Is anyone else sick and tired of the Right Wing Smear Circus & the media that follows them?

[beachmom]

There is all this hand wringing in the media about "birtherism", as if smearing a Democrat with utter fantasy notions is a new thing. I mean WHO is in the thick of the birtherist movement?

Jerome Corsi. Remember him?

http://www.dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Jerome_Corsi

(kind of a funny website, heh)

But of course, John Kerry didn't "fight back", and THAT is why he was smeared with lies about his service in Vietnam. I mean REALLY. I do not get why the media pretends this is all some kind of discussion with reasonable people. It isn't with the Right. Remember the stupid "Sign the 180" bruhaha with Kerry? Doesn't it sound a lot like "release your LONG form birth certificate" when the certified copy is all the proof you need for things as important as a passport?

Ugh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/business/media/28birth.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

In Trying to Debunk a Theory, the News Media Extended Its Life

The facts about Barack Obama’s birth never wavered. But the more the fraudulent theories were debated and dispelled in major news media outlets, the more people seemed to believe them.

...

Some conservative Web sites have delighted in the perceived distrust in the president and his origins. “It is important to remember there are still dozens of other questions concerning this question of eligibility that need to be resolved,” Joseph Farah, the editor of one such site, WorldNetDaily, wrote Wednesday. His site had dozens of articles related to Mr. Obama’s birth on its home page.

A book by Jerome Corsi to be published in mid-May, “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President,” raced to No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list last week after the Drudge Report featured it prominently.

It's a GAME. Why doesn't somebody call conservatives on it? As in, ENOUGH. The game is done. But when I think about it, it has to be more than the media that rejects this circus (or carnival barkerism, if I can quote the POTUS), it has to be the American people (apart from the misfits, paranoid, clinically insane, etc.), and sadly, it appears that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

[karynnj]

1. I was making the same argument all yesterday

The fact is that what Kerry had to deal with was much more complicated than what Obama has with just the birther issue. The problem was that the book was, in essence a cluster bomb of lies. There were literally thousands of different lies - and they were not even internally consistent. Add to that, they were all garnered by having unknown people sign affidavits. Many people were not even in the same area of Vietnam at the same time as Kerry. Even with O'Neil, he came months after Kerry left - in fact, in one of the 1970s debates, Kerry tried to explain that the mission had changed by the time O'Neil was there.

In both Obama's and Kerry's case, the right ignored the official record. In Obama's case the vast majority of the media at least countered with the official record. Obama's issue is also much easier to understand. We all have birth certificates.

In Kerry's case, the issues were more complicated. With the sheer number of accusers and fact that many were officiers Kerry reported to, they had the "if there is smoke there is fire" crowd. At this point, the only argument that I have bothered to use is whether they lied on official records back in the 1960s, even when Kerry needed a higher clearance to work for the admiral - a breach of security as well as hard to understand, did they lie because their feelings were hurt by Brinkley's (not Kerry's)portrayal of them, or were they angry about his 1971 antiwar actions?

Yesterday, I relied on reposting the same thing I have posted for years - cut and pasted from the last time I used it.

But, the bottom line, more cleanly shown by this birther nonsense, is that there is about 30% of the country divorced from anything approaching truth or reality. They are fed by creeps like Sean Hannity, who has been saying that he will have Corsi on soon and that Corsi researches things meticulously.

I keep returning in my mind to Sam Fox, a SBVT funder in late October, saying to Kerry, in almost condescension, that he would always be a hero, and no one could take that away from him. In fact, Fox and others did just that - and their evil still lives on. At the time, some papers sympathized that Fox was grilled by a very calm Kerry in front of his kids and grandkids. Fox is a prominent Jew, but intentionally spreading lies is a very serious offense. In today's culture, the media actually thought he was the victim - and Kerry took advantage of his powerful position. To add insult to injury, Bush recess appointed him. I hope at least one grandkid actually told his grandfather that he was wrong. Not to mention, most accounts described the liars as having "questioned" Kerry's record.

Yesterday, a despicable WSJ columnist spoke of Kerry's exaggerated stories. Somehow, in their universe, Bush, was a patriot in TANG - even as he lost flying privileges, and Kerry, in spite of 2 prestigious awards for bravery, has "problems" hidden in his record.

[MBS]

2. did you see this yet?

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/republican_party/index.html?story=%2Fpolitics%2Fwar_room%2F2011%2F04%2F27%2Fconservative_conspiracy_theories

Title: "The Futility of Reasoning with Crazy."

a sample quote:

Maybe it's hard times, and maybe it's an African-American president with an odd name, but several leading contenders for the 2012 GOP nomination express ideas that might lead to involuntary hospitalization anywhere outside a Tea Party rally or a TV studio.

What can I say: it struck a chord.:)

[karynnj]

3. Hum - I do think that Trump might qualify as delusional

I think it might take a long time to rehabilitate him. It is sad when someone can get over 20% in a primar poll and being acting like a nastier Charlie Sheen.