Is Trump Dumber Than Palin?

[Guest Derek]

First, it's the birth certificate. Now Trump is screaming about President Obama's No president has ever provided his school records. Yet, there is plenty of information to find about President Obama's past.

 

Roger Boesche, a professor of politics who's cited as Obama's intellectual mentor at Occidental, said the young man from Honolulu was "a very thoughtful student and a very curious student."

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/29/local/me-oxy29

 

 

It was as a law student that Obama first made history—and national headlines—when he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review in the spring of 1990.

 

And as a law student, Obama met many professors and classmates who would prove helpful in his meteoric political rise from state senator to president of the United States in five years.

 

Each seems to have a story about how much Obama stood out.

 

Sure, Obama's unique, and by now, familiar personal history, set him apart. He arrived on campus at the age of 27 in the fall of 1988, older than many of his classmates after a stint as a community organizer in Chicago. Professor Kenneth Mack ’91, his classmate and friend, says Obama didn’t speak much at first about other aspects of his unique background, including a childhood spent in Hawaii and Indonesia or the fact that his mother was white.

 

Most remarkable, given his complex identity, was how comfortable Obama seemed with himself. "Barack's identity, his sense of self was so settled," recalled Cassandra Butts '91, who met him in line at the financial aid office, in an interview with PBS' “Frontline.” "He didn't strike us in law school as someone who was searching for himself."

 

Obama's performance inside and outside the classroom attracted more notice than his distinctive personal story. In the spring of his first year at law school, Obama stopped by the office of Professor Laurence Tribe ’66 inquiring about becoming a research assistant.

 

Tribe rarely hired first-year students but recalls being struck by Obama’s unusual combination of intelligence, curiosity and maturity. He was so impressed in fact, that he hired Obama on the spot—and wrote his name and phone number on his calendar that day—March 31, 1989—for posterity.

 

Obama helped research a complicated article Tribe wrote making connections between physics and constitutional law as well as a book about abortion. The following year, Obama enrolled in Tribe’s constitutional law course.

 

Tribe likes to say he had taught about 4,000 students before Obama and another 4,000 since, yet none has impressed him more.

 

Professor Martha Minow recalls: “He had a kind of eloquence and respect from his peers that was really quite remarkable,” Minow says. When he spoke in her class on law and society, “everyone became very attentive and very quiet.”

 

Artur Davis ‘93 still vividly recalls how much Obama inspired him with a speech he gave during orientation week on striving for excellence and mastery. Davis, now a United States Congressman from Alabama, insists he left that speech by Obama convinced he’d just heard a future Supreme Court justice—or president.

 

Obama displayed other traits in law school besides eloquence that would define his success as a presidential candidate.“You could see many of his attributes, approach to politics and ability to bring people together back then,” says Michael Froman ’91, who worked with Obama on the Law Review.

 

As a campus leader, he successfully navigated the fractious political disputes raging on campus. By 1991, student protestors demanding the school hire more black faculty had staged a sit-in inside the dean’s office and filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination.

 

Obama spoke at one protest rally, but largely preferred to stay behind the scenes and lead by example, recalls one of the protest leaders, Keith Boykin ‘92. Obama opted against taking sides in the ideological disputes that often divided the politically polarized Law Review staff, casting himself instead as a mediator and conciliator. That approach earned the enduring respect of Law Review members including those not necessarily inclined to agree with his political views today.

 

"He tended not to enter these debates and disputes but rather bring people together and forge compromises,” says Bradford Berenson ’91, who was among the relatively small number of conservatives on the Law Review staff.

 

--Seth Stern

 

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/obama-at-hls.html

[Luke_Wilbur]

Hopefully this issue is resolved.



http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf

[Guest Nadeam]

Donald Trump is going to look at the certificate. He is proud and honored that he made it happen.

Now, I will be proud and honored to watch Donald Trump's popularity go down the drain.

[Guest greenzen]

This has to be the biggest waste of time. Don't people get the fact that our country is very close to being bankrupt. What about jobs, jobs, jobs.

[Guest John Bloom]

Time after time American politicians are required to devote energies to these matters rather than the business of government. It is a flaw in an otherwise impressive nation and it saddens me.

[Guest Arthur H.]

I think all this stems from 19th and 20th century constructs of race classifications.

[Guest Literati]

At the time of the American Revolution, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach published a paper, "On the Natural Variety of Mankind. Blumenbach emphasized skin color beauty as a scientific racial trait.

[Guest Dean G.]

I am thinking the Washington Post is looking dumber than Trump for inviting him to the White House Correspondents dinner. That paper is going way down hill. Maybe they have a deal with him to save their beloved Kaplan faux college.

[Guest Robert Parry]

This “birther” smear was promoted with zest by the right-wing media, but it also was tolerated by leading Republicans, the likes of House Speaker John Boehner and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who refused to discourage what was apparently viewed as a politically useful tactic against Obama.

 

So effective indeed that recent polls showed that large majorities of Republicans said either that Obama was born outside the United States or that he might have been – despite Obama’s long-ago release of a Hawaiian-state-certified short-form birth certificate and the existence of other persuasive evidence like his birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers.

 

And, whatever the protests to the contrary, there clearly were racial undertones to this “birther” movement, the assumption that a black man with an exotic name couldn’t be a “real American.”

 

The Right also demonstrated again that its vast propaganda machine could put any wacky notion into play and get a significant portion of the American people to fall for it.

 

A Cringing Moment

 

So, the nation had to endure the cringing moment on Wednesday as the president of the United States presented his long-form birth certificate to the public to prove he was a naturally born American.

 

Then, shameless Republicans, who had helped stoke the conspiracy theory with snarky formulations about “taking the President at his word,” chastised Obama for wasting the country’s time with such a trivial matter when he should have been focusing on important matters like the economy.

 

In other words, after generating or encouraging this baseless smear, Republicans then spun Obama’s reluctant response to disprove the nonsense as a talking point to hit him again.

 

From watching the news coverage, I didn’t see a single Republican or right-winger express any regret for having aided and abetted this racially tinged campaign. It was as if this African-American outsider to the U.S. power structure deserved the hazing that he had gotten; nothing to apologize for.

 

The “birther” theme also was not an isolated case. During 2008, even as Obama was facing an unprecedented number of death threats, his political opponents – both Democratic and Republican – and the mainstream news media began questioning his patriotism because he wasn’t wearing an American flag lapel pin.

 

In a nationally televised debate before the Pennsylvania primary in April 2008, Obama was peppered with questions about his patriotism, including why he wasn’t wearing a flag pin, as if he needed to prove he was a “real American.”

 

The questioning was particularly curious because the two ABC News moderators asking the questions and his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, weren’t wearing a flag pin either. And, on the campaign trail, neither was Sen. John McCain, then the presumptive Republican nominee.

 

ABC News moderator Charles Gibson said he felt compelled to press Obama on the flag-pin point because questions about Obama’s patriotism were “all over the Internet.”

 

Obama, the black man, was the only one pestered about the need to stick a flag pin in his lapel to prove he loved America.

 

After Sen. Clinton trounced Obama in the Pennsylvania primary, Obama relented and began wearing a flag pin, a practice he continues to this day.

 

But that concession wasn’t going to quiet his political enemies incensed over the idea that a black man and his family could get to live in the White House. They needed a new wedge issue to challenge Obama’s Americanism and his legitimacy. Hence, the stubborn “birther” issue.

 

Facts? What Facts?

 

The “birther” theme was particularly curious because it was created in the face of a clear factual record to the contrary. The state of Hawaii certified Obama’s birth with the usual short form that is regarded as definitive proof of citizenship, and public officials from both parties verified the form’s veracity. In 1961, there were also birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers.

 

So, the idea that the Dunhams, a family of modest means, and Obama’s 18-year-old mother would somehow concoct a conspiracy – hustling the newborn baby from Kenya through U.S. immigration back to Hawaii and then coordinate with a local hospital and state officials to create a false birth record on the decidedly off-chance that this mixed-race baby would someday run for president of the United States – defies credulity, to put it mildly.

 

And, despite real-estate mogul Donald Trump’s claim that he had dispatched investigators to Hawaii and that they had supposedly learned about the possible disappearance of Obama’s long-form birth certificate, there was never any evidence that this conspiracy had occurred.

 

Yet, Trump was among the Republican presidential hopefuls who avoided anything like an apology when Obama released his long-form birth certificate on Wednesday.

 

But the correct apology would not only be to Obama for the false claims about his birth place. Without doubt, something far more sinister was involved here.

 

Like the flag-pin controversy, the “birther” case became a stand-in for those who saw political benefit in undermining Obama’s legitimacy with the American people. By drawing attention to his ethnicity, "birtherism" became as much a code word for racism as was the states’ rights excuse used by white segregationists in the South a half century ago.

 

While some on the American Left seem to have forgotten how extraordinary it was for the United States to elect a talented black politician as president, it does not appear that the Right has been so colorblind.

[Guest Dixie]

You have been had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This document was assembled on a computer. Here is the evidence.

 

 

This is what Karl Denninger found.

 

Obama's Birth Certificate: The "copy" the White House released is not a copy. It is manufactured. This video goes through the proof, and it's much more than the Illustrator "breadcrumbs" that others have found and talked about.

 

You've been had America, and the White House was dumb enough to stick proof of it on their own web server.

[Guest LAW]

President Obama really roasted 'The Donald.' The Birther movement is a gift that keeps on giving.

 

 

THE WHITE HOUSE

 

Office of the Press Secretary

 

For Immediate Release May 1, 2011

 

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

AT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS ASSOCIATION DINNER

 

The Washington Hilton

Washington, D.C.

 

10:01 P.M. EDT

 

THE PRESIDENT: All right, everybody, please have a seat. (Applause.)

 

My fellow Americans. (Laughter and applause.) Mahalo! (Laughter.) It is wonderful to be here at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. What a week. (Laughter.) As some of you heard, the state of Hawaii released my official long-form birth certificate. (Applause.)

 

Hopefully this puts all doubts to rest. But just in case there are any lingering questions, tonight I'm prepared to go a step further. (Laughter.) Tonight, for the first time, I am releasing my official birth video. (Laughter.)

Now, I warn you -- (laughter) -- no one has seen this footage in 50 years, not even me. But let's take a look.

 

("Secret Birth Video" plays.) (Applause.)

 

Oh, well. Back to square one. (Laughter.) I want to make clear to the Fox News table: That was a joke. (Laughter.) That was not my real birth video. (Laughter.) That was a children's cartoon. (Laughter.) Call Disney if you don't believe me. (Laughter.) They have the original long-form version. (Laughter.)

 

Anyway, it's good to be back with so many esteemed guests. Celebrities. Senators. Journalists. Essential government employees. (Laughter.) Non-essential government employees. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.)

 

I am very much looking forward to hearing Seth Meyers tonight. (Applause.) He's a young, fresh face who can do no wrong in the eyes of his fans. Seth, enjoy it while it lasts. (Laughter.)

 

Yes, I think it is fair to say that when it comes to my presidency, the honeymoon is over. (Laughter.) For example, some people now suggest that I'm too professorial. And I'd like to address that head-on, by assigning all of you some reading that will help you draw your own conclusions. (Laughter.) Others say that I'm arrogant. But I've found a really great self-help tool for this: my poll numbers. (Laughter.)

 

I've even let down my key core constituency: movie stars. Just the other day, Matt Damon -- I love Matt Damon, love the guy -- Matt Damon said he was disappointed in my performance. Well, Matt, I just saw "The Adjustment Bureau," so -- (laughter) -- right back atcha, buddy. (Laughter and applause.)

 

Of course, there's someone who I can always count on for support: my wonderful wife Michelle. (Applause.) We made a terrific team at the Easter Egg Roll this week. I'd give out bags of candy to the kids, and she'd snatch them right back out of their little hands. (Laughter.) Snatched them. (Laughter.)

 

And where is the National Public Radio table? (Cheering.) You guys are still here? (Laughter.) That's good. I couldn't remember where we landed on that. (Laughter.) Now, I know you were a little tense when the GOP tried to cut your funding, but personally I was looking forward to new programming like "No Things Considered" -- (laughter) -- or "Wait, Wait...Don't Fund Me." (Laughter.)

 

Of course, the deficit is a serious issue. That's why Paul Ryan couldn't be here tonight. His budget has no room for laughter. (Laughter.)

 

Michele Bachmann is here, though, I understand, and she is thinking about running for President, which is weird because I hear she was born in Canada. (Laughter.) Yes, Michele, this is how it starts. (Laughter.) Just letting you know. (Laughter and applause.)

 

Tim Pawlenty? He seems all American. But have you heard his real middle name? Tim "Hosni" Pawlenty? (Laughter.) What a shame. (Laughter.)

 

My buddy, our outstanding ambassador, Jon Huntsman, is with us. Now, there's something you might not know about Jon. He didn't learn to speak Chinese to go there. Oh no. (Laughter.) He learned English to come here. (Laughter and applause.)

 

And then there's a vicious rumor floating around that I think could really hurt Mitt Romney. I heard he passed universal health care when he was governor of Massachusetts. (Laughter.) Someone should get to the bottom of that.

 

And I know just the guy to do it -- Donald Trump is here tonight! (Laughter and applause.) Now, I know that he's taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. (Laughter.) And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter -- like, did we fake the moon landing? (Laughter.) What really happened in Roswell? (Laughter.) And where are Biggie and Tupac? (Laughter and applause.)

 

But all kidding aside, obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. (Laughter.) For example -- no, seriously, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice -- (laughter) -- at the steakhouse, the men's cooking team cooking did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn't blame Lil' Jon or Meatloaf. (Laughter.) You fired Gary Busey. (Laughter.) And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. (Laughter and applause.) Well handled, sir. (Laughter.) Well handled.

Say what you will about Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let's see what we've got up there. (Laughter.)

 

(Screens show "Trump White House Resort and Casino.")

 

So, yes, this has been quite a year in politics, but also in the movies. Many people, for instance, were inspired by the King's Speech. It's a wonderful film. (Applause.) Well, some of you may not know this, but there's now a sequel in the works that touches close to home. And because this is a Hollywood crowd, tonight I can offer a sneak peek. So can we show the trailer, please?

 

(The parody trailer plays.) (Applause.)

 

Coming to a theater near you. (Applause.)

 

Let me close on a serious note. We are having a good time, but as has been true for the last several years, we have incredible young men and women who are serving in uniform overseas in the most extraordinary of circumstances. (Applause.) And we are reminded of their courage and their valor. (Applause.)

 

We also need to remember our neighbors in Alabama and across the South that have been devastated by terrible storms from last week. (Applause.) Michelle and I were down there yesterday, and we've spent a lot of time with some of the folks who have been affected. The devastation is unimaginable and is heartbreaking and it's going to be a long road back. And so we need to keep those Americans in our thoughts and in our prayers. But we also need to stand with them in the hard months and perhaps years to come.

 

I intend to make sure that the federal government does that. And I've got faith that the journalists in this room will do their part for the people who have been affected by this disaster -- by reporting on their progress, and letting the rest of America know when they will need more help. Those are stories that need telling. And that's what all of you do best, whether it's rushing to the site of a devastating storm in Alabama, or braving danger to cover a revolution in the Middle East.

 

You know, in the last months, we've seen journalists threatened, arrested, beaten, attacked, and in some cases even killed simply for doing their best to bring us the story, to give people a voice, and to hold leaders accountable. And through it all, we've seen daring men and women risk their lives for the simple idea that no one should be silenced, and everyone deserves to know the truth.

 

That's what you do. At your best that's what journalism is. That's the principle that you uphold. It is always important, but it's especially important in times of challenge, like the moment that America and the world is facing now.

 

So I thank you for your service and the contributions that you make. And I want to close by recognizing not only your service, but also to remember those that have been lost as a consequence of the extraordinary reporting that they've done over recent weeks. They help, too, to defend our freedoms and allow democracy to flourish.

 

God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

 

END 10:19 P.M. EDT

[Guest Philip]

I am thinking the Washington Post is looking dumber than Trump for inviting him to the White House Correspondents dinner. That paper is going way down hill. Maybe they have a deal with him to save their beloved Kaplan faux college.

 

This was once a respectable event. Now the owners of news publications have replaced important writers and legitimate dignitaries with circus clowns. This is an example of why nothing gets down in this town anymore.

[Guest Derek]

Osama bin Laden dead. Or is he? Trump demands to see death certificate.

[Guest Carmen Tuya]

Do you think the Donald has mental problems? It hard for me to believe that he is serious about running.