This weekend, President Obama’s senior advisor David Plouffe stepped into the Donald Trump MSM-birther fray, dissing – what he termed – Trump’s “sideshow” public appearances.
“There may be a small part of the country that believes these things, but mainstream Americans think it’s (Trump’s birther remarks) a sideshow,” said Plouffe.
“Birther,” is, of course, the media’s pejorative term for those that believe the President is not a natural born U.S. citizen. Back in June 2008, after months of speculation, then candidate Barack Obama succumbed to the political pressure and released a “Certification of Live Birth” from the State of Hawaii. Unfortunately for Team Obama, a certification is not the original record of live birth, the document has only continued to fuel the controversy.
Enter Donald Trump.
Sideshow aside, Trump’s strategy appears to be working for him and he has the mainstream media frenzy of free media to thank. In an interview with NBC, Trump boldly stated:
He [President Obama] spent $2 million in legal fees trying on to get away from this issue, and if it weren’t an issue, why wouldn’t he just solve it? I wish he would because if he doesn’t, it’s one of the greatest scams in the history of politics and in the history, period. You are not allowed to be a president if you’re not born in this country. Right now, I have real doubts.
Last week, Trump announced he had sent investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama. “I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re finding,” he said on NBC’s “Today.”
Hmmm … another NBC interview, eh? I guess you can’t blame the guy for buttering his TV bread on the network that carries “Celebrity Apprentice.” But we will brush that comb-over when we come to it.
Given the mainstream media’s obsession with the birther issue and its glee in using it to paint conservatives who oppose the President as extremists, it was, arguably, a high-risk move for the NBC reality TV star. Or was it?
Calling out the President again to produce an authentic birth certificate, the powerful billionaire head of Trump International and possible 2012 presidential contender has seen his poll numbers soar. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll had Trump tied for second with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 17%. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney led the GOP field at 21%. A February 14th survey by Public Policy Polling had Trump with a 56% disapproval rating among Republicans following his speech at CPAC.
Mr. Trump has definitely mastered the art of this deal. At least for now. Moreover, he has also given a mainstream new legitimacy to birther perspective, forcing the White House to revisit old questions it thought were long dead and buried.
So, is the White House really nervous about Donald Trump?
“I hope he keeps on rising (in the polls) because … there’s zero chance that Donald Trump would ever be hired by the American people to do this job,” asserted Plouffe on ABC’s “This Week.”
But if White House isn’t worried about Trump’s rise in the polls, why even step into the fray? In other words, if it is a circus, why join it?
After two years of political gymnastics over Obamacare, constitutional ploys from every direction, and a trail of broken campaign promises, doubletalk is the name of the President’s game. Any public statements – especially by this White House – need to be weighed against the President’s short and long-term political self-interest.
Raising the birther issue could help Obama President shore up his liberal base. He could use the help. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has already called the President’s authorization of U.S. intervention in Libya, without congressional approval, an “impeachable offense.” The left is angry because his military action has taken the wind out of their “Bush-is-Satan” political sails. Add to that his failure to close Gitmo, the GOP budget cuts of $38 billion, and the President has likely got himself a primary challenge.
So how does the birther issue help?
The mainstream media have long portrayed the birther issue as yet another example of racism in the Republican Party. Flashing the racism card plays into the same media storyline that helped propel Barack Obama to victory in the first place: that the 2008 election was a litmus test on modern American racism.
Moreover, by entering the Donald Trump-birther media fray, Plouffe certainly couldn’t sink the President’s approval rating any lower than it is now. A new IBOPE Zogby Interactive poll shows President Barack Obama’s approval rating at 42 percent, the lowest since December, when it hit 39 percent.
The President’s poll numbers, of course, have very little to do with the birther issue.
For most Americans, it is about the President’s truthfulness or lack thereof. It is about his associations with controversial hate minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, and the now disgraced organization ACORN. It is about Obamacare and the imposition of government-run healthcare mandates in the face of public opposition. It is about countless golf, indifference to disaster or crisis, ineptitude, inexperience, and dithering incompetence.
It is our fault because we elected a President when we didn’t know who he was.
And it is his fault because he is not what he pretends to be. Kenyan birth certificate aside.
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