Stormfront.

[get the red out]

13. Corsi, that's it!

That all makes sense. It seemed to become big with the hard-core conspiracy guys once he published his book. All those people just recharging each other's bizarre thinking over and over from one web site to another.

Now of course Rush Limbaugh pushes it. Completely legatimizing it for the right and potentially pushing some dangerous buttons in some less-balanced people.

[mucifer]

8. it started by our President not being 100% white. They don't like people like that.

[Blue_Tires]

21. +1

[mrcheerful]

9. Like everything else the right wing has said and put out there since Reagan

Such as Jefferson wanted a theocracy, that liberals were freedom haters who wanted to take guns away from those who use them to keep government under control. And the deliberate mis understanding of the constitution and what the words used means, like natural born citizen, where as liberals know that if one parent is an american citizen any children they have are natural citizens, the wing nuts left that out and went with people born in US. Home schooling where the morans learn how to go from dumb to dumber I think also plays into it all.

[brooklynite]

12. In what way is it "picking up steam"?

There will be people trumpeting this for years, just like those who still claim the moon landing was faked. Doesn't mean its more likely to be believed now.

[Bandit]

14. Rush Limbaugh made the claim just one day before the nut went off at the museum

Rush has a sizable audience and they are dumb enough to actually believe his LIES.

[izquierdista]

15. Heinrich Himmler

I believe he was the first one to require everyone's papers be checked to see that they were in order.

[GodlessBiker]

16. One of the thousand angels dancing on the head of the pin said something stupid.

[annabanana]

17. Racists, frantic to stop him... started to claim he wasn't an American

and cast about for anything they could to pretend that he wasn't eligible.

[Psychic Consortium]

They are angry because they cannot get any dirt on Obama. so they make things up.... nt

[Horse with no Name]

18. MSM

When you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cuz when they own the information ooohhh,
They can bend it all they want

[TheWraith]

19. Racists. He's brown-skinned, therefore he must be foreign. nt

[On the Road]

20. I Was Hoping Someone Would Post on

the basis of the claim, however suspect.

I have heard that someone connected to Obama (his grandmother?) referred to him as having been born in Kenya. Rather than attribute it to mistranslation or misspeaking, the conclusion was drawn that it must be the truth and that Obama was covering up being born overseas because it would disqualify him for the presidency. The fact that the local paper carried a birth announcement at the time somehow doesn't seem to register.

If any of that is wrong, someone please correct.

[WeDidIt]

29. The step-grandmother was in a telephone interview

When asked where Barack Obama was born, she claimed it was in this village in Kenya. She later corrected ehrself in the same interview, though they never talk about that part.

It seems that she was confused as to the translation of the question and thought they were asking where her step-son (Obama's father) was born

[On the Road]

31. Ah, That Explains It

Thank you. Never heard the details.

[david13]

23. Who cares? It's just stupid and irrelevant.

[Marr]

24. How stupid does a person have to be to believe that a candidate

could get through the *primaries*, let alone the campaign, if they didn't meet the most basic qualifications for the office?

[BlooInBloo]

25. The usual process. Clinton supporters tried it, and failed. Then republicans tried it. And failed.

[Swamp Rat]

26. This guy:

:D

[hootinholler]

27. I traced it back to freeperville a while ago. n/t

[WeDidIt]

33. Freeperville got it from Hillaryis44 and CapitolHill, who got it from Stormfront. n/t

[Annces]

30. Rumor mill

And it worked real well, so people used it and developed it, even people who knew it was a lie.