The Romney Birth Certificate Joke

Romney’s birth certificate joke is incredible because it works on so many levels. Ann Althouse says:

Romney is saying — in so many words — I'm more truly and fundamentally American than Barack Obama. And the implication is: I want you to think about the ways that Obama hasn't fully embraced American values of freedom, capitalism, etc. etc.

Glenn Reynolds tweeted:

Romney joke not about birth cert. Way of reminding people of Obama's post-American approach to presidency. Will work.

The MSM is believes it’s a gaffe. Jan Crawford of CBS:

At Romney event, two reactions to his birth certificate joke: reporters gasped--and a crowd of thousands laughed and cheered.

Last night on FOX’s Special Report the liberal columnist for the Washington Post, Charles Lane, called it “tasteless,” “awkward” and an “unforced error.”

Lane apparently feels that there’s nothing funny about Barack Obama. He told Romney to play nice, leaving the jokes, mudslinging, distortions, lies and to the Obama camp (although he will never characterize them as that). They are so dim that they may think that Romney tried to appeal to the “Birthers.” That’s the problem with the MSM, they think they’re sophisticates, but they are not. They fall for bumper sticker slogans and the Cro-Magnon-crude political lies of the Democrats. You have to be stupid to do that, and their acceptance of it is proof.

And keep in mind that until he decided to run for President, Obama claimed to have been born in Kenya.

   

 

Question for Charles Lanes: was this just an unforced error?   Or was it the sort of claim that Elizabeth Warren made to appear more "authentic" or exotic?  This bio was around for 15 years even as Obama was collecting millions in royalties from his semi-fictional books.   Awkward, isn't it?  The MSM knows what to do with Obama's awkward gaffes: it ignores them.  Oh, that's just Obama being Obama .... moving on.

 

Romney is reinforcing many people’s feeling that Obama really isn’t “American” in the same way that  even many immigrants who came to America quickly became assimilated.  They believed in America’s freedoms, its promise for a bright future, its exceptionalism.  Obama doesn’t believe that America is special.  He has said as much.  In fact, he believes that America is fundamentally flawed and it is his destiny to change America in a such a way that people born a century ago would not recognize it, and people born a century from now would despise the way we were.