While Establishment Media Freak Over Kamala Birther Theory, Don't Forget They Tried Same Strategy with McCain, Cruz
The establishment media are going nuts over remarks President Donald Trump made regarding Sen. Kamala Harris’ eligibility to be the Democrats’ nominee for vice president.
A New York Times article last week reported that Trump “encouraged a racist conspiracy theory” about Joe Biden’s running mate.
The Times said his “attack” was “reminiscent of the lie he perpetrated for years that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya.”
That is laughable. The president did not bring up Harris’ eligibility. A reporter asked him about it during an Aug. 13 news conference.
The White House transcript confirms the reporter raised the issue this way: “There are claims circulating on social media that Kamala Harris is not eligible to be — to run for vice president because she was an ‘anchor baby,’ I quote. Do you or can you definitively say whether or not Kamala Harris is eligible — legal — and meets the legal requirements to run as vice president?”
Trump calmly responded, “So, I just heard that. I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements.” He went on to say, “I have no idea if that is right.”
When the reporter pressed the president to take a definitive position on the issue, he simply stated, “Yeah, I don’t know about it. I just heard about it. I’ll take a look.”
Even though Trump said he had just heard the claim and that he didn’t know anything about it, the liberal media and Democratic politicians labeled him as a “racist” for his answer.
“In the midst of this crisis, he chooses to participate in nasty, racist, distracting, comments, about an American citizen, who happens to be a Black woman,” says Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee about Trump’s attacks on VP candidate Kamala Harris.https://t.co/fk6TbndMGc pic.twitter.com/icTuYvEBOD
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) August 14, 2020
Moreover, the questions some raised about Harris’ eligibility have nothing to do with her race, but with her parents’ nationalities. As explained by NewsBusters, the senator’s father is Jamaican and her mother is Indian.
Democrats often turn to race-baiting when they cannot run on their record. This despicable tactic is part of a pre-emptive strike to try to discredit any negative attacks against Harris. They take a claim that 1) Trump did not make and 2) has absolutely nothing to do with race in order to claim the president is a “racist.”
The NewsBusters article illustrated how all of this birther nonsense — casting doubt on whether a candidate qualifies as a “natural born citizen” as required by the Constitution — stems from many claims Democrats and the liberal media have made over the years about Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
It did not start in 2008 when some people questioned then-Sen. Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president — an effort led by the campaign of Obama’s Democratic primary opponent, Hillary Clinton.
The birther movement actually began in 1880 when the Democrats claimed that Chester A. Arthur was ineligible to run for vice president.
He was born in Vermont, but some claimed he was born in Canada. His mother was born in Vermont, so Arthur’s birthplace was a moot point. He was a natural-born citizen and was eligible.
In 2008, the same New York Times that said Trump “encouraged a racist conspiracy” about Harris questioned the eligibility of the GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain, because he was born on a military installation in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was serving there in the U.S. Navy.
Democrats and the liberal media have raised similar birther questions about GOP Michigan Gov. George Romney in 1968 and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in 2016. It is part of their playbook. The eligibility of another Republican, Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, was the subject of a lawsuit in 1964.
None of these claims passed muster.
The Democratic Party and its media allies desperately want to paint Trump as unreasonable, so they make this accusation that he supported a false racist conspiracy when he did no such thing.
You may ask why Trump doesn’t just say that Harris (who was born in the U.S.) is a natural-born citizen and is eligible to be vice president so that he can end this nonsense. The reason is that he is playing with the Democrats and the establishment media. He is beating them at their own game.
By letting them get into a tizzy over this non-issue, he allows them to lose their focus. They will keep harping on this point, while he continues to talk about the issues Americans will consider in November when they cast their votes, such as reviving the economy, improving national security, preserving the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and lowering health care costs without socializing the entire health care system.
Trump is a master at making his opponents look foolish. He did it with Russia collusion and impeachment. He did it last week too.
As CNN reported, the president signed four executive orders to help with coronavirus relief. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the executive orders were unconstitutional. When asked about a potential lawsuit to stop the orders, she replied, “As my constitutional advisors tell me, they’re absurdly unconstitutional.” She did not say whether she planned to file a suit.
Maybe a lawsuit is justified in this case, but Pelosi knows that filing a lawsuit to prevent money from going to people who desperately need it will make her appear petty and selfish, if not downright evil. Trump, however, knows that simply talking about a potential lawsuit will have a similar effect. He is happy to let Pelosi and the Democrats run with this.
Trump truly enjoys letting the Democrats destroy themselves. By criticizing everything the president has done over the past year, the Democrats have positioned themselves as the party that supports Iranian terrorists, the Chinese Communist Party, violent riots and the elimination of the police – all losing positions.
Now they are clinging to this birther claim that Trump did not even make.
One is compelled to ask if the their behavior is blatant hypocrisy or simple idiocy.
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