Trump and the birth issue

The eponymous author of the blog OneSTDV writes:

Any thoughts on Donald Trump taking up the birther issue in a rather measured fashion, much as you suggested in writing about it a few months back?

LA replies:

That’s true, he is, as far as I can see, following the approach to the birth issue that I have recommended and use myself, which is (a) to stay strictly with the incontrovertible fact that Obama has concealed his birth certificate, (b) to demand that he reveal his birth certificate, and (c) to avoid trafficking in the various alternative speculative theories of Obama’s birth. This is very good.

Unfortunately, at the same time, Trump is a character, a guy who sounds off, not a man who makes serious arguments. So I fear he will not make a real impact on the public consciousness of this issue.

Buck O. writes:

Trump may be looking for some kind of reaction—that he’s not getting so far. Speculating that Obama may be withholding his birth certificate because he might be a Muslim—may be pushing it. Trump does sound like he’s not going to let this go.

LA replies:

If he is doing that, then he is not following the ONLY approach that can work, which is to stay with the issue of the missing birth certificate and avoid all invidious and speculative accusations against Obama which only serve to discredit the accuser.

The very sad fact is that conservatives fall into two camps on this issue, each of them wholly inadequate and thus assuring Obama’s continuing escape from the truth. On the one hand, we have the establishment conservatives—pompous careerists and courtiers of the liberal order who treat the birth issue as beneath them. On the other hand we have the “hotter” type of conservative and the conservative rank and file, overly emotional individuals who lack the minimal intellectual discipline to tell the difference between an unanswerable charge (Obama has concealed his birth certificate) and various unfounded and even wholly whacky charges (Obama was born in Kenya, Obama’s real father was his Communist mentor Frank Davis, Obama’s real father was his grandfather, Obama is a Muslim) which automatically discredit the people making them. With the conservatives divided between time-servers and mouth-breathers, there is no realistic hope that the legitimate birth issue can prevail and the truth come out.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 31, 2011 07:21 PM | Send