Am I reading this correctly? Is this really happening? Is the President really giving a news conference on where he was born????
Are you kidding me?
Do they really think this will make this go away? Do they not understand how the fringe works?
Wrong. Republicans will say "what took them so long?" They will just move the goal posts.
I guarantee something will be found to crow over and we will spend the next week or two talking about this nonsense.
Why do they always let the buffoons drive the narrative?
And here it is....
Click on image for link to WH press release.
UPDATE 1: And....we are off!!. Trump has now just stated "Why won't the President release his educational records/college transcripts? What is the President trying to hide?"
See...that worked out well.
Appeasement of bullies never works. It only encourages them. Oh well, enjoy the circus for the next week.
UPDATE 2: And Redstate jumps on board...
Of course, once the birth certificate issue is dispatched, will he release his college transcripts? That’s the issue for me.
When the birth certificate is reviewed and we can see what most of us have always known — that he was born in Hawaii — we can move on. For some, moving on will be to wonder what religion the man is.
He can’t win on this.
It is all a game to see how far they can drag the President into the muck. And someone somewhere in the WH thinks this is helpful. You can not play the game on their turf.
I hope they have a game plan because they just opened Pandora's box. The crazy folks now will feel that as long as you push relentlessly, you will ultimately get what you want, and drive the narrative with our weak media.
I hope the President just mocks these folks relentlessly in his press conference. I really hope this isn't a let's just move on discussion.
UPDATE 3: The Presidential press conference has started. I hope he uses the fact that the networks ACTUALLY BROKE INTO PROGRAMMING to talk about something other than the birth certificate. And then mock the media for their idiocy.
UPDATE 4: And here is a rough transcript of the President's press conference...
H/T Cedwyn (thanks for the quick transcription).
"this thing has been going on for 2.5 years. i've watched w/ bemusement. i've been puzzled as this thing just went on."
everybody's confirmed it, gop and dem alike. i was born in HI!
HI cert has been online for everyone to see. affidavits have been provided. yet this thing just keeps going.
normally, i would not comment on stuff like this. but two weeks ago when the GOP house had put fwd a budget that will have huge consqs to country. i gave a spch about my budget about how we need to invest in infrastructure, sec for seniors, etc. but the dominant news story wasn't about these huge monumental choices the nation needs to make. it was about this cert.
so i want to make a larger point. we've got enormous challenges. lots still looking for work, suffering w high gas prices, etc. we face a series of diff. decisions. there will be debate and disagreements. i'm confident we can come together and solve these problems; we always have. but we wont' be able to do it if we're distracted villifying each other or make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts.
we can't get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers. this is a serious time and we have potential to confront our problems. but we have to get serious to do it.
i know there will be a segment for whom this issue will never be put to rest, but i'm speaking to maj. of american ppl and the press: we don't have time for this silliness. we all have better stuff to do."
UPDATE 5: Mike Viquiera of MSNBC reports that the WH has stated the reason they felt obligated to address this issue is because the media started asking questions in the briefing room. This seems to hold true based on some earlier reporting. And it was none other than Ed Henry (Mr. Let's Give FOX a front row seat himself).
CNN's terminally exhausting White House Correspondent Ed Henry, who decided that he would bring up the issue again at Tuesday's White House Press Briefing. What makes Henry's pursuit of this matter so demented, however, is that Monday night, his own network broadcast Anderson Cooper's "definitive investigation" of the birther myth, in which the former director of the Hawaii Department of Health Dr. Chiyome Fukino stated unequivocally that Obama was "absolutely born here in the state of Hawaii." And then Cooper spent the rest of his time beating up on Donald Trump for being an idiot about it.
At the briefing, Ed Henry asked Carney about the matter in such a way that you couldn't really get a feel for whether he found his own network's "definitive" reporting to be all that credible. He sure went out of his way to stick up for Donald Trump (because he is just so shiny!):
HENRY: Jay, my colleague, Gary Tuchman, just went to Hawaii and established again that there’s evidence suggesting that the President, in fact, was born in the United States. But as you know, Donald Trump persists, other critics, and last night Trump was on CNN saying that he’s been told the birth certificate is missing, that it’s either not there or has been taking out -- taken out somehow, and this is a problem for the President. When the White House hears this continued claim, what does it say?
So the media has a choice. Stop acting like clowns and do their jobs, or get themselves onto television by stirring up nonsense. I will give you three guesses as to which they will choose and your first two guesses don't count.
Meanwhile, CNN is replaying clips of Trump's press conference instead of the President's. CNN and FOX are becoming more indistinguishable by the day.
UPDATE 6: Speaker John Boehner has now release a statement calling the birther issue "long settled"
NONSENSE.
The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there," the speaker responded. "That's good enough for me."
Williams asked if Boehner would be willing to express that same message to the dozen Congressional Republicans who don't seem to feel it's good enough for them.
"Brian, when you come to the Congress of the United States, there are 435 of us," Boehner responded. "We're nothing more than a slice of America. People come, regardless of party labels, they come with all kinds of beliefs and ideas. It's the melting pot of America. It's not up to me to tell them what to think."
Will the media let Republicans get away with their upcoming historical rewrites?
