Tuesday, December 02, 2008

The full-page ad

I'm sure most people thought that once the election was over, we wouldn't hear any more about President-elect Barack Obama's citizenship. Oh, but you'd be wrong. Yesterday on the train, I was standing in the aisle, because on the el that's pretty much what everyone ends up doing after 5 p.m. -- standing in the aisle. A woman was reading the newspaper, but I didn't know what paper and wasn't even close enough to her to actually read the page she was on, but I noticed that it was a full-page ad with a title that asked Obama if he was a natural born citizen of the U.S. The man standing next to me snorted when he saw it and shook his head. My sentiments exactly. But I was curious about this ad and looked it up this morning.

Mary Mitchell from the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a column about it today. The ad was paid for by the We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, Inc., and as I thought, the ad questioned Obama's citizenship, once again bringing up the tired subject of the Hawaiian birth certificate. If you want to waste a few minutes of your day, here is the actual ad. It appeared in the Chicago Tribune.

I'm not sure what the point is to this, except to waste tens of thousands of dollars, which the chairman of We The People Foundation, Robert Schultz, said his organization spent. What I find interesting is that people and organizations who have questioned Obama's citizenship don't seem to be upstanding citizens themselves. We The People Foundation has been in trouble for tax fraud. Phillip Berg, who filed a lawsuit against Obama alleging that Obama wasn't eligible to run for president of the United States, is also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist (he thinks the U.S. was in on it). He's also been sanctioned for unethical actions as an attorney.

The economy is a mess. Unemployment is at an all-time high. People are losing their homes. And with all those issues to deal with, the Robert Schultzes and Phillip Bergs of the country think what we care about most is a months-old conspiracy theory that has already been debunked several times over. I almost can't even fathom the stupidity. Almost.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you think Obama should just quiet the millions down before it gets worse and show his proof? I guess you think it is beneath him to comfort a portion of the population that he is to potentially govern. It would be a nice gesture for Obama to soothe the unsure by simply submitting the questioned documents, but instead he ignores them and spends big money to quiet them. Wow!! This is getting scary!

Peter K Fallon, Ph.D. said...

Anonymous (is that your real name?):

That's one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. And I've read a lot of dumb comments.

This is America. In America, when someone makes an accusation against you, it is their responsibility to prove wrongdoing. It is NOT your responsibility to prove your own innocence.

Should Obama "submit documents" to prove he is not a terrorist? This was another boneheaded accusation made during this campaign. Or perhaps you'd like him to "submit documents" that he is not a Muslim?

Boneheads like you will always want to believe the worst about politicians with whom they disagree. Obama is right to ignore you.

Wild Clover said...

The birth certificate is posted on the net, as well as the bith announcement. Check out Snopes. Obama isn't waving his BC because he doesn't have to. This is the same idiocy that has an unreasonably large (ie. greater than 0) percentage of the country thinking he is a muslim.

Where's McCain's BC? Supposedly born in Panama...not even a state. Maybe he was actually born over the border.

He got elected folks. Deal with it. That's what y'all said to the democrats when the Fla recount was stopped, that's what was said when no recount was made in Ohio-the only state where exit polls were 180 degees off. Get over it already. The ignorant already believe this crap, and you are wasting money that could feed a hungry child, or save someone's home on stupid ads.