Monday, April 25, 2011

Birtherism and the Times

On the 22nd, the NYT published some remarkable poll results:
A plurality of Republican voters, 47 percent, said they believed Mr. Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was born in another country; 22 percent said they did not know where he was born, and 32 percent said they believed he was born in the United States.
These numbers demonstrate the triumph of propaganda. I would suggest that Donald Trump's quasi-candidacy is not a serious play for the White House -- rather, he is doing what he is doing in order to give birtherism a boost.

Here's what's odd about that remarkable poll: The NYT hid the numbers in an unrelated (and much less interesting) story about Republican disenchantment with their current candidates. Then the story underwent a rewrite. Now the paragraph quoted above has disappeared.

What has happened to the New York Times? Why would they censor a story of this sort?

2 comments:

Mr. Mike said...

The Times did what they have been doing since the Clinton administration, trying to influence the outcome of presidential elections.

How many independent voters would pull the R lever after reading that the party is stocked to the gills with Birther nuts?

Zee said...

Good question, what has happened to the NYTimes. They also recently got duped by an ONION piece! They apparently issued an apology for that one....maybe a query or two regarding these statistics would uncover whether they were removed because the figures were found to be spurious, or some other reason.

The birther cult reminds me of the 9/11 cult, and I think in both cases the intent was to so mislead and muddy the waters that none of the pertinent questions could be asked without tainting the questioners as part of the cult. In this case, the question should've centered on the intent of the founders and the fact that Obama was, by birth (even right here in the US) and later by adoption, a multinational citizen. His Kenyan citizenship would've expired at the age of majority unless he specifically claimed it. Not sure about the British and Indonesian citizenships. He himself has mentioned his British citizenship...this was precisely the dual loyalties the founders likely meant to prevent, and that is the conversation the nation should've been having all along, ie, the original intent and the current relevancy as pertains to dual or multiple citizenship. Instead, they threw over the known for the imagined.