So Sad. So Unbelievably Sad

News from The Trib:

Two of WPGB-104.7's original hosts no longer work there.

On Monday, Clear Channel Media + Entertainment Pittsburgh spokeswoman Kathryn Ferri said conservative broadcasters Jim Quinn and Rose Somma-Tennent were replaced with David Bloomquist, known on WWVA-1170 in Wheeling as “Bloomdaddy.”

“WPGB tried to reach new terms with Jim Quinn and Rose Tennent, but as that was unsuccessful,” Ferri emailed, “they will be moving on and we support and thank them for the contributions they have made.”

Quinn and Tennent could not be reached for comment.

And and this is strange because they usually won't shut up.

From their website:

As we have new information, we will keep you posted at www.warroom.com on the front page. Be sure to check in there periodically for updates.

Our commitment has been, and will always be, to conservative values and to this great country of ours.

Rest assured, we will be back on the air!

So they're out of work.  I wonder if they're going on unemployment (and somehow or other become like the rest of the lazy 47% who mooch off of hard working Amurikuns like me).  As one astute reader said in an email:

Ordinarily, I feel bad about anyone losing his/her job. Hard to care quite so much in this case, though.

Now, why would that be?

Let's look at some of Quinn and Rose's greatest hits.  There was this from 2008 where, in making a point about guv'ment dependency made an analogy to something completely different:

You know, if you were a slave in the old South, what did you get as a slave? You got free room and board, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children because that was just, you know, tomorrow's slave. So, you got a free house, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children. Can I ask a question? How's that different from welfare? You get a free house, you get free food, and you get rewarded for having children. Oh, wait a minute, hold on a second. There is a difference: The slave had to work for it.

Yea, he apologized for that one - well, kinda sorta apologized. While he said he still believed his point was valid, it was only the way he made it that was offensive.

Um, ok.

Then there was this from Rose about how President Obama might be, you know, the prince of darkness:

All the insects and the rodents come out for this man, or something. They're attracted to him. I think it's like - you know, like, those devil movies, because, you know, like they're - like they're attracted to the devil or something. I'm just saying.

Then there was this call for violent revolution:

Discussing health care reform, Jim Quinn stated, "You have got to say no to this, and if they push this through, you need to riot in the streets. You need to riot in the streets." He further said, "Our country was built on revolution and it's about time we took it back. These people are dangerous," and, "It's about time to put an end to this leftist control of this country, and if a revolution is what it takes, damn it, then that's what it's going to take, because liberty will not be denied." [The War Room with Quinn and Rose, 9/10/09]

 And then this from this month - their website says it was read on the air November 7, 2013:

James Manning recently interviewed a high school friend of Barack Obama, who claims to have known him back in the 1970s as Barry Soetoro. Mia Marie Pope says that Obama identified himself as a foreigner and a crack-smoking homosexual.

Yea, I am thinking the nation's airwaves have just gotten (on average) slightly less crazie with Quinn and Rose no longer polluting them.

Jim Quinn - Teh Crazie

Yep. Jim Quinn's still crazy. Have a listen:


The text:

There has long been a rumor in Washington, circulating ever since the advent of the ascension to the throne of the Messiah, that He's paying off the President of Kenya to keep his mouth shut about and to keep the birth certificate under wraps. Uh, because you know frankly in Hawaii, uh the reason we can't see the birth certificate is probably because there isn't one.

Teh Crazie - Jim Quinn style.

Sestak Job Offer

I heard Jim Quinn and Rose Tennant froth at the mouth and fall over backwards over this yesterday morning.

My friends on the Trib Braintrust have been on this story for a few months. This is from March:

A special prosecutor must investigate whether the Obama administration offered U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak a high-ranking federal job in exchange for dropping his Democrat primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.

Rep. Sestak made that claim during a February radio interview. He didn't bite. A White House spokesman says whatever conversations there were "are not problematic."

But U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight committee, says this "has all the makings of a cover-up" of bribery, election interference by government officials and political use of federal jobs. If he doesn't get White House answers by April 5, he'll call for a special prosecutor.

The alleged violations carry jail terms of up to one year. And with White House wagons circling to protect Sen. Party-Switcher, a special prosecutor is warranted.

I heard Jim say something like, "Same as Watergate - the coverup is worse than the crime."

Crime?

Too bad, (and my apologies to any Gertrude Stein/Alice B Toklas fans reading this) but there is no there there and there hasn't been for a long time.

The AP from February:

Ethics attorneys in Washington said such offers are common.

Melanie Sloan, director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, described it as “politics as usual.”

And Marc Abinder at The Atlantic said the same in March:

Now, trading an administration job -- a thing of value -- for a political favor might well constitute bribery. It is also very common. A Nexus search turns up numerous examples. In 1981, President Reagan offered S.I. Hayakawa, then California's senior senator, a job if he declined to run for reelection. We know this because Reagan's chief political adviser admitted as much on the record.

Reagan did it? I wonder if Jim Quinn or the Trib Braintrust knows this.

Talkingpointsmemo has something more recent:

Even those who used to prosecute public corruption cases agree. "Talk about criminalizing the political process!" said Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor with the Justice Department's Public Integrity unit. "It would be horrible precedent if what really truly is political horsetrading were viewed in the criminal context of: is this a corrupt bribe?"

And Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who as the head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington isn't known for going on easy public corruption, concurred. "There is no bribery case here," she said. "No statute has ever been used to prosecute anybody for bribery in circumstances like this."

Sloan added that Issa's move was more about politics. "It's not at all about whether there was actual criminal wrongdoing," she said. "It's about how to go after Sestak."

Yes, that's exactly what it is.

I Heard Jim Quinn Rant About This

It's just so surprising that the RightWingMedia gets the story wrong.

From Mediamatters:

Right-wing media seized on Fox News and Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) reports and claimed that in December "five Muslim soldiers" were "arrested for trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson," often while fearmongering about a "jihadist" plot against the base or speculating that the delay in reporting on the allegations was due to a "Fort Jackson cover-up." The right wing has made these claims despite the fact that military officials have said "there is currently no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations."

So even though there's no credible evidence, our friends in the wingnut press spread the story anyway. What value is the truth when there's fear to be mongered?

So I Guess Quinn's A Birther

Give a listen.


Woven into his wingnut anti-Affirmative Action, Professor Gates is a racist rant, local radio embarrassment Jim Quinn drops a few hints on where he stands on President Obama's citizenship (about 45 seconds in) when he says that Gates:

[H]as got the same racial chip on his shoulder as the guy that claims to be the President.

Ladies and Gentlemen, local embarrassment Jim Quinn.

Quinn and Rose Update

A few days ago Maria got an e-mail from Rose, of Quinn and Rose. She wrote to point out an error I'd made in this posting. Seems that I'd mistakenly posted that Rose had agreed with Quinn when he favorably compared slavery to being on welfare.

He's since apologized, by the way.

To make a long story short, I got into a brief and very cordial e-mail exchange with Rose.

At the end I realized that I had no idea HOW she felt about what Quinn said so I sent this to her:

But I have to ask the question (and THIS IS FOR THE BLOG): What IS your position on Quinn's discussion vis a vis slavery and welfare? Do you agree or disagree?

This is her answer:

There is an update on our page www.warroom.com

I think it will address your concerns.

As for me, I believe that welfare, when used properly is a wonderful tool to help people until they get back on their feet. I also believe that it can be abused, and therefore, ultimately prove to be oppressive. I certainly did not care for the comparison that Jim made. And, apparently, Jim has re-thought his analogy. Please read above link for more info.

So there you have it.

Quinn Apologizes!

From January 30:


And a transcript:

But first I have a piece of business I want to do with you.

How do I start this out? Usually if I render an opinion on the air and I get howls of protests from leftists out there and they start calling me names on weblogs, then I know I've done a good job.

However, if my friends and people who love me cringe and say, "I don't believe you said that." Then I say, "Yea, but what I mean wa--" "Yea I know. But it just. The way it sounded it--"

Well, every once in a while, not very often, something like that happens. And so I have prepared a posting which will appear on the website but I want to share it with all of you right now. Because I feel that it's my responsibility to do that.

When you are on the air for as long as I have been. I suppose it's only a matter of time before you say something that cannot be adequately defended. My comments comparing welfare to slavery was one such event. The purpose of my comments was to make the point that servitude can be accomplished by pandering as well as by oppression. It was not my intention to discuss the fine points of the issue of slavery nor the moral hazards therein. However that does not excuse the fact that in making my point I treated a deadly serious issue in a manner so cavalier as to be indefensible.

While I still believe that my point was valid, the way in which it was presented was grossly inappropriate. Having seen my comments in print several times and upon further reflection I have decided that in the interest of our listeners, both fans and detractors, an apology is in order. No one has pressured or coerced me into taking this step. I have not been threatened by my company or anybody else. As a matter of fact, nobody knew about this except Rose. It is my conscience that moves me to post this. It is simply the right thing to do.

I was wrong.

Now as conservative it saddens me to see people's lives wasted by government dependence but this time the way that I expressed my feelings on the subject were poorly thought out, to say the least. And so to those of you who were offended, both friend and foe and my treasured co-host Rose I say please accept my most profound apology, you deserve better than that from me and from this show.

And this will be posted on the front page of the website later on in the day.

The website is here.

Quinn mentions seeing his words in print. So I took a look to see how far the story got. His words made it all the way to BET.com.

Adrian McCoy has the scoop.

I think it's interesting that while he said this stuff back in November 6th (just after the election, by the way) it was only after this story in the local newspaper (also by McCoy) that his conscience actually kicked in enough for him to apologize. If Adrian hadn't written the story, would we be seeing an apology now?

I wonder if he'll be apologizing to NOW (and, of course, all its members) for calling it the "National Organization of Whores."

More On Jim Quinn

As always, Chris Potter gets it right. And not because he reads this blog and has some nice things to say about it. He begins:

The good folks at 2 political junkies reminded me of this gem of a story in the Post-Gazette this weekend. The piece is about Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog group which has labeled local talk-show host Jim Quinn as a "radioactive" media personality.

And here's the nice:

Quinn invokes fear of the return of the "Fairness Doctrine," a long-discarded government policy of requiring equal time for diverse political viewpoints. The Junkies do a good job of showing how baseless the fear is, so I won't dwell on the fact that hardly anyone in Washington has shown interest in reviving the doctrine.

(Note to Chris: I love Maria, other political junkie, to bits but only one of us wrote the piece you link to. Many thanks for the shout-out, though!).

This is where Potter shows he's done his homework:

But Quinn's hysteria on the subject is a perfect example of how right-wingers love to play the victim card. They have little patience when, say, blacks complain of racism ... but when they get back from the commercial break, they'll indulge in their own delusions of persecution, fantasies that would embarrass Minister Farakkhan.

Apparently, Quinn also fears Media Matters because it has a base of "wealthy liberal donors." Quinn is OK with bloggers having speech rights, it seems, provided they have no money or power whatsoever. But if they get even a bit of leverage, Quinn cries "oppression!"

On some level, I understand the response. I mean, wouldn't pay Quinn any mind at all if he were just some old coot in the park, spouting his nonsense into a couple of tin cans joined with a piece of string. Instead, though, he's an old coot spouting his nonsense into a microphone paid for by Clear Channel, one of the country's largest media conglomerates. (And before that, his mic was paid for by the same folks who own City Paper.) So naturally I take him more seriously -- his ideas are silly, but the money behind them is serious.

But even so ... who knew that a conservative would distrust the speech rights of rich people? What next? Will Quinn espouse the dismantling of Fox News? Start arguing for a more progressive income tax, to relieve the wealthy of some of the money they use to control our discourse?

I think Quinn will just continue to blame everything on liberals and the creeping Alinsky-ism taking over this once great country.

America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

Or whatever.

Adrian McCoy Writes About Quinn, Rose, and MediaMatters

This past Sunday. The article begins with:

Media Matters thinks Jim Quinn's hot-button speeches can be hazardous to listeners, so he gets a "radioactive" rating from the watchdog group.

Here's the "Radioactive" page at Mediamatters.org. It links to the many many embarrassing things Quinn (and Rose - we can't forget Rose, can we?) has said on the public airwaves.

McCoy touches on one:

Media Matters called Quinn to task for several comments made on his program. In one show excerpt posted on Radioactive, he said: "You know, if you were a slave in the old South, what did you get as a slave? You got free room and board, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children because that was just, you know, tomorrow's slave. ... Can I ask a question? How's that different from welfare? You get a free house, you get free food, and you get rewarded for having children. Oh, wait a minute, hold on a second. There is a difference: The slave had to work for it."

Here's Mediamatters page on that particularly idiotic rhetorical flourish. The part that McCoy didn't quote is what Tennant said immediately after Quinn favorably compared Welfare to slavery. She said:

Ah, the truth stings, does it not?

Tennant, a self-professed Christian had no trouble agreeing. The meek might not, I guess, inherit the Earth. But what do I know, I'm just an agnostic. [SEE THE CORRECTION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG POST]

Hey, but did you know that the three days later he defended his point with:

Now, naturally, the point that I was making was that there are two forms of servitude: There's the servitude that you can be forced into, and there's the servitude you can be coerced into, I mean, the horrors of slavery notwithstanding -- naturally, that was my point.

And then:

[W]hen you think about it, the slave had more personal nobility than the welfare recipient, because he or she had no say in their station in life. The welfare recipient actually volunteers for it. It is the liberal plantation.

The world according to Jim Quinn. After a profoundly illogical charge by Quinn himself:

"Media Matters is not just a bunch of liberal bloggers exercising their First Amendment rights," Quinn warns, citing the nonprofit organization's financial support from wealthy liberal donors. "Any critique of media speech by Media Matters for America carries with it the implied threat of government censorship."

We reach the only I can find in McCoy's reporting. It's here:

Like many conservative talk hosts, Quinn and Rose raise the issue of a possible revival of the Fairness Doctrine. "It is a weak argument that suggests that speech may be stifled without the doctrine," Tennent says. "It's virtually impossible in today's environment to deny access to certain viewpoints -- or to find outlets that air them."

On the Quinn and Rose War Room Web site (http://warroom.com), there's an online petition opposing the Fairness Doctrine that listeners can sign. The petition encourages listeners "to urge Congress and government officials to reject any and all efforts to censor, limit or restrain the right of conservatives."

But [Media Matters senior researcher Julie] Millican maintains that Media Matters isn't out to silence or censor these talk hosts. "It's important to keep an eye on what's being said on the public airwaves. People should be aware of what's out there. They can say whatever they want to say. But people are entitled to know that's what being said on their airwaves, and they're entitled to be offended about it."

Uh, wait. The "Possible revivial" of the Fairness Doctrine? By whom? Perhaps McCoy should have checked this page at Mediamatters.org. Where it quotes Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly:

I've been fascinated of late with the far-right hysteria about the reemergence of the "fairness doctrine," because conservative activists are gearing up for a knock-down brawl against an enemy that doesn't exist. Everyone from obscure right-wing bloggers to Rush Limbaugh to Washington Post columnists are prepared for a fight that isn't going to happen.

And yet, the nonsense doesn't stop. Perusing the news this morning, there are still more conservative columnists railing against the "plan" to bring back the fairness doctrine, and unhinged propaganda about the "unprecedented government assault upon the First Amendment" that is allegedly on the way.

The New Republic's Marin Cogan asked around, trying to find Democrats who actually support bringing the fairness doctrine back, or media-reform liberals who might push for action on this. Cogan couldn't find any.

Benen adds that even Barack Obama opposes reinstating it.

Or McCoy could have checked this blog or even the Post-Gazette itself. Brian O'Neill wrote:

The Fairness Doctrine is not going to be reinstated, nor should it. Never mind that a restraint on free speech would be a betrayal of core liberal principles. It won't happen because President-elect Barack Obama has no interest in it, few Democrats in Congress care about it, and they all can read a map.

So why does Adrian McCoy write about a "possible revivial of the Fairness Doctrine"?

Fact-checking. It's all in a day's work.

AND A CORRECTION: I misread the mediamatters posting. For the record, Rose Tennant DID NOT say, "Ah, the truth stings, does it not?" after Jim Quinn (favorably) compared slavery with being on welfare. That was Jim Quinn himself.

There's no record of her agreeing with that rather grotesque statement. I would hope she disagrees with it but that's completely beside the point. The point is I should have gotten it right the first time.

My bad.

Quinn, Today

Un-be-lievable.

Jim Quinn, obvious expert on slavery, said this today on the air:

You know, if you were a slave in the old South, what did you get as a slave? You got free room and board, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children because that was just, you know, tomorrow's slave. So, you got a free house, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children. Can I ask a question? How's that different from welfare? You get a free house, you get free food, and you get rewarded for having children. Oh, wait a minute, hold on a second. There is a difference: The slave had to work for it.

Yea, wasn't slavery GREAT? All that free stuff!

Quinn and Rose Smear Obama. Again

I just stumbled across the story at MediaMatters.org.

Guess what's coming out of The War Room.  They're trying to resurrect the claim that Senator Obama's birth certificate is a fake.

MediaMatters has the whole giggle-inducing story:

On the October 3 broadcast of The War Room, Jim Quinn and Rose Tennent hosted Philip J. Berg to discuss his lawsuit, which baselessly alleges that Sen. Barack Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. During the interview, Quinn, Tennent, and Berg each repeated the discredited charge that Obama has not released an authentic birth certificate establishing that he was born in the United States, and therefore could be ineligible to run for president.

Ok.  Let's debunk this one - again.  The reliably conservative news source World Net Daily wrote more than a month ago:

However, FactChecker.org says it obtained Obama's actual birth certificate and that the document was indeed real. The site discredited some of the claims of Internet bloggers, such as that the certificate as viewed in a scanned copy released by Obama's campaign lacked a raised seal. FactChecker.org also established that many of the alleged flaws in the document noted by bloggers were caused by the scanning of the document.

A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there. [emphasis added.]

Doesn't Jim Quinn read the right-wing news sites?

Jim Quinn Read WHAT On The Air?

Red State, a real live conservative website posted this last February:

Sean Hannity has consistently said that he likes John McCain personally and respects his service to our country. I believe him. He disagrees with McCain on issues. That’s fine, so do I. But why is he promoting the Pittsburgh based “Quinn and Rose In The Morning” radio show? Is Sean unaware that Quinn used his show to spread rumors accusing McCain of being a traitor?

Reminder: This is NOT me writing - this is from "Samsara" at Red State.  It continues:

On Tuesday, February 5, 2008, Jim Quinn read on the air an unsubstantiated internet article alleging that POW John McCain "accommodated" his captors and was rewarded with an apartment in Hanoi. Quinn then directed his listeners to go online and read the part of the article he said was too "inflammatory" for the air. The article reported that McCain was provided prostitutes at this hotel room. Quinn then gave out the web address of this trash. He urged his listeners to read this article because the author was a source he respected.

Unfortunately, the article is behind a subscription wall.  Fortunately there are enough clues in the piece at Red State to find the article elsewhere.

Here it is.  Some juicy snippets:

The number of fellow senators who think John McCain is psychologically unstable is large. Some will admit it publicly, like Thad Cochran who says, "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine."

Others relate times when McCain screamed four-letter obscenities right in their faces in the Senate cloak room, like Dick Shelby, Rick Santorum or Jim Inhofe. "The man is unhinged," one senator told me. "He is frighteningly unfit to be commander-in-chief."

Jim Quinn read that on the air.  

Here's more:

McCain claims he refused [to be released early], because he demanded all American POWs captured before him be released as well. He thus remained a prisoner when he could have gone home, and was subjected to constant brutal beatings and torture for years: that is the source of the "war-hero" saga making McCain a greater war-hero than any other American POW.

Yet the offer of release would had to have been approved by the GRU overseers of the North Vietnamese – and T does not recall any such offer being made. T admits, however, that this took place before McCain was transferred to Hoa Loa prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by the POWs. T had only direct knowledge of what happened at Hoa Loa, and not the other prisons, where T's father was in charge.

McCain was kept at the Hanoi Hilton from December 1969 until his release, along with all the remaining POWs, in March 1973. During this time, T translated all the Vietnamese interrogators' notes and reports regarding John McCain.

According to T, they reveal that McCain had made an "accommodation" with his captors, and in exchange, T's father saw that he was provided with an apartment in Hanoi and the services of two prostitutes. Upon returning to his prison cell, he would say he had been held in solitary confinement. That may be why so many of his fellow prisoners said later they saw so little of him at Hoa Loa.

Again, Jim Quinn read this disgusting story on the air.  This is what the republicans were saying about John McCain only 7 months ago.  And Jim Quinn read that on the air.

Jim Quinn.

Quinn and Rose. Again

Media Matters is reporting some more drivel from The War Room:

On his syndicated radio show, Jim Quinn referred to the National Organization for Women as "the National Organization for Whores," and said of Philadelphia Daily News columnist Fatimah Ali: "[Y]ou know, Fatimah, what's your real name? Come on, seriously. I mean, get an American name, will you, if you want to be an American." He then asked: "You don't suppose she's a liberal black Muslim, do you?"

Here's more of what Jim Quinn said:

The Democrat [sic] Party is now the "Alinsky Party." Yesterday, I said, I wonder how long it's going to be before one of these Alinskyites -- formerly known as Democrats -- one of these Alinskyites out there suggests that Sarah Palin is not really a woman. Remember Kay Bailey Hutchison was a female impersonator, according to the National Organization for Whores? Remember that? Well, James Lewis, American Thinker: "is Sarah Palin really a woman?"

NOW said that Kay Bailey Hutchinson was a female impersonator?  Really? When?

Actually it was Gloria Steimen who said that.  In 1993.  Here's what she said:

Having someone who looks like us but thinks like them is worse than having no one.

Hey, I get it, it was a metaphor!  I wonder how Jim Quinn got something so easy so wrong.

Anyway, this line has been around for years.  Take a look at this from CNN from 2000:

[LAURA] INGRAHAM:I actually don't have an abortion discussion in the book because it actually doesn't fall into what -- which I really believe to be the Hillary trap, except it is part of the general liberal idea about government, which the global sisterhood believes that true women, real women should ascribe to. You should be pro- choice, you should be anti-gun you should be pro-big government. Because NOW was the same group that called Kay Bailey Hutchison a female impersonator.

[PATRICIA] IRELAND: No, no, no, that was Gloria Steinem, who is not...

INGRAHAM: Gloria Steinem, OK.

IRELAND: ... National Organization for Women. I know we all look alike, Laura.

Unfortunately I have no idea exactly what the missing word (or words) that ellipsis stands for. It's obvious, however, that Patricia Ireland (who at the time was President of NOW) was distancing the organization from Gloria Steinem.  In any event, it was a correction that Laura Ingraham accepted.

But take a look at the context of Quinn's paragraph.  He wondered how long "these Alinskyites" (this a reference to "community organizer" Saul Alinsky) will question whether Sarah Palin is indeed not a female.  Then he sites this article from The American Thinker, written by James Lewis.

Has anyone told Quinn that The American Thinker is a conservative magazine?  James Lewis is a conservative.  Any question, read this.  

Anyway, take a look at Lewis' article.  It's satire.

The Lewis article DOES mention one blog post that poses Steinem's metaphor - kind of.  Again the metaphor is obvious:

Not only is Sarah Palin not a feminist, she is as anti-woman as Bush and McCain combined. That is the reason why McCain picked her; not because she is a woman and he wanted to be underhanded (which he totally did,) but because she’s a Republican, conservative man who just happens to be in a woman’s body.

That's it.  That's the source of all of this.  Amazing, isn't it?

So 15 years after the Steinem/Hutchinson line, a blog called Mentrual Poetry uses a similar metaphor to criticize Sarah Palin and then Jim Quinn calls the National Organization for Women the National Organization for Whores.

How much you wanna bet he doesn't think it's a metaphor?

Factcheck.org States The Obvious

The Birth Certificate is REAL.

In one of the silliest stories of this silly season, more than a few wingnuts have been ranting about Senator Barack Obama's "faked" birth certificate. So far local wingnuts Mike Pintek (here and here) and John Steigerwald and of course, Quinn and Rose (note the "hat tip" in that posting and if have you have the stomach for it, listen here) have further spread this story in one form or another.

In fairness, though, Steigerwald has NOT stated that he believes it himself. He was just saying that others have raised the issue. How "Bagdhad Bob" of him.

Pintek, though, made it onto the MediaMatters.org. Good for him! Nice to see him moving up in the world. Now everyone everywhere can know how much of a wingnut he is. Here's a flash: he also thinks that that whole "global warming" thing is a hoax. How surprising.

Anyway, Factcheck.org has the evidence to clearly show that Barack Obama was, in fact, born in the US. In Hawaii. In August of 1961. After Hawaii acheived statehood. That makes Obama a natural born citizen and therefore he meets that constitutionally mandated requirement for the Presidency.

Just like everyone said.

In another hit to his now defunct (as if he ever had any) credibility, smear-meister Jerome Corsi is on the record saying the certificate is "false" to Steve Doocy of Fox "News". Factcheck has a transcript:

Corsi: Well, what would be really helpful is if Senator Obama would release primary documents like his birth certificate. The campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website. How is anybody supposed to really piece together his life?

Doocy: What do you mean they have a "false birth certificate" on their Web site?
Corsi: The original birth certificate of Obama has never been released, and the campaign refuses to release it.

Doocy: Well, couldn't it just be a State of Hawaii-produced duplicate?

Corsi: No, it's a -- there's been good analysis of it on the Internet, and it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce.

All of that, of course is bunk. Here's why. Factcheck.org actually got some first hand knowledge:

Recently FactCheck representatives got a chance to spend some time with the birth certificate, and we can attest to the fact that it is real and three-dimensional and resides at the Obama headquarters in Chicago.

They have a list of charges brought against the certificate:

• The birth certificate doesn't have a raised seal.
• It isn't signed.
• No creases from folding are evident in the scanned version.
• In the zoomed-in view, there's a strange halo around the letters.
• The certificate number is blacked out.
• The date bleeding through from the back seems to say "2007," but the document wasn't released until 2008.
• The document is a "certification of birth," not a "certificate of birth."

Then they go point-by-point to show how each criticism is, well, complete crap. They even have art. Here's the seal. See? It's raised and everything:


Here's the signature on the date of release:

Heck someone even found the contemporaneous newspaper announcement of the birth:

Of course the wingnuts are still not convinced (and we'd trust these people to drive?). One, and presumably more - as such political deleria is contagious, writes that the newspaper announcement could still be a faked, so proves nothing.

So let's see. IF the birth certificate is a fake, then the vast conspiracy to push this fakery onto an unenlightened public must be huge - and supremely efficient (only to be thwarted utterly by one guy with photoshop, of course). As politicfact has already noted, for this certificate to be faked the conspiracy has to reach deep into:

• The Hawaii Department of Health
• The Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics
• The Illinois Secretary of State’s office
• The Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois

Tin Hat, anyone?

I wonder if Mike Pintek will be issuing a correction.

Jim Quinn Gets Fact-Checked (July 17 Edition)

An astute reader clued me in to this column by J.D. Prose.

The whole thing started out when Allys Boyer, an 84-year old constituent of Congressman Jason Altmire's and Gold Star Mother, wanted to go visit the White House in late June. Her son, Cpl Larry Boyer, was killed in Vietnam in May, 1969. Coincidentally, President George W. Bush was just completing his first year in the comparatively cushy (certainly compared to Vietnam) Texas Air National Guard in May, 1969.

Fortunate son.

Turns out there's a policy in place at the White House for Gold Star Families to be pushed to the head of the line when looking to get a White House tour.

Sounds like good news for Allys, doesn't it?

Not so fast. The policy is for only for those families who lost a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan. And remember, Allys Boyer lost a son in Vietnam when dubya was guarding the air over Texas.

Prose wrote about it here (sub. req - sorry), but the full text can be found here (if you can wade through the freerepublic garbage that surrounds it).

That's when Quinn, the well-armed terrorist, chimed in. Here's how Prose wrote it this weekend:

Now, we don't know what Quinn said and we weren't bothered enough to find out, but from the e-mails and comments, we gathered that we're lazy, stupid, unethical, anti-military and a shill for U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-4, McCandless Township.

Whew! At least nobody called us ugly.

We were mainly accused of being duped by Altmire and his spokeswoman, Christina Stacey, who informed us of the Boyer family's request for a White House tour and the subsequent rejection.

Quinn's apparent claim was that Altmire knew Vietnam mothers weren't eligible for preferential treatment, but he offered up Mrs. Boyer as a pawn to make President Goofy, uh, Bush look bad.

"You are a sucker, J.D.," wrote Luke Snatchko of Burgettstown on the Web site. "They submitted their request knowing it would get turned down."

"Dem. leaders mis-represent soldiers' status to the White House knowing that it will be discovered and denied later. They are using the press to develop non-stories," wrote Jerry Linger of Cincinnati.

Riiiiiight. See? It was A VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY!!

With Bush enjoying such immense popularity (29 percent) and riding a wave of success in Iraq (cough, cough), House Democrats decided to knock him down a peg by concocting lies about the White House ignoring mothers whose sons died fighting in Vietnam. Brilliant!

Then the nutcase case really got moving. There were allegations by Quinn that the Boyers were big contributors to the Democratic Party. Here's where the fact-checking happened. Prose continued:

Center Township reader Robin Cox, who's been no fan of ours, posted a critical comment, but then showed the initiative we lack and checked out Quinn's argument.

Here's what Cox later wrote: "Mr. Quinn used an anonymous source, someone he calls 'Son of Deepthroat.' I'm always skeptical of anonymous sources ... Mr. Quinn claimed a Lexis/Nexis search uncovered contributions from the Boyers to Howard Dean and George Soros-related 527s. I checked FEC data on the Center for Responsive Politics website for the 2000 through 2008 campaign cycles and found no contributions to anyone under any of the Boyer names mentioned in the Prose column ... Mr. Quinn alleged there were at least four other cases similar to that of the Boyers. A Google search found no hits to support that allegation."

Don't these guys think that someone might actually check their work?

But the bigger issue here is what Quinn was trying to do. In order to deflect from the issue (that there are two tiers of support in dubya's White House for Gold Star Families, when there should only be one), he raises non-issues (who knew which rules and when) and manufactures "facts" (the Boyers non-existent campaign donations).

Jim Quinn, Pittsburgh's own crazy-ass wingnut.