During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.The book came out in early May. The reason this article is hitting the front page today is that the NYT has been trying to extract a response from Obama.
In offering the story as an argument for ending pre-existing condition exclusions by health insurers, the president left the clear impression that his mother’s fight was over health benefits for medical expenses.
But in “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” author Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna disability insurance policy and that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument....
On Wednesday, in response to repeated requests for comment that The Times first made in mid-June, shortly after the book’s release....It took repeated requests for the NYT to get an answer to such an important question?!
... a White House spokesman chose not to dispute either Ms. Scott’s account or Mr. Obama’s memory, while arguing that Mr. Obama’s broader point remained salient.
“We have not reviewed the letters or other material on which the author bases her account,” said Nicholas Papas, the spokesman. “The president has told this story based on his recollection of events that took place more than 15 years ago.”This is the standard response of the memoirist: These are my memories. This is how I remember it. Even if I am mistaken, there is truth in the way this story has become part of me. (That notion is expressed beautifully in the interview at the end of the audiobook version of the thoroughly delightful "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir.")
But I don't accept that the President could have an innocently false memory about this story, which he milked dramatically, as Byron York describes here:
"I remember in the last month of her life, she wasn't thinking about how to get well, she wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality, she was thinking about whether or not insurance was going to cover the medical bills and whether our family would be bankrupt as a consequence," Obama said in September 2007.Those terrible, heartless corporations have been a theme of the Obama presidency. He has been trying to structure American brains around that idea, so he can win acceptance of policies that most Americans don't want, and that story of his personal agony played an important role in pushing through an immense federal power.
"She was in her hospital room looking at insurance forms because the insurance company said that maybe she had a pre-existing condition and maybe they wouldn't have to reimburse her for her medical bills," Obama added in January 2008.
"The insurance companies were saying, 'Maybe there's a pre-existing condition and we don't have to pay your medical bills,' " Obama said in a debate with Republican opponent Sen. John McCain in October 2008.
Posts
197 comments:
He's a fucking liar. Using his dead mother makes him a despicable fucking liar.
What the canned response will be here is that how could you dare to impugn the deathbed memories of Obama's mother? He suffered something traumatic and you have the temerity to question it?
Something like that...
Gore used his sister's death from lung cancer and his son's accident in the same way.
"When his son was hit by a car and severely injured 11 years ago, the accident "changed my priorities totally," Al Gore told Oprah Winfrey last month.
"I remember sitting in the hospital looking at my schedule book for the first time," said Gore, then a U.S. senator. "All of these things for the next month had felt so weighty when I put them on the schedule. When I exhaled they just blew off the schedule, light as feathers. They didn't matter anymore."
"It was a great lesson for me," he said. "Now family is first."
Al Gore's family, with the young Albert Gore III standing, second from right.
But not long after Gore says he had his bedside epiphany, he sent his Senate staff scrambling for a more family-friendly shirt just minutes before a photo-op he arranged the day his 6-year-old son was discharged from the hospital, say sources familiar with the 1989 press conference.
Hospital staffers who witnessed the behind-the-scenes maneuvering were "appalled" at what seemed to be Gore's calculating behavior in the middle of a heart-rending family crisis -- behavior that would show up again later in his political life, fitting into a pattern."
And then there was Hillary Clinton dodging bullets with Chelsea in Bosnia.
To make such a blindingly obvious distortion of the facts in order to further your own power shows a dramatic lack of respect both for your political opponents and the voters in general. Hell, it shows a dramatic lack of self-respect.
Surprising few at this point, I would imagine. Cue the remaining Obama supporters making "mountains out of molehill"-flavored statements.
"lied"? A bit strong, I think. I didn't see that in the book.
It's like they all had Doris Kearns Goodwin advising them on their memories.
Pogo, don't forget John Edwards channeling (I was going to say pimping - what the hell, I will. Pimping) his dead kid to John Kerry.
She was denied disability insurance (Yeah, try to get disability insurance after you become disabled). He turned it into being insurance denied because of pre-existing conditions (why am I not surprised?). She HAD employer paid insurance that paid for her cancer treatment.
He is a fucking liar. Hillary was crucified for her insurance anecdote during the primary by the media but this guy, well.. he is one lucky lying bastard.
Are you lying if you just proceed to speak without having any idea what you are talking about?
Viz. Obama's story about his car insurance, where it is clear that he had only purchased the minimal liability insurance required to get a license plate, but expected the insurance company to fix up his car as if he had full coverage.
The guy just has no idea of how things work; he just thinks someone else must be obligated to take care of his problems, regardless, and if they don't, it must be because they are cheating him.
You didn't see what in the book, Bill?
Ah but his tale of woe was truthy enough -- for the media and adoring fans, anyway. Oprah won't be frying him like she did James Frey.
Not only that, Hagar, he was also too stupid to get information from the driver who supposedly rear end him. obama is a liar and an idiot.
Cigna had money and they should have given it to Obama.
End of story.
What will Obama do if his "Have All My Lies Believed Card" is revoked?
It seems so unfair. He is a clean cut African American and is therefore granted that Free Card...right?
The Atlanta Public Schools ran on that standard too. But suddenly that Card is being revoked there too.
Corporations ARE the enemy of liars. Corporations have to run on decisions based on reports of true facts.
Unless they are political constructs that are Professional Liars, such as unions. Obama loves Unions of every shape and form.
What will the Liar-in-Chief do to us next?
The Obamassiah has been a poser and a Charlatan all his life. Leopards & spots and all that... And we're supposed to be surprised by this latest revelation? But as Pogo points out, in his ManBearPig example, ALL lefties are Charlatans.--they have to be in order to hype the natives in order to get them to swallow their dystopian esoteric BS--otherwise most would end up working for the State Dept of Hwys laying black-top..
It's another example of the ends justifying the means, like project "Fast and Furious."
Obama's mother's insurance story is the Tawana Brawley method of lying, appealing to the intelligentsia's credulous nature, believing the fable of The Evil Insurance Company because it seems plausible, fitting with their world view perfectly.
Obama's other lie, about his car insurance was just as stupid, but of a piece in establishing the Smart Set as those among the angels, and identifying disagreement with selfish and uncompassionate evil.
The left have been telling their Aesop's Socialist Tales for over 100 years.
I wonder what else we would have found out about candidate Obama if the press ahd actually left their knees long enough to snoop around a bit.
"It was a great lesson for me," he said. "Now family is first."
This is the kind of general stuff I expect from politicians. It's an entirely different thing to make up details about your mothers death in order to steamroll over people on a specific policy.
I suppose we could be charitable and say maybe he was confused about which insurance papers she was dealing but really? If he's her son he probably should have been helping her with them anyway, and thus had a better understanding of what they were. At least, that's the way it works in my family.
It isn't that Obama is boring but that everything he says is a lie.
Central facts as well.
Nobody ever taught him the pleasures of saying what's true.
Sadly most people don't understand insurance. With health insurance most see it as a sort of "pre-payment" plan.
In BO's case I'm sure he's bright enough to know the difference between health insurance and disability insurance.
Nobody ever taught him the pleasures of saying what's true.
Not to mention how much easier life is when you don't have to keep track of what you said, and to whom you said it.
"If he's her son he probably should have been helping her with them anyway, and thus had a better understanding of what they were."
In fact, he was helping her with them; making it a devious lie, exposing his mendacity.
Hey it came from Captain Bullshit. what else is new?
What's the difference between this kind of crap and Dylan's Hurricane?
Except that Hurricane Carter murdered three people.
The goal is to attain the desired political end by dramatization.
Obama is a liar? Hell, he's a contemporary, post-modern Democrat liberal. Same thing.
I expect all politicians to lie about their past to some degree, although Pawlenty seems to have the most boringly accurate tale so far, but Obama is singular among Tellers of Tall Tales.
A la rhhardin, it is best to assume that every word he says is a lie, even 'and' and 'the'.
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
When my father passed away from cancer in 1995, the particulars made a compelling story to condemn part of the "system" but I resisted the temptation.
Survival by lying is a skill. The Christian Tradition does not reward that skill.
But many cultures do value lying to get advantages as a leadership trait that helps the group/tribe survive.
Think of Haiti as an example of a place run that way.
Obama is a smooth talking liar. That may help us do certain foreign policy moves which also need to use that talent.
If Obama uses that talent to get us out of the Afghanistan disaster, then I will be grateful to him.
But stealing 70% of my saved monetary assets not held in gold in one month by crashing the dollar with inflation is not acceptable.
What Hagar said...."the guy just has no idea how things work".
And since the election, Prez Obama keeps opening his mouth and removing any remaining doubt that he is not well informed nor well educated.
Obama lives in a fantasy world where America is BAD and needs to be fundamentally transformed. It is such a bad country that it was responsible for his mother's illness and death and every thing else that goes wrong in the world. When reality intrudes, he just leaves the room and has a tantrum.
He turned his "Dreams" about the deadbeat dad into millions! Will they "factcheck" that "memoir" now? Doubt it! Remember when the AP assigned 11 reporters to factcheck Sarah Palin's book! Now we learn that the deadbeat dad wanted to give Barry away! This whole thing is a nightmare!
Didn't Obama also tell the story about how as a young man he had a junker car? It seems he bought insurance for it, but when a driver plowed into his car, and he filed a claim with his insurance company, the company denied the claim. Obama said that it wasn't really insurance. It was "the state minimum."
The truth was that Obama had bought only the state minimum liability insurance, didn't have collision insurance, and didn't know he had to go after the liable driver, not his insurance company.
If Obama isn't a liar, he's not that bright.
One's worldview, to varying degrees, filters events as they unfold.
For some, the facts are arranged to conform to a deeply held narrative, and that interpretation, though arguable, can still fit with the facts.
For others, the facts matter not a whit, and are recast and rearranged to create the best narrative.
Obama's mind operates like the USSR under Stalin, erasing people from images and falsifying events to tell the Necessary Story.
My fear is that he actually believes his own bullshit.
Considering all of the lies Obama has told about himself, his past and his family I am looking forward to Jan 2013 more than ever. After he loses he'll admit that his name is really Harold Shmendrick, he went to Greendale Community College in Poughkeepsie and both his parents are alive and well at Celebration Village.
In BO's case I'm sure he's bright enough to know the difference between health insurance and disability insurance.
I'm not so sure.
Yep. "Fake but accurate" again. It's the same defense used to shove the green agenda down our throats. "Sure the Climategate e-mails showed we were making it all up, but global warming is still happening! Give us more money to fight it!"
He turned the "Dreams" of his deadbeat dad into millions! Will that "Memoir" be factchecked now? Nope! Turns out daddy wanted to give him away!
The AP assigned 11 reporters to Sarah Palin's book to look for errors! The NYT and WaPo asked for help in "vetting" the Palin e-mails! They call it "objective" journalism!
Mission accomplished?
For some, the facts are arranged to conform to a deeply held narrative, and that interpretation, though arguable, can still fit with the facts.
For others, the facts matter not a whit, and are recast and rearranged to create the best narrative.
Obama's mind operates like the USSR under Stalin, erasing people from images and falsifying events to tell the Necessary Story.
Why, it's almost as if he's a product of academia! Nothing more than a little commie-leftist-bot, cooked up in some Hyde Park living room, assembled in the form of a socialist-Golem, and given the spark of life through repeated incantations from Alinsky!
curious george's first post says it all! Of course the left will make excuses for him because it fits the narrative and they will say that even if his story is inaccurate it still happens to many others across the country so it's OK.
""lied"? A bit strong, I think. I didn't see that in the book."
I said I'm paraphrasing. What do you think are the chances that Obama didn't know he was misstating the facts. He had a motive: political gain. It was a powerful lie that got him a long way. He used it in a debate with John McCain, and many other times. He knew what he was doing.
What are the chances he didn't know? The alternative is he is too dumb to be President. I excluded that possibility as too extreme. Do you want to walk me back? Go ahead them. Make the argument that the President is stupid.
You Whiners... Shut Up And Eat Your Damned Peas!!!!
These insurance stories are also revealing of something else I think. Insurance policies are legal documents, and Obama is supposed to be this supersmart lawyer, educated at Columbia and Harvard, etc. and so forth, yet he apparently never bothered to read these documents before he signed them, nor even after his demands for reimbursment were turned down, so that he still has no idea of why they were turned down.
Professr, what do you think of such a pupil?
@Shanna:
How could Obama be confused? This is what Byron York says about his mother:
Scott writes that Dunham, who wanted to be compensated for those costs as well as for her living expenses, "filed a separate claim under her employer's disability insurance policy." It was that claim, with the insurance company CIGNA, that was denied in August 1995 because, CIGNA investigators said, Dunham's condition was known before she was covered by the policy.
Dunham protested the decision and, Scott writes, "informed CIGNA that she was turning over the case to 'my son and attorney, Barack Obama.' " CIGNA did not budge.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/07/fresh-doubt-cast-obamas-health-care-story#ixzz1S5SqVUej
If he either forgot or didn't know then he needs to file a claim against Harvard Law for his miseducation.
I read this story two days ago when Byron York wrote about it and my reaction then, as now, is I don't expect Obama to tell the truth about anything. His hagiography is a fraud.
reposting from an earlier thread (and slightly adapted):
In the first postmodern presidency, there is no static 'memory'. History only exists as malleable narrative dependent on the needs of present assertions of intent.
By laying claim to some objective retelling of Obama's history you're clearly attempting to impose a colonialist, racialist, likely heteronormative, meta-narrative just like so many generations of euro-descent oppressors have done.
Memory is what we need it to be. History, as a telling of things that actually happened, doesn't exist. We are only the present. What once was never was except as we now need it to be. We become the ones we will be waiting for. We already were the change that we seek.
You have to admit the man was born and raised to be the quintessential Communist party leader of a glorious nation.
I always thought that those kind of men could never get into the leadership of the U.S. They were all too ham handed for it to work here. I overestimated the voters in 2008.
I suppose we could be charitable and say maybe he was confused about which insurance papers she was dealing but really?
I worked in disability insurance, so I'm pretty familiar with what's going on here (and it makes a lot more sense than Mr. Obama's campaign story). A LOT of people didn't understand the difference between disability and health insurance, so I'd be willing to give him a pass on it, but for this line:
Ms. Dunham then requested a review, writing to Cigna that she had turned the case over to “my son and attorney, Barack Obama,” Ms. Scott wrote.
If this is at all true, and if Mr. Obama looked at this in any way as an attorney then he would certainly have not had the slightest excuse for not knowing the difference.
Conclusion: Either he was lying (shamefully) or he really is "too stupid to be president" (or even to be an attorney). (Either way, the car insurance story from before shows that he's not that bright.)
- Lyssa
He is a liar, but he is calculated at that and everything else about his public presentation of himself. Nevertheless, he is not a brilliant man. He doesn't even understand the objective case. His constant misstatements about historical events, the workings of economics, and other similar things demonstrate a lack of fundamental awareness.
Ann, you know Harvard Law Review editors. He's not that smart.
Phil 3:14 said...
In BO's case I'm sure he's bright enough to know the difference between health insurance and disability insurance.
Ann supposedly told the insurance folks, "I'm going to have my son, the lawyer, deal with you".
Althouse, assuming you were acting as a contracts attorney (my wife is one), wouldn't you first lay out the policies and do an analysis of the benefits, co-pays, exclusions and ceilings?
after all, you cant get paid twice for something, and some expenses are eligble under multiple policies, so you'd want to make claims considering those issues.
Not to have understood that one policy covered medical claims and another was a disability policy would seem to get him either a failing grade on contracts or in reading comprehension.
I already know the entire leftwing machine lies to promote their tax payer funded socialist welfare nanny state. Lies funded by rich socialists.
Is it any wonder the left adore the man who lies he best? The left are comfortable with their liar king. Just so long as the lies that are being sold are lies that promote the left's regressive agenda.
Who was going to call him on it? The media??
Think about how many other juicy tidbits there are out there just waiting to be reported on.
I was astounded when I read A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother and noted the discrepancy between the fact that Stanley had adequate employer provided health insurance that covered her medical bills and the tale of woe Obama repeatedly told on the campaign trail of a dying mother facing bankruptcy because of denial of medical treatment due to a pre-existing condition.
Obama is a confabulator. He is a fabulous con so clean
cut and engaging with that perfectly creased pant leg that
the USA taxpayer is not supposed to notice he is being scammed. Call Obama's bluff now. Everything that comes out of his mouth are WORDS JUST WORDS. Not truth.
Everyone else lies and is called a liar. Only Obama misspeaks and mischaracterizes and is allowed to get away with it.
His whole life is one bright and shining lie.
No one- the media or fellow politicians- has the testicular fortitude to say so.
Is it really so bad to call the president a liar? It won't be the first time.
"Make the argument that the President is stupid."
I believe he's intelligent, but that's not much help. He is not wise. He learned the wrong lessons from history, even if he knows them very well. You can do well, and appear quite smart having entirely wrong and failed ideas.
I have come to the place where I believe ideology and understanding is most important. With the right set, you will make the right choices regardless of intelligence, and with the wrong set smarts just makes you dangerous.
Intelligence is like a fast car, it doesn't know which way to go, it just helps you get there faster.
And liars often just can't help themselves. If you combine that with being told all your life how special and wonderful you are despite your own knowledge to the contrary, you end up with a messed up dude.
Remember, Obama the genius attorney is also the guy who couldn't figure out why his Auto Liability insurance wouldn't pay to fix his own car. The man is either a stupid idiot or the world's biggest liar. Either way, it's an appalling prospect.
How smart is Obama, and, ala POGO, does he really believe his own bullshit? Unfortunately I/m afraid the ans to the second is yes (it IS possible to be a buffoon and a charlatan at the same time) because the ans to the first is also yes, he IS VERY ignorant of much, i.e., verrry narrowly educated/indoctrinated in leftist ideology. And not very smart, either. "Street-smart," and with a certain gift of gab,--undoubtedly--most successful charlatans/confidence men usually are, but we all know the standards of most upper-education institutions have been so lowered--especially the Ivies--that a certificate of completion from a certified welding school has, imo, more intellectual heft and rigor than an undergraduate OR a Law degree from the Ivies--soooooo--given the fact that all of Obama's records are sealed, I'm bettin' the Vegas odds Obama isn't intellectually fit enough to even carry MY footnotes around for me as my obedient research assistant--and all three of my degrees are from supposed "party schools."
It was very obvious during the campaign that Obama was either lying or extremely ignorant about a wide variety of things. WHich is why it's so hard to understand why someone would vote for him.
Ann, the simple fact is that Obama lies about everything, something which should have been completely obvious even prior to 2008. He's a con artist who only happens to be President because the sycophantic media desperately wanted to be conned. So, he took them up on it.
WHich is why it's so hard to understand why someone would vote for him.
But...but...the other guys was OLD...and WHITE...and he had that arm thing going on...
Narcissists lie with ease. His whole Presidency is a lie, since he is ineligible. He lied in front of the whole world when he put his hand on the Bible and swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Obama is a foreign born (Born British of a British subject father) Domestic enemy, like the Asian Carp invading the Midwest, wreaking havoc on our Constitution, economy and the sovereignty of We the People. That is his JOB, and it is not an accident.
Did he really take the oath? Then why do it twice? And why could no one see the second one?
If the Purpose of the natural born Citizenship requirement is to prevent foreign influence (FACT), then how is it possible that Obama 2, Admittedly born British, of a British subject father, is a natural born Citizen, eligible to be POTUS?
I don't like McCain at all, but did he eat babies or something?
Wait, wait, wait. Let me consult my handbook here:
… American government and institutions create advantages that “channel wealth and power to white people,” that color-blindness will not end racism and that educators should “take action for social justice.”
...…Only those educators who acknowledge the existence of white privilege in America, that “white” is a culture in America and that race “is a definer for social and economic status” can reach proficiency,… …Those who score poorly on the worksheet are asked in the book what they will do “to align yourself with the values expressed.”
Well, it's clear as the lily white nose on my face! Captain Kickasstic is the smartest geniusy man ever to be President. He KNOWS that he was given a white mother and grandmother, so's he'd have something busworthy when it came to out-anecdoting powerful white persons like Al, John and Hil, NOT to mention the trump race card when someone tries to call him a liarliarpantsonfire! Oh, yes. You can see it in Michelle's fiery eyes when she gazes upon her Adonis. Curls my toes.
A certain law professor has yet to be assimilated into the cult and needs to reread chapters in the handbook.
This is bullshit too:
"I remember in the last month of her life, she wasn't thinking about how to get well, she wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality, she was thinking about whether or not insurance was going to cover the medical bills and whether our family would be bankrupt as a consequence "
How would this effect her adult children?
Answer: It wouldn't. He told a lie and then told this lie...because he simply wanted it to fit a narrative and that many families that have young children would face.
Despicable liar.
@ Mick;
Is Marco Rubio eligible to be President?
When Obama was telling this story during the campaign, my reaction was "why should anyone expect to have adequate insurance coverage when she has been traipsing around the world, maybe one step above a lazy hippie chick, for 20-30 years"?
This latest story shocks me because I did not know his mother ever had any sort of real, legitimate job [like mother like son?]
Or Bobby Jindal or Nicky Hayley?
Wait, wait, wait. Let me consult my handbook here
Wow. I'm not one much for book burning (in fact I'm pretty sure I'm a'gin it), but damn...
And wtf is a medium-large city in flyover country doing using $130k in stimulus money to buy such an overtly written tome of propaganda?
Oh, c'mon. Look at his entire campaign for the presidency. Look at his time in the Senate. Look at his "career" before the Senate.
The man will say anything to anyone if he thinks it to his advantage to do so. All of the Republicans who are trying to negotiate the credit cap with him need to know - and I assume they do know - that he cannot be believed.
Obama is a man without honor, intentionally doing horrendous damage to our society because he hates it so. That so many people failed to recognize this and voted for him still enrages me.
Worse, though, are those who voted for him because they recognized this. They are the enemy, and must be done away with.
That politicians make stuff up is not really new. I do think the much larger story here is the media's complicity in the fabrication.
There is no way a Republican would not have been vetted and called to account over something this blatant.
And we are already in full worship campaign mode for 2012.
Ugh.
"Despicable Liar."
With the left it's NEVER about the facts, Curious George, it's ALWAYS about the NARRATIVE!"
@James:
I know that Mick has said in the past that Bobby Jindel is not eligible, and I'm pretty sure that he's said Rubio isn't, either. (Can't recall him ever mentioning Nicki Hayley, but I assume that he would hold the same for her.) He's also said that John McCain isn't eligible (as he was born in the PCZ).
Mick's as nutty as a fruitcake, and his obession with this issue is disturbing, but he's at least completely consistent on it.
- Lyssa (He'll be around to yell at me for that in a minute, so I'll go ahead and tell him that I don't care and will skip his posts, as I've learned is best.)
Scott M:
Heh- what were we thinking - that maybe they would use the $130,000 to hire a teacher or two?
Ann Dunham died in 1995. At that time Obama was a practicing litigation attorney. Can any of the lawyers reading or posting on this blog imagine standing by like a passive observer while their own dying mothers were being screwed over by a health insurance company?
That story never added up and never reflected well on Obama.
And wtf is a medium-large city in flyover country doing using $130k in stimulus money to buy such an overtly written tome of propaganda?
Astonishing piece of taxpayer funded work, is it not? I'd say ask "teh President", since it's his stimulus and seems to be along his line of thinking, but...you'd probably just get a lie anyway.
James said...
@ Mick;
"Is Marco Rubio eligible to be President?"
No, Marco was born in 1971 or '72?. His parents did not naturalize until 1975.
Neither is Jindal-- born in La. of Indian Immigrant, no US Citizen parents.
Neither is John McCain--- born in Panama, and naturalized at birth by USC 8 Section 1403 (birth to US Citizen parents in PCZ).
But it was seared - seared! - in his memory.
He's also said that John McCain isn't eligible (as he was born in the PCZ).
He's wrong about that and it's well documented. The PCZ at the time McCain was born there WAS America technically, not to mention that he had citizens for parents. It's an old BS argument, which would disqualify any child born to American service personnel stationed outside the US from ever running. Ah, no.
Yes Ann, he lied.
As leftists always do, because they don't function well in reality.
And you voted for him.
Ok, you have terminal cancer. You're going to be dead within a month, according to the doctors. Fighting with insurance companies. How does that bankrupt your family, which is basically your son. Sure the insurance companies can go after your estate, but apparently she didn't have much of one. And they could somehow go after Barack Sr. But kids do not inherit debts. In no way am I liable to pay off my parents credit cards or medical bills or whatever. "Bankrupting the family" is sheer and utter nonsense.
Remember John Edwards and his "two Americas", and in the poor America little girls shiver because their families can't afford a winter coat--which are available at Walmart for under $20? And we've got the current lies that not raising the debt ceiling = defaulting on debt.
But we collectively elect this class of people. We voluntarily choose people who lie to us for a living to make decisions on our behalf, and we get exactly what we deserve.
lyssalovelyredhead said...
@James:
"I know that Mick has said in the past that Bobby Jindel is not eligible, and I'm pretty sure that he's said Rubio isn't, either. (Can't recall him ever mentioning Nicki Hayley, but I assume that he would hold the same for her.) He's also said that John McCain isn't eligible (as he was born in the PCZ).
Mick's as nutty as a fruitcake, and his obession with this issue is disturbing, but he's at least completely consistent on it.
- Lyssa (He'll be around to yell at me for that in a minute, so I'll go ahead and tell him that I don't care and will skip his posts, as I've learned is best.)"
Ah, another supposed "conservative" that doesn't care that the Constitution is being trampled by a Usurping foreign interloper. Why do you think that Minor v. Happersett set POTUS precedent (repeated in Wong Kim Ark, and cited in later cases as to Original Citizenship) w/ this definition:
"The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. "
Pretty Clear!!
Can you tell me how one born British can be eligible if the intent of the requirement was to prevent foreign influence? Didn't think so.
Thanks Mick and lyssalovelyredhead :)
I suppose I should go break the news to my older kid that he's got no shot at ever becoming president even though he was born at the University of Michigan medical center.
He's a liar, an idiot, or both.
Obama lied. Fiscal sanity died.
"The Christian Tradition does not reward that skill"
Ideally yes, and theologically yes. Sadly, though, Christian history shows that lying has led to many apparent successes.
It's why there are such characters like Elmer Gantry around, which could be discovered in real history in just about every era. Christians have not always, or even often, used the gift of discernment they're called to use.
Evangelists of all kinds are especially prone to a bit of lyin' for a supposed higher cause. Whether it's through augmented testimonies, or declarations of revivals that didn't happen, or all sorts of other tricks that can happen when salesmanship replaces authentic renewal. It's not ultimately rewarded, to be sure, but folks like Benny Hinn make a fair present reward through pseudo-sanctified lying.
Indeed, it's not entirely unlikely that this is the sort of tradition that Obama learned it from.
tree hugging sister said...
He's also said that John McCain isn't eligible (as he was born in the PCZ).
"He's wrong about that and it's well documented. The PCZ at the time McCain was born there WAS America technically, not to mention that he had citizens for parents. It's an old BS argument, which would disqualify any child born to American service personnel stationed outside the US from ever running. Ah, no."
And you would be wrong. Military bases abroad are not considered US Territory (go ahead, look it up), and furthermore, the PCZ was leased, not owned by the US.
Lastly, he needed a Congressional statute to naturalize at birth as a US Citizen (US Code 8, Section 1403 -birth to US citizenbs in the PCZ). Natural born Citizens need no statute to make them US Citizens, as they are born in the US of US Citizen parents, Naturally, what else would they be. They are naturally occuring, indigenous, thus the term of art-- natural born Citizen.
leaving out if she had insurance coverage she would have bankrupted her estate not her family.
stupid stupid stupid.
Professor: you honestly asked to make the case that he is stupid?
Really?
60grit started out--and then there is the "i dont speak austrian" thingie--and then there is the treasury "options" (meaning auctions), and the corpseman thing--
those are just the small things--then the hiring of a cabinet officers who dont pay taxes; oh and raising taxes in a depression
Good God woman--what part of stupid dont you understand? Shit girl, you are more stupid than Obama and that says a lot
James said...
"Thanks Mick and lyssalovelyredhead :)
I suppose I should go break the news to my older kid that he's got no shot at ever becoming president even though he was born at the University of Michigan medical center."
There is no "right" to be President, one must be qualified, and he would have to qualify at birth as born to US Citizens on US soil. It is a security requirement designed to prevent foreign influence into the Oval Office, and CIC of the armed forces (VP must be natural born also).
As cited in Wong Kim Ark:
"The citizen child of an Alien has the same rights as the natural born child of a Citizen."
The comments at the Times on the article here.
So basically, the question to every Obama supporter is:
"When is it okay to lie and exaggerate to the American people?"
Was this one of those times?
Seared, SEARED, into his memory ....
Pretty Clear!!
No, that's not clear at all. You know nothing about reading case law. First of all, that's not the constitution. Second of all, it's dicta, which is only at best persuasive, not binding (not that anything's binding on the supreme court anyway). Third of all, it only says one thing that a natural born citizen is, and nothing about what one isn't or can't be.
And, *even* on the far-fetched chance that you are right (which you are not, but I'll admit that there are a few arguments that could be made were it litigated, which it will not be), I still don't care. It's not going to happen. That dog won't hunt, as they say. Worry about elections, not archaic legal arguments that have no chance of working in the real world.
Feel free to call me a traitor now. It's kind of funny.
- Lyssa (who broke her own rule about ignoring these sorts of trollish threadjacks. Damn.)
It's a bluff.
But it's also poker.
And, obama is "playing the room." McConnell is playing with his dwarfs: McCain, Snowe, Brown, and a few other republicans who "play both sides of the aisle."
The only real man in the room is Cantor!
And, what's the bluff about?
Obama wants a deal that carries HIS game plan to election day November 2012. McConnell, for some reason, thinks "if the republicans don't compromise" ... they'll lose 2012.
Trying to hold politicians into hanging tough ... is like trying to carve a spine out of jello.
Roger J:
Don't forget that Obama's first big decision as prez nominee was to pick someone to head his VP search. Obama chose Jim Johnson, the guy who made over $100 Million at Fannie Mae. And Obama had to let him go within 72 hours!
It just seemed so mean to ask about his mother's death. The press didn't want to be that intrusive.
I do find it perfectly plausible that Obama simply did not look through the insurance information his mother sent him. I also find it plausible that he didn't really listen to her on the phone. Perhaps Michelle would stand next to him, pointing to her watch or doing the yacky yacky thing with her hand. They had dinner plans with Valerie Jarrett, perhaps. "Sure, send the stuff" he'd say to his mother just to get her off the phone.
AJLynch--indeed; my disquisition was not meant to be thorough--those are just the obvious things!
the professor, i fear, is still trying to justify her rational decision and cannot deal with facts at hand.
In fairness, of course, she isnt the only stupid person in the room--the americans that voted for this empty, ignorant, and petulant suit, are all to blame.
Roger J:
And his first big decision as president was letting Pelosi and Reid design the Stimulus! That is when I knew, for sure, Obama was a lazy dope.
the professor, i fear, is still trying to justify her rational[sic] decision and cannot deal with facts at hand.
She was in her high vantage point, with her head far up her ass. She maintained a position of dull credulity - er, cruel neutrality.
She doesn't care, Obama is awesome.
If you start at the beginning, his mother was 17 years old when she got pregnant, back in November 1960.
Her parents were the last to know she was screwing around. I'll bet they didn't even know she was screwing the Kenyan. Society was very divided about that. Blacks came into the lives of white people as shock value.
But her parents, when they found out Stanley Ann Dunham was pregant, did what ALL parents then did. They felt waves of shame. And, they forced their daughter to go to Seattle, Washington,into a home for unwed mothers.
Before she left, however, Stanley Ann cried on the shoulder of Obama (senior). He saw an opportunity to enhance his immigration request. And, so, he "married" the pregnant lass. This didn't hold up so good with immigration, because it made him a bigamist.
And, Stanley Ann toodled off to the unwed mothers home ... which abounded in our society! The Catholic Church ran them. The real birth certificates would NEVER see the light of day! (But the Vatican holds them.)
What happened on August 4, 1961 ... at the unwed mothers home ... is that the baby dropped out BLACK.
Adoptable.
So, Stanley Ann was handed her own child back. Her name was on the certificate. But NO FATHER was shown! You don't even know the names on this paperwork!
My guess, too, is that the parents tried to establish some Hawaiian connection for the baby ... by pressing a birth announcement into the papers. Newspaper, for a hundred years, by then, had become the chroniclers of legal information.
You want the truth? Lots of people who were born and adopted out have never, ever been able to find out the truth.
That there's a driven narative?
Obama has known he'd be a candidate for the presidency since Bill Clinton's penis got exposed. And, neither Gore, nor Kerry worked out.
From accounts of recent memories of others involved when his mother died, the creepy lying eff-up was "unable to be at her deathbed because of prior committments" or some such mindless bullshit.
And his daddy was a fly-by-night bigamist drunk. Next time the Dems find a Manchurian Candidate, they'd better do a more thorough job vetting besides Bill Ayers' fanciful renditions.
AJLynch--I just cited his more egregious remarks--when we get down to his policies that raises the stupidity index much higher--you are correct, of course--and then there Mr Obamas excellent adventures such as Libyia and gunrunner--when we get into his policy failings the list is too long to get into.
Actually we might even start with his selection of biden as VP--now THERE was a canny choice--but as I said, the list is far too long
now the question is, have we responded to the good professor's
question regarding facts?
lyssalovelyredhead said...
Pretty Clear!!
"No, that's not clear at all. You know nothing about reading case law. First of all, that's not the constitution. Second of all, it's dicta, which is only at best persuasive, not binding (not that anything's binding on the supreme court anyway). Third of all, it only says one thing that a natural born citizen is, and nothing about what one isn't or can't be.
And, *even* on the far-fetched chance that you are right (which you are not, but I'll admit that there are a few arguments that could be made were it litigated, which it will not be), I still don't care. It's not going to happen. That dog won't hunt, as they say. Worry about elections, not archaic legal arguments that have no chance of working in the real world.
Feel free to call me a traitor now. It's kind of funny.
- Lyssa (who broke her own rule about ignoring these sorts of trollish threadjacks. Damn.)"
It absolutely is Clear, and Precedent, since Judge Waite said that Virginia Minor's citizenship WAS PART OF THE HOLDING. He even said that the 14A was not needed to determine if Virginia Minor was a Citizen, since she was in the CLASS of natural born Citizens (like he said, the Constitution doesn't say who they are, and the 14A was part of the Constitution in 1866). He said that the other "Class" of citizens, born of aliens and foreigners, had their US Citizenship in doubt.
Minor v. Happersett was cited as to Original Citizenship in the HOLDING of the Boyd v. Nebraska case, proving that the Waite Court's views on CITIZENSHIP were precedential, not only whether a citizen had the "right" to vote.
And you still can't answer the question about that antiquated Constitution. How can Obama be eligible if born BRITISH, when the nbc requirement's purpose was to prevent foreign influence?
We must never forget that Uncle Saul teaches that no lie is too heinous in the service of the World Socialist Revolution.
And Little Zero is a great big Son of a Saul.
Lincolntf said...
Considering all of the lies Obama has told about himself, his past and his family I am looking forward to Jan 2013 more than ever. After he loses he'll admit that his name is really Harold Shmendrick, he went to Greendale Community College in Poughkeepsie and both his parents are alive and well at Celebration Village.
As I've said, he's the whitest white guy to ever draw breath.
Ann Althouse said...
""lied"? A bit strong, I think. I didn't see that in the book."
I said I'm paraphrasing. What do you think are the chances that Obama didn't know he was misstating the facts. He had a motive: political gain. It was a powerful lie that got him a long way. He used it in a debate with John McCain, and many other times. He knew what he was doing.
What are the chances he didn't know? The alternative is he is too dumb to be President. I excluded that possibility as too extreme.
In that, you may be in the minority. If he was socially promoted because flunking him would have been raaacissst, that could just be the case.
PS "something busworthy". Good one
PPS I've always thought the Canal Zone gambit was a shot across the bow not to go into his background.
A fair number of commenters at the NYT see Scott's book as part of a Big Insurance conspiracy.
And you would be wrong. Military bases abroad are not considered US Territory
Bullshit. YOU look it up, especially from the serviceperson's frame of reference. It's also why there's always a SOFA, or Status of Forces Agreement negotiated, because a United States Military installation is sovereign ~ for example, the local gendarmerie can't come in and haul a Marine off. It's also why children born to American service personnel ON those installations are SOLELY American citizens, NOT receipients of dual citizenships. In my personal experience, having been born in a Naval dispensary just outside the confines of the front gate of MCAS Iwakuni, my parents had to spend three days at the embassy in Tokyo getting an American passport, since I DID receive Japanese citizenship. (The gate has long since moved beyond the old 1956 boundaries of the base.).
Even the Treasurey says it depends what you want to cherry pick:
There are authorities applying the terms “territory” and “possession” differently to
military bases in a number of different statutes, some of which conclude that a United
States military base abroad is a United States territory or possession, and some of which
conclude such a base is not.7 In each instance, the determination of whether the base in
question is a territory or possession rests upon the particular language and purpose of the statute being reviewed.
I wouldn't know if you've ever been in the service or not ~ we're pretty much all Marines in our family ~ but the understanding is laid out pretty clear for you the second you step foot somewhere other than CONUS.
I won't argue Rubio, Jindal or Haley with you, not being a Constitutional scholar.
The President-elect also did not attend his grandmother's funeral. Maybe he just doesn't do funerals.
The Obama style is a King's style.
He can say an Insurance Policy says whatever the King says that it says.
No one challenges a King and gets away with it. Got that Cantor?
The U. S. President's Office has worked like a King's office at many levels since WWII.
How many Drones with Nukes do you command?
How many trillion dollar government slush funds do you control?
How many EPA Regulations that destroy commerce can you issue?
How many Social Security payments can you withhold?
What Obama fears is a William Wallace type of fearless opposition leader that he has no power over...like Sarah Palin.
@Hagar: These insurance stories are also revealing of something else I think. Insurance policies are legal documents, and Obama is supposed to be this supersmart lawyer, educated at Columbia and Harvard, etc. and so forth, yet he apparently never bothered to read these documents before he signed them, nor even after his demands for reimbursment were turned down, so that he still has no idea of why they were turned down.
Not only that, but it calls into question his listening skills. Every insurance agent I've ever talked to has always--always--always tried to sell me as much of policy as they thought I would buy. I've no doubt that when Obama bought his auto policy, the agent tried to sell him collision BECAUSE THE AGENT WOULD MAKE MORE MONEY!
The other thing Obama probably discussed with his agent was the worth of the car. If it was a junk and worth less than $1000 (likely the deductible Obama would've had if he was trying to pinch pennies), then the insurance co. wouldn't have to pay anything for repairs beyond the deductible. The replacement value for the entire car was less than the deductible.
Sounds like the agent didn't try to screw him over by selling him a collision policy that would've been worthless anyway.
"Obama lied...."
is the standard follow-up to:
"Obama said...."
I'm sure Andrew Sullivan will get on the matter, post haste. After all, he's shown great interest in all matters maternal.
Althouse wrote Those terrible, heartless corporations have been a theme of the Obama presidency. He has been trying to structure American brains around that idea, so he can win acceptance of policies that most Americans don't want, and that story of his personal agony played an important role in pushing through an immense federal power.
Just to play devil's advocate for a moment...somebody has put forth that theme...Obama may just be a stooge in all this. This distinction is important because Obama may be the driving force behind the lies but there may well be another faceless entity waiting to enable another stooge. In either scenario, it's important for POTUS to respond to the NYT's inquiry. It is both topical and important.
I mean, don't go giving Obama all the credit for being singlehandedly brilliant. Maybe nefariously brilliant. Follow the money.
I don't understand why the GOP does not use this kind of stuff against him. Is it just that they really are part of the ruling class and not a separate party?
Incidentally, this is exactly what Stephen Glass did in a few of his pieces (cf. "Mrs. Colehill Thanks God for Privatized Social Security"). The details of the programs he was writing about were in many cases correct; he just made up the color quotes (the titular Mrs. Colehill was fake).
The problem is not Obama's lying. We expect our politicians to lie. The problem is that his lies are not amusing. When accused of lying while running for congress in Tennessee, Davy Crocket did not deny it. Instead he said, “I can run faster, jump higher, walk longer, and tell better lies than anybody in this district.” He won.
PatCA said...
I don't understand why the GOP does not use this kind of stuff against him. Is it just that they really are part of the ruling class and not a separate party?
As far as the RINOs are concerned, they are. That's why the Palins and Bachmanns and all the Tea Partiers are so disliked, especially by the Bushies.
They want to fight and win, not go along to get along.
Obama's mother's insurance story is the Tawana Brawley method of lying, appealing to the intelligentsia's credulous nature, believing the fable of The Evil Insurance Company because it seems plausible, fitting with their world view perfectly.
It made me think of the Syrian lesbian blogger. Who could question such a story?
"What Obama fears is a William Wallace type of fearless opposition leader that he has no power over...like Sarah Palin."
This and only this will tear him from his affirmative action pedestal.
Go straight at him relentlessly with his 2 year record in one hand and the facts and figures in the other.
This he cannot stand.
Rush and Trump have shown the way.
Obama is landslidable.
Dear Leader is on the level of NK's dear leader when it comes to sociapathic narcissm and pathological lying. He can no longer tell the difference nor does he care, as he believes if it comes out of his mouth it must be so...or should have been so. Progressives love revisionist history...and the O has made one for himself.
It's no coincidence, he has no allegiance to god, country, family on any given day they're all just about "what's in it for me".
The larger crime is that the collusion of our constitutionally protected free press singularly contributed to his ability to pull this off.
FREE THE PRESS! FREE THE PRESS!
"FREE THE PRESS!"
The MSM cannot expose Obama without also exposing themselves with complicity. He is their guy, they own him and he also owns them.
They will all go down together.
To me there's something even worse happening here, something that shows the President not just to be an unscrupulous propagandist for the left, but shows him to be.... well, creepy.
First, he's telling a story about his mother's death. His own mother! This ought to be a sacred moment in his life, something that is too private, too personal to be used as a piece of propaganda. It's one thing to dine out on the third-hand suffering of acquaintances... that's gossip, and we've all done that. It's another thing to use what ought to be a son's most profound emotional memory to make a political point. It's ugly. His own mother!
Second, and something that literally cried out for someone to follow up with Obama during the campaign of 2008 and (since that didn't happen) and today: even if it were true that his mother couldn't pay her medical bills as she was dying, how exactly is it that she was concerned that it would "bankrupt" her family? In 1995 when she died, Barack Obama was a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law School, a lawyer with the Chicago firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland, a Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, on the board of directors of the Woods Fund, the Joyce Foundation and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. He had just published his memoir, Dreams From My Father. Michelle Obama was a graduatte of Princeton and Harvard Law who was, at the time, the executive director of a major Chicago non-profit. Both had previously worked at a very prominent Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin; both could easily have gone to any major law firm in Chicago and gotten plum (and lucrative) jobs. Meanwhile, the President's mother, Ann Dunham, had only one other child, Maya Soetero, who had already graduated from college (Barnard College at Columbia), was divorced, and thus had no dependents. How exactly would her medical bills bankrupt her family? If she ran through her savings and her insurance didn't cover it, she would have been eligible for Medicaid at the very least.
Meanwhile, what kind of creep with a Harvard Law degree and a plum professorship and a book contract lets their mother worry about going bankrupt from medical bills? What kind of creep doesn't step up with an offer to pay? What kind of creep doesn't change jobs, change plans, do anything to make sure that their mother has the best care possible?
President Creep is the answer.
And you, Ann Althouse believed this liar and voted for him ...
Why does this surprise anyone?
This guy has been a lying sack of shit from day one and only the wiil full blindness of those afflicted with wishfull thinking and white guilt got him his job.
A normal person would do anything he needed to do to make sure his Mom would not have to worry about stuff like this on her deathbed.
He is a cold fish.
And you voted for this prick?
NYTNewYorker said...
"FREE THE PRESS!"
"The MSM cannot expose Obama without also exposing themselves with complicity. He is their guy, they own him and he also owns them.
They will all go down together."
Bravo!!! Exactly correct, except the Central Bankers own All of them. They can create money from thin air by issuing debt, w/ interest payable to them. Some racket! That's the Trump Card super power!
"President Creep is the answer."
Well said. Great and excellent points all.
Said points also bring to the fore his narcissistic nature.
FREE THE PRESS! Yes, to all the responses.
It starts in the schools of journalism, it starts in professional ethics, it starts in the MSM going down, it starts in the WH/media collusion and it doesn't end until it's burned to the ground.
Support Judicial Watch or media watch dog, gov't watchdog of your choice. Support alternative media: Breitbart, Project Veritas, GBTV and all the others that are investigating, submitting FOIA's on our behalf.
Come on. He doesn't know the different between auto insurance and health insurance. You expect him to understand why disability insurance won't pay medical bills?
without disability insurance it could have ruined her profit and earnings ratio and forced her family into bankruptcy.
One article I read on the book said that Durham at one point told Cigna something like, "I will be referring this matter to my son and lawyer, Barack Obama." I assume that Obama, as her legal representation, understood the relevant facts and knew what the fight was about--otherwise he's a terrible and sloppy lawyer. I wouldn't hire him! And fifteen years isn't such a long time that something as devastating as an end-of-life dispute with an insurance company becomes fuzzy and the facts misunderstood. If Durham's actual cancer treatment, rather than just disability, hadn't been covered, the family would certainly know it. The million-dollar debt might jog their memory at least.
And I hope the White House doesn't push the "false but accurate" idea too far. What an easy criticism they're handing to the Republicans! "This is a President who understands the world not as it is but as he feels it should be." Then they can invoke that wonderful cliche: "Wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which fills up first."
@ Tree Hugging sister:
Your remarks about US military installations and births of children on them is completely and 100% false and you should spend some time looking them up:
US Military Bases are not Sovereign US Territory:
c. Birth on U.S. Military Base Outside of the United States or Birth on U.S. Embassy or Consulate Premises Abroad:
(1) Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities abroad are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not born in the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth.
(2) The status of diplomatic and consular premises arises from the
rules of law relating to immunity from the prescriptive and enforcement jurisdiction of the receiving State; the premises are not part of the territory of the United States of America.
(See Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law, Vol. 1, Sec.
466, Comment a and c (1987). See also, Persinger v. Iran, 729
F.2d 835 (D.C. Cir. 1984).
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf
(Note Bold is from the original)
That is from the Department of States Foreign Affairs Manual. If you want to find out what Status of Forces Agreements are for in the general sense (each separate one is different and over 100 such) then read this report to Congress here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34531.pdf
Good vote M'am
boballab said...
@ Tree Hugging sister:
"Your remarks about US military installations and births of children on them is completely and 100% false and you should spend some time looking them up:
US Military Bases are not Sovereign US Territory:
c. Birth on U.S. Military Base Outside of the United States or Birth on U.S. Embassy or Consulate Premises Abroad:
(1) Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities abroad are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not born in the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth.
(2) The status of diplomatic and consular premises arises from the
rules of law relating to immunity from the prescriptive and enforcement jurisdiction of the receiving State; the premises are not part of the territory of the United States of America.
(See Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law, Vol. 1, Sec.
466, Comment a and c (1987). See also, Persinger v. Iran, 729
F.2d 835 (D.C. Cir. 1984).
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf
(Note Bold is from the original)"
Absolutely correct. McCain needed USC 8 Section 1403 to be a US Citizen, therefore not natural born, since natural born Citizens need no statute to make them US Citizens(as Judge Waite in Minor v. Happersett siad, the 14th Amendment is not needed to make natural born Citizens, their citizenship is beyond doubt.).
"lied" versus "mischaracterized"? Let me compare it to Rep. Bachmann in NH, talking about the first shots in the Revolution. Now she definitely mischaracterized the facts, I think it's fair to assume she was trying to appeal to the patriotic pride of New Hampshireites, I don't think she was lying. Seems to me there's a fair comparison here: Obama mischaracterized the facts, he was making a good story a great story and appealing to people worrying about health care costs, but did he know better, which would make it a lie? No one has proved that; it's highly improbable anyone can.
After all, it was true that she was dying with cancer and fighting with an insurance company who was denying her claim because of a preexisting condition. Twelve years later did Obama misremember, did he actually ever represent her, did he know exactly and intentionally skew his language? The book doesn't prove anything one way or another, and neither the Times nor any commentators I've seen added any facts.
A personal note: until yesterday I would have sworn I voted for Marion Barry for DC mayor (yes I was foolish then). Then I discovered the dates were off, I'd left DC before then, so I must have voted for him for school board and/or city council. Our memory plays tricks with us, as all you whippersnappers will learn. :-)
News Flash Ann -- This isn't the first thing he's lied about.
He lied about being a centrist
He lied about wanting to "tone down political rhetoric" after the Giffords shooting
He lied about being the "adult in the room"
Basically, if he's talking, he is lying.
Please, Ann -- next time don't vote for him. He's DESTROYING the middle class!
"Sarah Palin on debt ceiling:
'Reload,' don't 'retreat'"
Governor Palin is taking it to Obama and she's not even in the room.
When he uses the "you might get hit by a bus" rational for why we need mandatory health insurance, One can only wonder if he is so stupid to know that of course the insurance of the bus operator would be liable, or so stupid to think that the average american would not know it. It seems like maybe it's not just that he's a liar, but he just lacks the imagination to be a good liar. Like Bill Clinton. Now that guy was a pro. I almost enjoyed watching him lie.
Like Bill Clinton. Now that guy was a pro. I almost enjoyed watching him lie.
Obama's problem is that he never owned an astroturfed El Camino. The astroturf part he understands completely, but the rest...
Our President doesn't necessarily lie - he is just not smart enough to know that words matter.
I heard him say a year ago that he had a car accident when he was a community organizer in Chicago and he called the insurance company and they would not fix his car. He really phrased it to seem that he thought car insurance meant you have collision coverage. He does not know the difference. He never has.
The guy just has no idea of how things work
I have an idea. a brthday present idea, FWIW.
Althousia pools its pennies and buys (through the Althouse AMAZON link!) a copy of The New Way Things Work. The pictures are great!
Then we buy him The Complete Idiot's Guide to MBA Basics and Resumes for Dummies for his 2013 retirement.
I couldn't find the Dummies one on how insurance works.
Remember Obama voters, this is the guy you handed the keys to the republic to. Not to mention our lives and healthcare.
I first read about this issue a week or so ago. The NYT's gets around to it today. That is a definite improvement, isn't it?
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. By any means necessary is an open ended kinda thing.
"I didn't see that in the book."
Ummm..didn't see his campaigning either? Hell..Obama may not have seen the book.
Someday I'll understand will commenters continue to try to reason with Mick.
Phil 3:14 said...
"Someday I'll understand will commenters continue to try to reason with Mick."
No one here can prove me wrong. How could you? The truth is the Truth and cannot be refuted. So answer the question.
How is it possible that Obama could be a natural born Citizen, when the purpose of the requirement is to prevent foreign influence, and he has already admitted to birth as a British Subject?
Cat got your tongue? All of you "lawyers" here (if there are any here) should be embarrassed.
Spot on Curious George. That's all she wrote. Obama is not merely a liar, he is a poor liar. And in politics that is the still greater failure. Having been trapped in his lies, he will now become severely truculent and confrontational. The only thing Obama has going for him is the Republicans who in their incompetence and confusion will work hard for his reelection.
So Obama lied... what else is new?
Any of you ever see "Primary Colors"? I think John Travola was in it, He played a sort of Bill Clinton.
And he kept making up stuff in his speeches.
Shocking, right?
The author of the book, Janny Scott, also differs with the President's account of his early years.
In a review of Ms. Scott's book, a WP journalist writes, "Her husband finished his degree, graduating in June 1962, after three years in Hawaii, as a Phi Beta Kappa straight-A student. Then, before the month was out, he took off, leaving behind his still-teenage wife and namesake child."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/23/AR2008082301620_5.html
That would mean that the President's father left when he was 11 months old.
Ms. Scott wrote a NYT article in which she wrote a different scenario.
"In 1963, Mr. Obama left for Harvard, leaving his wife and child."
In an article about Father's Day, the President wrote.
"But he left when I was two years old."
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20500603,00.html
Mick said...How is it possible that Obama could be a natural born Citizen, when the purpose of the requirement is to prevent foreign influence, and he has already admitted to birth as a British Subject?
Because...US citizens are not subject to British law. (we fought a revolution a while back). It does not matter how Britain views Obama's birth credentials. It matters how the US views them.
He is a natural born US citizen who legally meets the requirements to be POTUS by all currently available and public evidence and documentation you blithering loon.
BTW Mick,
Your question is based on the logical fallacy called 'cum hoc ergo propter hoc'
'How is it possible that Obama could be a natural born Citizen, when the purpose of the requirement is to prevent foreign influence...'
The rest of the question is irrelevant because the logical discontinuity is already present.
Obama's status as a natural born citizen is not dependent on what the purpose of 'the requirement' is, (nor is it dependent on any admission he makes).
Look up ''cum hoc ergo propter hoc'. Then rephrase your question in a logically sound way. Or try to.
Ms. Scott said in an interview that her reporting relied on copies of letters from Ms. Dunham to Cigna that were made available by friends.
That's some powerful proof right there.
The book concludes that although Mr. Obama often suggested that Ms. Dunham “was denied health coverage because of a pre-existing condition, it appears from her correspondence that she was only denied disability coverage.”
I'm glad she never considered that correspondence for healthcare went to an entirely different department from disability. Heck if you look on Cignas website today they have different phone numbers.
Not that my opinion really matters this far down the comment stream, but if I recall correctly, didn't you VOTE FOR OBAMA, Ann?
If you did, do you now have voter's remorse? I'm just saying...
I, and others, tried desperately to get the truth out re this BEFORE the election. Several large threads, including one that had over 100 pages of posts (on a breast cancer website) were suddenly removed - yup, the entire post. Go figure (Chicago way at work?) I have cancer and this story, then, and now, infuriates me.
His bimbo Ph.D. educated in this great country but chose to shit on it mother, was misdx'ed in freaking Indonesia. Then much later, once she is really sick, she comes back to where the greatest doctors and the best healthcare in world is available - the good ole USA. She freaking got the best care once she finally returned to the Land of the Free - and she freaking got her care for free - at Sloan-Kettering no less.
If you look at the totality of her life - how many years (if it is even plural) did she even 'work' - never mind pay taxes, in this country? Ph.D., B.A. etc. probably all for free under some single Mom program (which I received grants for too, I am not downing the program, it is just relevant to my point) then tramps about the globe, gets ill in a country not really renowned for its healthcare system, comes here and while sadly died, (and it was not for lack of receiving treatment here) gets most of her world-class treatment for free. I can fucking guarantee you under Obama care she would not have lived much past her first treatment, the way things will be delayed waiting for "government approval."
Last month, when the author of this book was on BookTV, I waited to see if they addressed this issue - it was kind of glossed over. Even in the actual book, the entire truth (which IS out there) is not given. So, this makes me very suspect that the fishwrap is the one asking questions - you can bet there is some agenda behind it, which will eventually show this poseur in a positive way.
And BTW - do you REALLY think his Grandma just happened to die naturally the night before the elections? These are CHICAGO people, my friends.
And another thing, while the act of dismembering and removing a child from its mother's uterus is legal, trust me, cancer doesn't give a fuck whether it is legal or not, and the sooner women wise up and read the medical journals (it's all about the sudden unnatural disruption of the hormone cycle, unlike a miscarriage, where it is hormones causing the miscarriage; also see new peer-reviewed literature on the cell-cycle in the breast when on the pill - as the cells are replicating, at a certain stage they are 'open' - and therefore vulnerable for that much longer (my chemo-brain seems to think it was during the "G-2" phase of cell division) when on the pill than when not. But i digress; my point was that I would not be surprised if she had an abortion (or two.) Not at all judging - just stating in relation to her cancer.
This poseur-president is a narcissistic sociopath. Couple that with a diploma from Harvard (whether he really received the actual education or not), and a truly fucked up childhood (which truly breaks my heart for him, and I hope with all my heart he is a decent Dad to his beautiful daughters) and you have a disastrous monster of a man-boy.
And finally, since I am ranting for first time in a very long time and it feels good!: re Obama before the election I used to tell people "I have never seen so many men with a hard-on for another man -- and I am freaking from San Francisco!"
G'day y'all!
(oh and one more thing! --opinion? My dream 2012 ticket to saving this (soon-to-be once) great country: Colonel Allen West and Secretary Condoleezza Rice running together on an independent ticket. One can dream!)
If you did, do you now have voter's remorse? I'm just saying...
Althouse has said over and over that she has no remorse, that she did the right thimg ... because McCain would have been worse, somehow. Why, he might have bankrupted the country, or got the United States involved in undeclared, unconstitutional foreign wars, or debased the tone of political discourse, or something! Or he might have croaked in office, leaving the Presidency to a woman who had only a couple of decades more executive experience in business and government than Barack Obama.
Let's face it -- Althouse voted for Obama because she wanted to feel good about America, and about herself. "Oooo, we're so evolved! We voted for a Person of Color for president!"
B wrote: Because...US citizens are not subject to British law. (we fought a revolution a while back). It does not matter how Britain views Obama's birth credentials. It matters how the US views them.
Obama is no longer a dual citizen.
Dual Citizens should not be eligible for the Presidency.
When I floated that notion here a while back, someone (I think it was Seven machos) essentially said it didn't matter what I thought. I said that the day will soon come when we will have to face that one down. Machos then said I was just being impolitic.
I think laws can change.
Let me be perfectly clear,...you were perfectly *rational* to vote for that man.
And so much research. Why, you must have studied him to death before placing that vote, right?
Or was that other people's deaths,...
Pogo,
Gore used his sister's death from lung cancer and his son's accident in the same way.
"When his son was hit by a car and severely injured 11 years ago, the accident "changed my priorities totally," Al Gore told Oprah Winfrey last month.
Good Lord, man, can I get a warning first, please?
A Lawyer Mom's Musings,
Ah but his tale of woe was truthy enough -- for the media and adoring fans, anyway. Oprah won't be frying him like she did James Frey.
No, she most certainly won't, but we allow her, too, to parade around as the "moral force" of this country.
We've been out of our fucking minds for a long, long time.
Ann,
The alternative is he is too dumb to be President. I excluded that possibility as too extreme.
ROTFLMAO!!!!
And you still think you're being *rational* right?
Martha,
You're just BEGGING for me to go to my archives, where I use the very words "con man" and "scam" about him, aren't you? Aren't you?
Just BEGGING for it!!!
virgil xenophon,
it IS possible to be a buffoon and a charlatan at the same time
Now you leave the other NewAgers out of it!!!
exhelodrvr1,
It was very obvious during the campaign that Obama was either lying or extremely ignorant about a wide variety of things. WHich is why it's so hard to understand why someone would vote for him.
Didn't you hear? It was the *rational* thing to do,...
tree hugging sister,
A certain law professor has yet to be assimilated into the cult and needs to reread chapters in the handbook.
You guys are trying to give me the vapors,...
Scott M,
Wow. I'm not one much for book burning (in fact I'm pretty sure I'm a'gin it),...
That's because you're not a progressive NewAge Liberal,...
Roger J,
Good God woman--what part of stupid dont you understand? Shit girl, you are more stupid than Obama and that says a lot
Now you stop it - she's a law professor. Top of her class and all that shit with eggs on it.
She wouldn't know stupid if it looked her in the mirror.
Can we talk about Glenn Reynolds now?
lyssalovelyredhead,
I was following this, going from one side to the other evenly, until you got to the liberal mantra that gives the game away:
I still don't care.
If that's the case, then you lose. I have heard that shit said, so many times, once the Liberal is out of bullets that it's an automatic sign of defeat now.
Mick, my man, you win this round, hands down.
Roger J,
the professor, i fear, is still trying to justify her rational decision and cannot deal with facts at hand.
I am wondering, as the drip-drip-drip of evidence continues, is Ann Althouse ever going to admit either A) she was wrong or B) she's finally learned anything from all this?
I doubt it, her being a NewAger, but I'm waiting to see anyway,...
Coketown,
"This is a President who understands the world not as it is but as he feels it should be."
Which would make him a what? Come on, help me out here. He and Oprah are a couple of whats? Oh - starts with an "N" I think,...
Why is Mick continually allowed to hijack threads with his theories of Obama's lack of citizenship re: becoming POTUS? As in this case, true/false, stupid/brilliant his comments have nothing to do with the topic of the thread. He has stated his case dozens of times and never tires of restating it. Several here keep debating him for no apparent reason.
If someone kept coming by claiming the Sun revolved around the Earth would it generate responses time after time? Enough. (sorry for this thread hijack - please do not respond to the rhetorical question)
Lionheart said...
Why is Mick continually allowed to hijack threads with his theories of Obama's lack of citizenship re: becoming POTUS? As in this case, true/false, stupid/brilliant his comments have nothing to do with the topic of the thread. He has stated his case dozens of times and never tires of restating it. Several here keep debating him for no apparent reason.
If someone kept coming by claiming the Sun revolved around the Earth would it generate responses time after time? Enough. (sorry for this thread hijack - please do not respond to the rhetorical question)
It's not "lack of Citizenship", it's lack of "natural born Citizenship", which is the requirement. Do you think the founders were OK w/ one born British becoming POTUS?
The Crack Emcee said...
"lyssalovelyredhead,
I was following this, going from one side to the other evenly, until you got to the liberal mantra that gives the game away:
I still don't care.
If that's the case, then you lose. I have heard that shit said, so many times, once the Liberal is out of bullets that it's an automatic sign of defeat now.
Mick, my man, you win this round, hands down."
I've won every round, and the truth sets me free. No one can answer the Obama Kryptonite question.
chickenlittle said...
"B wrote: Because...US citizens are not subject to British law. (we fought a revolution a while back). It does not matter how Britain views Obama's birth credentials. It matters how the US views them.
Obama is no longer a dual citizen.
Dual Citizens should not be eligible for the Presidency.
When I floated that notion here a while back, someone (I think it was Seven machos) essentially said it didn't matter what I thought. I said that the day will soon come when we will have to face that one down. Machos then said I was just being impolitic.
I think laws can change."
Natural born Citizenship is a condition of BIRTH (thus the name "born"). He may be a British subject to this day tho, how do we know. Has anyone seen his passport?
Try again?
B said...
"Mick said...How is it possible that Obama could be a natural born Citizen, when the purpose of the requirement is to prevent foreign influence, and he has already admitted to birth as a British Subject?
Because...US citizens are not subject to British law. (we fought a revolution a while back). It does not matter how Britain views Obama's birth credentials. It matters how the US views them.
He is a natural born US citizen who legally meets the requirements to be POTUS by all currently available and public evidence and documentation you blithering loon."
The point is that he was subject to British law at birth also, because he was born British. Obama has admitted that he was born subject to the laws of Britain, so even HE disagrees w/ you. Here at Fight the Smears:
"“When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children."
And as far as the last paragraph, that just means nothing.
B said...
BTW Mick,
"Your question is based on the logical fallacy called 'cum hoc ergo propter hoc'
'How is it possible that Obama could be a natural born Citizen, when the purpose of the requirement is to prevent foreign influence...'
The rest of the question is irrelevant because the logical discontinuity is already present.
Obama's status as a natural born citizen is not dependent on what the purpose of 'the requirement' is, (nor is it dependent on any admission he makes).
Look up ''cum hoc ergo propter hoc'. Then rephrase your question in a logically sound way. Or try to."
All nonsense. The requirement has a purpose, as expressed by John Jay's letter to Obama, and Federalist 68. If the purpose is to prevent foreign influence, then to be born British goes against that purpose, and cannot fulfil the requirement. The question causes you cognitive dissonance, because you cannot possibly say that he fulfills that requirement when Obama was in fact born British. So you attack the question rather than answer it. Very Alinsky.
Plus he doesn't fulfil the SCOTUS precedent for the meaning here:
"The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners"
According to Federalist 68, the purpose was to "raise a creature of our own". How can a creature of our own be born to a foreign father? The purpose meshes perfectly with the definition, and if born of a foreign father it doesn't. Maybe logic isn't one of your strong points.
Yes, President Obama misled people, but did he lie?
I think Obama chose his words carefully so that they would be literally true. His mother wanted disability insurance money to pay the portions of her medical bills that were her responsibility. So she was worrying about whether insurance companies would pay her medical bills (or at least give her the money to do so).
Note that each time in the three quotations above Obama refers to insurance companies, not HEALTH insurance companies. I think that's probably intentional, not an accident or a a bad memory.
He probably remembered that it was disability companies, not health companies. To him it might have been still tangentially relevant b/c it explained his hatred of pre-existing illness clauses.
He is a lawyer who tries to use language precisely. He tries not to lie, but if you believed the opposite of what he seemed to be saying, that would sometimes be closer to the full truth.
Jim Lindgren
tree hugging sister said...
"And you would be wrong. Military bases abroad are not considered US Territory
Bullshit. YOU look it up, especially from the serviceperson's frame of reference. It's also why there's always a SOFA, or Status of Forces Agreement negotiated, because a United States Military installation is sovereign ~ for example, the local gendarmerie can't come in and haul a Marine off. It's also why children born to American service personnel ON those installations are SOLELY American citizens, NOT receipients of dual citizenships"
And you would be wrong again. If the PCZ was US territory then McCain would not need a statute to make him a US Citizen (USC 8 S. 1403), since he was born of US Citizen parents.
Plus there's this:
That is from the Department of States Foreign Affairs Manual. If you want to find out what Status of Forces Agreements are for in the general sense (each separate one is different and over 100 such) then read this report to Congress here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34531.pdf
We should be used to Obama's toying with the truth by now. Back when he was elected editor of the Harvard Law Review, he told the New York Times that his late father was "a finance minister in Kenya". In fact, his father, never successful was a mid-level bureaucrat.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html
This came out first in the Washington Times and then on FemiSex.com and that is the reason the Times ran with this story that they'd been sitting on for months. If either of those places had not published or tweeted the story the Times would still be waiting for Gordot to answer why did he lie.
How much longer until Election Day 2012? Calling November 2012: PLEASE HURRY!
Folks,
Like sheep lead by a writer with an agenda, you all fail to understand that Obama was totally accurate in his description of his mother's concerns. He is describing his mother's concerns while the insurance company was mulling over whether to pay or not. Whether they eventually paid or not is totaly irrelevant.....insurance companies put a lot of people through the ringer before they cough up the money. Apparently, you all do not understand the first thing about how insurance companies operate.
Regards,
Flagweaver
He is a liar and that's what liars do. They lie when the truth would serve just as well because they are liars.
Ann - the big issue here isn't the lie - Obama does this regularly. It's the media response, or lack of response.
And that points to the need for those on the right to demand media that serves their interests, ad not simply talk radio. Where is the conservative channel - there is a golf channel for crying out loud! And those ont he right should get their act together and AVOID Democrat media - why should be subsidize an industry that subsidizes Democrats?
And, how about entertainment for conservatives?
Mick said:
I answered your inane question,the one you endlessly post verbatim like it's some gold standard prose everyone should accept, in the comment before I pointed out the logical fallacy in the question.
'If the purpose is to prevent foreign influence, then to be born British goes against that purpose, and cannot fulfil the requirement. The question causes you cognitive dissonance, because you cannot possibly say that he fulfills that requirement when Obama was in fact born British. '
that is not a fact, jackass. You can't seem to get this through your thick skull. You are entirely focused on the British citizen fable as the core rationale for your nonsense.
It does not matter whether Obama fulfilled British requirements for citizenship at birth through his father. Many US citizens from birth satisfy more than one countries citizenship requirements. What matters that he satisfied US citizenship requirements at birth.
By all the available documentation and evidence, Obama was born a US citizen. You morons claiming he wasn't are just a clown show the left loves to trot out as representative of rational conservatives.
If you think British law should supercede US law, move there.
Why does it take so many years for all these tenured academics with so many titles to arrive to certain conclusion about the "regime", its odious methods, its questionable ethics and disreputable stories? Here we have a class of elite, living off the public money, who cannot arrive to obvious conclusions in a timely manner, and they are the "ones" who are entrusted with "educating" (brainwash) the future generations of "students". Where have you been in 2004, 2006, 2008? What were you smoking than?
The "fake but true" argument was also used by the Left to defend Rigoberta Menchu's phony autobiography which won her the Nobel Peace Prize. (What a coincidence, two lying Nobel laureates!)
Menchu wrote that her brother had starved to death, then journalist David Stoll tracked him down and he was very much still alive. This was one of many lies Menchu told in her book, but then when the Left that had lionized her was confronted with these facts, they pretty much said that, "yeah, but the bigger point is true." OK then.
What a joke. A republican talking about lying. Hey Ann, pull your head out.
Standard con trick: accuse your opponent of doing what you in fact have done -- in this case, lying. You are lying. All you cons do.
B said,
"By all the available documentation and evidence, Obama was born a US citizen. You morons claiming he wasn't are just a clown show the left loves to trot out as representative of rational conservatives.
If you think British law should supercede US law, move there. "
Pure nonsense. Just like children born of US Citizens in Britain are considered US Citizens at birth (do you also think those "US Citizens at birth" are natural born Citizens, eligible for POTUS?), it also works the other way around.
Obama has Admitted that he was born British.
The fact that many are born w/ dual allegiance has nothing to do w/ anything.
The qualification is "natural born Citizen", not "Citizen" or "Citizen at birth"
Yes, but you know. When Obama actually doesn’t want a camera focused on him it makes you think he must really be up to something.
Hospital staffers who witnessed the behind-the-scenes maneuvering were "appalled" at what seemed to be Gore's calculating behavior in the middle of a heart-rending family crisis -- behavior that would show up again later in his political life, fitting into a pattern."
Open Sesameprinter cartridge ink
During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage. James Dreesen
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