Monday, August 22, 2011

Random Thoughts on Birtherism

Yes, I have been a slacker lately. I admit it. But, hey, we did two shows the week before last when we covered Orly's Great Hawaiian Adventure with Paul Irey and Douglas Vogt in tow. Speaking of Paul Irey, someone must have pointed him to my critique of his flawed analysis. He popped in with a couple of comments as "Anonymous". Mr. Irey again demonstrated his lack of credentials as a document examiner. He also can't understand why the Department of Health in Honolulu would not allow the crackpot Orly Taitz and her two biased amateur buffoons "experts" in with their microscopes and scanners to examine a document that they are prevented by law from viewing.

In case you have not seen it yet there is a new Facebook Group called Orly's World that has generated quite a bit of activity. A few Birthers have joined to regurgitate the same lies about the authenticity of the LFBC and COLB and to try to rewrite the definition of "natural born citizen" based on sheer fantasy.

Our previous guest on RC Radio, Tim Adams, submitted his masters thesis titled Discourse and Conflict: The President Barak H. Obama Birth Certificate Controversy and the New Media. [emphasis added] In fairness to Adams the misspelling of the President's name is on the cover sheet that may have been prepared by someone else at Western Kentucky University. This is a small sample of Adams' writing style that he calls "New Journalism" from "Chapter II - The Beginning":

Down in the Bluegrass
Unbeknownst to my detractors—being as I was coming to Western Kentucky
University from my alma mater, the University of Hawaii—I had already been vetted
many times. I’ve held several positions in both military and civil service, each of which
required both a background check and a top secret or higher security clearance. I had just
recently been invited to the Honolulu Police Academy as part of their community
enforcement program but had allowed myself to be dissuaded by my then-current love
interest’ fears of such a job. A short time later, the girl was gone and so was my
opportunity, as is so often the case when dealing with women.
Yes, that is what apparently is acceptable for a masters thesis in English these days at Western Kentucky. ConWebBlog provided a review of both Adam's thesis and Jack Cashill's fluff piece on it in World Net Daily: Tim Adams'Crappy Masters Thesis

What self-respecting professor would not have rejected Adams' thesis outright for this massive typo alone?
Adams makes other embarrassing errors as well. For instance, he writes, "The other reason anyone daring to call the current administration into question is because to quote the Rolling Stones, 'Meet the new boss/same as the old boss' ('Teenage Wasteland')" -- managing to get both the name of the song the lyric comes from and the band that performed it completely wrong. (It's "Baba O'Riley" by The Who.) He also misspells WND editor Joseph Farah's name and commits the editing error of introducing him as "Mr. Farar" but not mentioning his first name until 12 pages later.
As for the thesis itself, once you get past the subpar stabs at Hunter  Thompson-esque prose -- indeed, he portrays his entire birther adventure as an attempt at "gonzo" journalism -- it's clear that Adams does not want to tell the full story of "the conflicts surrounding speech and public discourse, and the barriers to and consequences for unpopular speech."
Adams portrays "Mr. Farar’s people at World Net Daily," along with the people at the tabloid the Globe, as outlets that treated himwell, as opposed to other outlets that "were something less than stellar when it came to the veracity and honesty of their reporting on me." But as we've detailed, WND did not engage in honesty and veracity in its reporting about Adams, actively hiding the fact that Adams first made his birther claims to a pro-white radio host broadcasting from a conference by an organization descended from Southern anti-integration activists.
Dean Haskins is still pimping his big Birther Summit that promises to bring in tens of people. he might even eclipse Carl Swennson's great Pitchfork Rally in Atlanta that drew a dozen. Dean's $15,000 Challenge to Colin Powell to come sit through 3 hours of crazy has gone two weeks with no answer so Dean is now inviting Bill O'Reilly, Anderson Cooper, George Stephanopoulos, and Chris Matthews to be wowed by their "evidence" for pay. (Well, not really because Dean and his buds will determine if they did a super job).

Meanwhile, in the real world, it appears that our President has scored another significant success as the government of Muammar Gaddafi is falling as I write.