I forgot about that one. John Roberts is in on the conspiracy too? Oh teh noes!!! Even as Goldberg rejects the birthers, he pushes the Chicago Mafia meme. What a piece of work.

O'Reilly: OK, you answer it, and then I'll have the correct answer.

Taken by itself, that might seem like O'Reilly is deferring to Goldberg, but in the context of the exchange, O'Reilly is asserting ahead of time that his theory is the correct answer.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I forgot about that one. John Roberts is in on the conspiracy too? Oh teh noes!!!

It was so ridiculous that when given the choice of which one to keep pushing, the Birther conspiracy actually looked better. But for a couple of days it wasn't obvious that OathGate was going away any time soon.

Here's an editorial on the "natural-born citizen" issue that provides useful historical information. I don't agree with it's conclusion: Immigrants should be eligible for the presidency

Quote:
...
But it doesn't really matter where McCain or Obama was born. In the first Naturalization Act of 1790, Congress, which included many leaders who had drafted the federal Constitution in Philadelphia, defined "natural-born" to include the children of American citizens born outside the United States. And Supreme Court interpretations of the 14th Amendment have established that children of foreign nationals born on U.S. soil are citizens of the United States. It is doubtful that the drafters of the 14th Amendment, which was designed to give U.S. citizenship to ex-slaves after the Civil War, intended to bestow citizenship on the children of foreign nationals in the U.S., but mistaken or not this interpretation has become settled law. There are, in short, three ways to become a U.S. citizen -- to be born on U.S. soil, to U.S. citizens or foreign nationals; to be born to one or more U.S. citizen parents abroad; and to be born a foreign national, but to become a citizen of the U.S. by immigration to the U.S. and naturalization according to U.S. law.
...
It might be assumed that the Founders were worried about foreign-born presidents partial to some particular ethnic nation. But in 1787, most of the states in the world were dynastic empires, where the ruling dynasties and aristocracies often were of a different ethnicity than many or most of their subjects. The Irish were ruled by the British Crown, the Slavic nations of the Balkans by the Austrian Empire's Habsburg family, and the Polish people were on the verge of being carved up among the Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns (Prussia) and Romanovs (Russia). To the south of the young United States, Spain and Portugal still governed their American colonies. True, there were already nationalist movements in Ireland and other nations that would eventually obtain national independence, but it is doubtful that the Founders were worried that a foreign-born president would support, say, Irish nationalists against the British empire. Living as they did in a world of aristocratic empires where monarchs and nobles sometimes moved among empires and kingdoms like CEOs moving among corporations, the Founders probably sought to prevent a foreign prince or nobleman from becoming commander in chief, as the Habsburg princeling Maximilian did in the 1860s, when he was temporarily and unsuccessfully installed by the French on the throne of Mexico. In other words, the "natural-born citizen" clause was probably motivated by fear of dynastic monarchy, not by fear of favoritism on the part of a foreign-born president toward one of the nation-states that obtained their independence only ages after the ink on the Constitution dried.
...

I don't agree that "The controversies about the citizenship of John McCain and Barack Obama make it clear that an amendment is long overdue." I think that amounts to capitulating to the tin-hatters. I would sooner support the "birther" law than support amending the Constitution to strip the "natural-born citizen" requirement.

Funny Poll


It looks like the theory of plate tectonics seems to be more controversial than Obama's birthplace.


...


I have no idea what to make of that.

Other than the fact that 11% of the people believe that he wasn't born in the US. 11%, while hardly a majority, is still a pretty substantial group.

Sigh.

I don't think that indicates that plate tectonics is controversial, so much as it indicates the scientific illiteracy of the adult population.

Notable breakdowns in responses to the birth question:

Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?

        Yes     No      Not sure         REP	42	28	3060+	69	17	14SOUTH	47	23	30...Demographic Composition of RespondentsDEMOCRATS	743	31%REPUBLICANS	527	22%INDEPENDENTS	601	25%OTHER	        119	5%NON VOTERS	410	17%60+	480	20%SOUTH	720	30%

I don't know how representative that sample is. What is the actual breakdown of partisanship in voter registration and what percentage of adults are not registered? Can 30% of the adult population of the US be found in the South? Do people older than 60 make up 20% of the population? This raises questions about the accuracy of the poll. The 11% NO, 12% unsure figures may be exaggerated.