Was Obama Born In Kenya?

The Apollo 11 had not yet returned to earth in late July of 1969 when the rumors started floating around that the entire moon landing was a hoax, having been faked on a giant phony moonscape set in a vast soundstage at some secret location. If true, the illusion would have required that 80,000 NASA engineers and flight controllers were secretly collaborating with the entire news gathering infrastructure of the global media to perpetrate a fraud which, but for the efforts of a few amateur sleuths, would have fooled the world. The event was repeated five more times, continuing through the Apollo 17 flight, but this did nothing to disprove the hoax theory according to the truth squad, and today, the fraudulent moon landing theory has taken its place with the cover-ups of the Roswell crash and the JFK assassination conspiracy.

Four days ago (11/7) I wrote about the outpouring of celebration and global good will following the Obama election victory, comparing it to the positive feelings around the world about the U.S.A. on the day of the Apollo 11 landing. It seems, now, that the two events have something else in common. The conspiracy theorists are hard at work trying to get the word out that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, thus making him ineligible to take the oath of office as President. Obama’s American citizenship, according to the amateur truth seekers, is just as fraudulent as the moon landing 40 years ago. Once again, the so-called truth seekers are asking us to believe some ideas that are very hard to swallow. First, the global news gathering apparatus completely missed this story, despite the fact that a Pulitzer would surely have been waiting for anyone who broke the news. Second, the Clinton political machine missed the story even though the revelation of the Obama fraud would have given Hillary the nomination, and probably the Presidency. Third, the incredibly efficient and professional dirty-tricks and muckraking team within the GOP under the leadership of Karl Rove— not exactly an amateur at political intrigue— missed the opportunity to bury Obama and put McCain/Palin in the White House. Lastly, we are asked to believe that a few independent lawyers and Internet bloggers are the only people brilliant enough to get at the truth.

There’s a principle in science called “Occam’s Razor,” which states that the simplest answer is the right answer. The simplest answer is that Obama was born in the United States and is, thus, eligible for the nation’s highest office.

Also see: A Moment Of Global Joy (11/7/2008)

Too Stupid To Be Governed?

Bill Maher said, last night on television, what many of us have wanted to say for some time- that the American electorate is too stupid to be governed. While I agree with the sentiment, I wonder if there might not be a better explanation for the fact that Karl Rove can work his Pavlovian magic, seemingly at will, on the gullible voting public. Then I discovered the following passage in a new novel by Brad Thor. The title is, "The Last Patriot." I am quoting.

"Up until the 1950s, American children yearned for adulthood. When their time came to be adults they stepped into the role proudly, leaving childhood behind and taking up the mantles of responsibility, honor, and dignity. They embraced and championed the ideals of those who came before them while valiantly tackling new ideas and problems that their families, communities, and nation faced. Those days were long gone.

"Americans now shunned adulthood, preferring to remain in a state of perpetual adolescence. By failing to move forward with grace and dignity, they left a gaping hole in American society. They treated relationships like disposable lighters, tossing marriages away when they ran out of gas. Children were left without families, and even worse, they were left without adults who could be role models of responsible behavior. With this lack of willingness to step forward and embrace adulthood, the nation had lost sight of its core values and ideals."

I admire Brad Thor for his insight in writing this. Bill Maher almost got it right, but not quite. In my opinion, Americans are not too stupid to be governed, they're too immature. Americans choose their political candidates the way that teenagers make their selections for class officers and homecoming royalty. Popularity, not competence, rules the process. How else can you explain the fact that a ditzy, glamor-puss cheerleader is now running for vice president?

Beware of Fortune Tellers

95% of the American adult public can’t solve a very simple quadratic equation, or write a literate paragraph, so it comes as no surprise that the voting public has an almost Stone Age-level of willingness to believe the prophecies of fortune tellers. I’m not talking, here, about the Gypsies who read your palm at the carnival. I’m talking about the spin doctors who televise their predictions about the future in order to tear down someone who holds a different view. I’m talking about Republicans who tell you what a Democrat will do, and vice versa.

Some predictions are legitimate, especially when they involve projecting a linear trend. Gasoline will be $7.00 a gallon in four to six years. I don’t care if you believe this, but I’m budgeting my personal finances to accommodate it. Sea level will rise ten feet when the Greenland ice cap melts completely, and it melts increasingly every year. I’m not buying any seafront property. Iraq will have American military garrisons for the next 20 years. I’m advising all my nieces and nephews to not join the Army or the Marines if they want to have a happy life. I believe in projections, but I don’t believe in fortune telling or prophecy. Here’s what I mean.

Karl Rove and his Republican cronies are televising political ads that predict what Obama will do if he becomes president. My question is this— if they can see the future with such clarity, why didn’t they predict the response of the Iraqi militants before we decided to invade their sovereign nation? Get my point? And I don’t mean this to be a one-sided criticism of Republicans. The Democrat oracles are telling us what McCain will do, if and when Iran goes nuclear. These are the same Democrat oracles who bet all the smart money that Hillary would be the nominee. The fact is, even McCain can’t predict what he will do if Iran goes nuclear. Given that scenario, he might think first about strong military action, but if China and Russia and India sided with Iran, I’ll bet he’d learn to live with just another member of the nuclear club, and put his faith in nuclear deterrence based on certain destruction for Iran if it broke the rules. Nobody can see the future, especially when it comes to events that involve foreign countries.

The fortune tellers say that Obama will raise taxes. Maybe Obama will raise taxes, and maybe he won’t. He doesn’t know about that yet, and neither does Karl Rove. The United States has the lowest Federal taxes in the industrialized world, and we also have the lowest standard of healthcare, public education, and air and rail travel service. Someday, America might grow tired of being dead last in the industrialized world in these categories, and when that day comes, the President at that time will push to raise taxes to fix the shortcomings. It might happen during the next presidency, or maybe the presidency after that. Maybe it will never happen, and America will slip to third-world status. Third-world countries have very low taxes, or none at all. Maybe that’s what we really want. Nobody can say.

Here’s the deal. If the gullible voters base their vote on political advertising prophecies, then we probably won’t get the best candidate elected to office. Most of us think that nothing could ever possibly be worse than Bush, but that falls into the category of predicting the future.

The Elitist Candidate

Once again Barack Obama has been targeted for being an elitist. Those so-called hard-working, white voters certainly know a leadership deficiency when they see one. Too bad they weren’t around to sandbag the nominations of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and JFK, for all of these presidents were unabashed elitists. Thomas Jefferson embraced scientific intellectual pursuits, spoke French, and had actually visited France. God forbid. The same was true for Ben Franklin who was also an elitist. All four of the faces on Mount Rushmore would be elitist icons if not for the fact that Abe Lincoln was born in a log cabin, and that he struggled with bi-polar depression all his life.


George W. Bush came from, perhaps, the noblest stock of all. Surrounded from birth by tremendous wealth and power, he could easily have slipped into elitism. However, wisely anticipating that he would one-day need to curry favor with hard-working white voters, he transformed himself at the earliest opportunity into a drunken frat boy, and then stayed at that performance level throughout his adult life right up to the present time. By forging an anti-intellectual, non-elitist skill set early on, he was able to put together a remarkable resume of business failures before starting his political career. Success came his way when Karl Rove entered the picture. Rove wisely understood that most Americans fail more than they succeed, and they would identify with candidate Bush based on the kindred qualities shared by all, just as long as Bush betrayed no hint of elitism or intellectualism. The sad thing (sad for the United States, not for Karl Rove) is that Rove had nailed the situation spot on. The result has been the last seven years.


Here’s the thing. If Americans won’t let themselves remember that all of our very best presidents were elitists, then there’s nothing in our democracy to keep us from electing one failure after another.

If It Was Fair and Balanced, It Wouldn't Be Essential

Ask the average person to describe the New York Times with one word, and most people will say, “Liberal.” Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. That’s not the word I would use, however. For me, the New York Times is “essential.”

There’s a legend in the folklore of politics about Karl Rove in his early days in Texas. He wanted a direct mail list of Conservative Republicans in the state, and because such a thing did not exist at the time, Rove bought himself a list of the subscribers to Field and Stream Magazine. He knew that such a list would be overwhelmingly comprised of Conservative Republicans, and he was comfortable in the knowledge that Field and Stream would not begin opposing the NRA just to broaden its appeal to a wider audience. Rove knew that publications all have their own identifiable and predictable constituencies, and this is true of newspapers as well as magazines.

The constituency of the New York Times is primarily composed of East Coast, urban intellectuals, and such a group tends to be politically liberal. News is a product, and a newspaper is a business, and the reader is the customer. And the first rule of business is to give the customer what they want. The New York Times does this well. To become more balanced and nonjudgmental, the newspaper could reach out to a broader audience of Conservatives by printing the daily diatribes of Rush Limbaugh, or quoting the rants of Bill O’Reilly, but decision makers at the Times are smart enough to know that red-meat, Right-wingers like to get their venom directly from the source by tuning in to the EIB Network or the FOX News Channel. The Times appeals to Liberals because Liberals are the ones who read the paper.

For me, the important question is not whether the Times is liberal, but is the Times essential? I believe that it is, and here’s why. About five years ago, I had the privilege of being part of a group discussion with Daniel Ellsberg, and Ellsberg told us, personally, why he gave the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. He said that the Times, in his opinion, was the only institution with the clout and the courage to withstand the predictable onslaught from the Nixon administration. Ellsberg confided that, prior to turning over the papers to the Times, he had experienced an “All-The-President’s-Men” moment when he genuinely feared for his life. The New York Times, for Ellsberg, was not just an outlet to expose the lies of the Pentagon about Vietnam, but it was also an ally to help guarantee his personal safety.

Here’s the essential thing about why such a liberal bastion is necessary. When power on the Left goes off the track, it tends toward the silly and the pathetic, and maybe even the tragic. I would cite LBJ, Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton as examples, annoying, but not really threatening. But when power on the Right gets out of control, it is downright destructive. Both ends of the political spectrum are not above punishing their enemies, but whereas the Lefties do it with some temerity, those on the Right do it with a kind of evil enthusiasm. Joe McCarthy, the Nixon administration, and Bush-Cheney are examples of this. Even an institution as strong as the U.S. Congress doesn’t seem up to the task of speaking truth to that kind of power. I don’t mean to imply that the New York Times is the only thing standing between us and outright fascism, but it does seem to have a good track record in helping keep the Right under control. If this offends some Conservatives, it seems like a fair trade-off.