Birtherism

Mark this down. This will be the definitive post on President Barack Obama’s natural born citizenship status.

First, I want to state a couple things up front.

One, I think he was born in Hawaii. And two, discussion of this entire issue is a trap set for us by the Democrat Media Complex. Obama and his minions know that they can count on the MSM to trot out this issue whenever things look bad for The One. It’s a distraction. Why are we talking about birth certificates when we should be talking about jobs, inflation, and debt? Because they want us to do so.

Everyone keeps saying "why won't Obama produce the birth certificate?" and assuming the answer is "because he can't"

I'm saying the answer isn't because he can't, but because it serves him better not to. Now he gets to use it as a distraction, to keep us from talking about the serious issues of the day, the ones that are going to make him a one term President.

The way Alinsky followers win (and make no mistake, Obama worships Alinsky) is to get you to play in their arena by their rules.

Gonna quote Breitbart here:
Alinsky Rules:
1. Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have. Deception is useful, and giving the other side incomplete information is just as useful.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize, and polarize it. This is the most important and famous of Alinsky's rules. You have to pick a target, then freeze it and prevent it from shifting blame elsewhere, then personalize it by making sure that it is something specific and identifiable rather than general, and finally, polarize it by demonizing it.

Finally, Alinsky provides a simple reminder: the real action is in the enemy's reaction.

So, what's going on here is simple. Obama has many flaws, and he's definitely not the most brilliant man in just about any room, but he understands Alinsky.

By withholding the birth certificate, he does the following:
1) Gives us incomplete information that causes a reaction (rule #1 and reminder)
2) Forces people to get lost in the Constitutionality argument (he knows there are more than a few strict constructionists on our side) (rule #4)
3) Allows the MSM and people like Letterman to ridicule us, which they enjoy (rule #5 and rule #6)
4) This ridicule they can apply with a broad brush ("Rethuglicans really think he was born in Kenya") or a specific one, i.e. Trump, who is targeted, frozen, personalized, and polarized. And it works even with politicos who don't jump on the birther bandwagon. Every politician with an 'R' by their name gets asked about this in just about every interview. This is deliberate. It hits all the rules, and they're still targeting, freezing, personalizing and polarizing. If the politico comes out in support of the birther movement, s/he is polarized against the "intelligent" left, and if against the birther movement, s/he is polarized against their very base.

It's a brilliant tactic by Obama, and we're getting played.

Stop being played, unless you really want to see another 4 years of this clown.

Dump the issue. We need to play our game. This is how we win.

But forget Alinsky. Let’s actually look at whether he’s a natural born citizen or not.

First, you have to understand that while "natural born citizenship" is a Constitutional requirement to hold the office of President, nowhere in the Constitution does it state the requirements for "natural born citizenship". That's set by statute. That’s very important, because the statute is not constant. It has been changed many times and will likely be changed again.

According to current statute, he would be a natural born citizen regardless of where he was born. According to statutes in effect at the time of his birth, he would not be, but only because he was born about 5 months too soon (His mother needed to be older).

So, what does that mean?

Well, the statute could be changed to make current requirements valid back to the time of Obama's birth. Or a new statute could be passed making the terms even more or less restrictive. Of, Congress could just declare him a natural born citizen, as they did with John McCain. Or, if this or some other birthright citizenship case made it to the Supreme Court, SCOTUS could rule that even the current requirements are too restrictive. If they did so, then he would likely be a natural born citizen because his mother was, regardless of her age or where he was born.

So, there’s about a half dozen ways that he could legally become a natural born citizen retroactively, even if he’s not one now. To avoid a Constitutional crisis, it is an absolute certainty that at least one of these would happen.

In other words, this issue is a complete waste of time. The Constitution is not specific enough in this respect to have any sort of valid argument that he's a non-citizen, or non-natural born citizen.

Get over it. Move on to something that matters. Stop playing his game.

Righteous Indignation–A Conservative Primer

Andrew Breitbart’s new book, “Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!” was released last Friday. If you’ve been following my Twitter feed, you know that I’ve been reading it. I didn’t get a chance to start until Sunday night, and I finished it last night.

This book does two things. It lays out the roadmap for how to finally take down the MSM, or Democrat Media Complex as Breitbart calls it. And it shows exactly what steps the DMC will take between now and November 6, 2012 to keep their power and to keep the Democrats in power.

Those two things alone make the book worth the cover price. If you plan on being actively engaged in next year’s election, even if just by blogging or tweeting, you need to read this book.

But there’s more to the book than just that. Breitbart lays out some of his history, including his own failings and mistakes. He discusses his change from liberal to conservative, and the metamorphosis is similar to that of Tammy Bruce. The left made a mistake allowing these two to escape. They understand the destructive tactics the left uses better than anyone. And they’re both willing and able not only to relate them to the rest of us, but also how to turn the tables and use these same tactics against the left.

Indeed, Breitbart makes the point over and over that we have to treat the left as the enemy and throw out our rules of engagement. We have to take the fight to them, not let them dictate the terms or the field of engagement. That’s exactly how we’ve lost to the left too many times.

I’ve tossed out several quotes on my twitter feed, but this might be my favorite.

That’s why it never crossed my mind whether I should play fair. Fair loses.

We have to stop worrying about being “the good guys”. We have to start worrying about winning. The Tea Party has been pretty good about that, but we can do better. 

Breitbart also lays out a bit of this history of the socialist/progressive movement in the United States. Note that if you pay attention to Glenn Beck, he’s been saying a lot of this same stuff for a couple years now. The difference is that Beck is so focused on minutiae that you have to watch him every day for a month to get anything like a complete picture, and you get one from Breitbart in a single chapter.

Finally, the behind the scenes information on his work with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles to bring down ACORN is positively delicious. I remember when all of this was happening, and reading that when BigGovernment.com opened it was going to open with something huge, and I remember each day after the first video wondering what was coming next, but reading why and how it all came together as it did was incredibly fascinating.

Those are most of the things I enjoyed about the book. There’s a great chapter on the Tea Party as well. But I did have a couple minor quibbles, one of which he addresses in the Epilogue (not sure I’ve ever seen a non-fiction book with an Epilogue before, but I digress). The first is that he doesn’t discuss Shirley Sherrod. Ok, I can understand that as there are ongoing legal battles regarding that topic. So I’ll give him a pass on that one.

But he also doesn’t address Mary Landrieu. Now, you could argue that there’s no need to do so since the topic was only on the periphery of the Big sites, and that it was completely an issue with James O’Keefe. However, the left used Landrieu and Sherrod to tar Breitbart and O’Keefe together and to try to taint the ACORN videos. It seemed to me that it deserved at least a mention for that reason.

But that’s a minor quibble, and I certainly understand the reasoning for not including it. Overall, this is a great book, and I am sure that I will be referring to it often over the next 16 months or so.

Buy it! Read it! Use it!

James O’Keefe

I applaud James O’Keefe’s work exposing ACORN.

The stuff with Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is less impressive. He screwed up. No doubt about it.

If the stuff we’re hearing about CNN Reporter Abbie Boudreau is true (and I have no reason to think that it isn’t), it’s a despicable act.

Yes, we need to take the fight to them. Conservatives have been beaten hard by the Alinsky followers and we need to respond.

But not this way.

And Now The House Defunds ACORN

Hat Tip: BigGovernment.Com

Rep. Darrell Issa  (R-CA) offered the Defund-ACORN bill to the Student Loans bill.  The House vote convincingly to cut ALL federal funds to ACORN.

Vote: 345 to 75.  Complete results here.

Developing…

It’s worth pointing out that this amendment is attached to a different bill than the one that the Senate voted on.

This means that the Senate will yet have to vote on this bill, and the House will have to yet vote on the Senate bill.

And then there’s potential Conference Committees, where either or both of these amendments could conveniently disappear.

And then the President would have to sign one or both of these bills as well.

We’re a long way from calling this a success.

Intemperate Thought of the Day #9

At least after watching all these videos, I now know what a community organizer does.

But don’t miss this post. This doesn’t have anything to do with the videos and may be the most important post on the site.

To start this, we are publishing an internal quasi-employee manual Big Government has obtained. Given to all ACORN employees, it isn’t your normal manual. It doesn’t discuss things like sick leave or vacation time, but, rather, as the title states, the “Principles and Foundations of ACORN.” How an organization communicates with the public is important. How it communicates to its own employees, however, provides a richer understanding of an organization’s nature.

The whole thing is worth a read. I draw your attention to just one sentence (ACORN emphasizes it with italics):

ACORN’s lifeblood is conflicts with targets outside the organization.

Think about that. ACORN’s lifeblood isn’t empowering disadvantaged communities nor lifting people out of poverty. It isn’t concerned about increasing economic growth to improve the lives of its members. It’s lifeblood is conflict. Conflict with targets. It actually thinks of the world outside itself as targets.

ACORN Suspends Operations, Plans Internal Audit

The Washington Times is reporting:

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees "indefensible," has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.

ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that she was "ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN's service programs until completion of an independent review."