I pretty much liked the book but thought the epilogue really didn’t belong in it. I don’t think you can credibly link Chris Dodd’s corruption to President Obama’s except in the sense that both received quite a lot of financial support from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I have to congratulate Michelle on the timing in particular, the book came out exactly as questions are coming up concerning this administration which I think drove the coverage of the book on the today show. The Today show interview will drive others.
Being a top 1000 reviewer at Amazon is pretty much like being a famous candlepin bowler, but if you give that weight then I say go buy it!
No current treatment is known for Sullivan’s syndrome but readers are advised to avoid prolonged exposure to the subject as the syndrome can spread to the point where the infected person can become the trigger for the syndrome in others.
So if you have to read the side links be careful.
Update: Charles’ Heh is almost as good as MKH’s, almost. Does Glenn Reynolds get a royalty every time a blogger says that?
So of course the White house wants to talk about the birthers:
MR. GIBBS: No. (Laughter.) I mean, the God’s honest truth is no. I mean, Bill, let’s understand this — and I almost hate to indulge in such an august setting as the White House — and I mean this in seriousness — the White House briefing room discussing the made-up, fictional nonsense of whether or not the President was born in this country. A year-and-a-half ago I asked that the birth certificate be put on the Internet because lord knows, you got a birth certificate and you put it on the Internet, what else could be the story?
If one applies for a United States passport, the passport office will demand a birth certificate. It defines this as an official document bearing “your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records.” The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced—the document is formally known as a “certificate of live birth”—bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate—which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested. In other words, what President Obama has produced is the “real” birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii’s health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama’s birth certificate is identical to that in the state’s records, the so-called vault copy. Given that fact, we are loath even to engage the fanciful notion that President Obama was born elsewhere, contrary to the information on his birth certificate, but we note for the record that his mother was a native of Kansas, whose residents have been citizens of the United States for a very long time, and whose children are citizens of the United States as well.
My fellow conservatives who are pushing this are really giving the president an out on an awful lot of things. It gives them the chance to not only change the subject but to paint the right as a bunch of idiots.
And don’t think the democrats won’t take advantage of this, Salon has it exactly right:
Greg Sargent reported Monday that one House Democrat, Hawaii’s Neil Abercrombie, was doing just that. Abercrombie, Sargent wrote, “is going to introduce a resolution on the House floor today that seems designed to put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism in a jam …. [The resolution] commemorates the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. But here’s the rub, his spokesman tells me: It describes Hawaii as Barack Obama’s birthplace.”
“Fifty-five people didn’t vote for whatever reason,” Abercrombie spokesman Randy Obata said. “Apparently there was no objection in the final analysis.”
55 congressmen voting present, it’s so Obamaish isn’t it?
If I’m the democrats I’d have these guys voting on this at least once a week. I’d paint the republicans with this brush and I’d be asking Romney, Palin and and any republican running for office this question over and over again. It’s their best chance to change the subject and perhaps, with the media’s help sneak their stuff through.
If we do this to ourselves then we deserve 8 years of Obama.
No, the primary beneficiary of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory is Obama. He is running the country into the ground at break-neck speed, but the conspiracy theory has handed Democratic operatives like Media Matters, Think Progress, and all the left-wing blogs which jump when the whistle blows, a great way of distracting the public from the damage being done.
Don’t believe me, just look at the Memeorandum screen shot above right. The left-wing blogosphere moves in a group, and the group is pushing the same point: Beware the Birthers. The Birthers are not a threat to the economy, our national security, personal freedom, or our health care system — except to the extent they hand the Democrats a side issue with which to deflect attention from the real issues facing the country.
He does in fairness leave out one group the profits from this: The people who will write the books, hold the conventions and milk the true believers out of plenty of dough to keep their own gravy train going.
