On Sunday, Chris Wallace (of Fox News) did an interview of Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator who is on Hillary Clinton's ticket, running for vice president. Now Chris Wallace, a very experienced newsman who is going to moderate one of the three presidential debates, is the scion of a reporting family of some note, with a voice that reminds everyone of his father, the well-known TV journalist Mike Wallace.
Wallace felt the need to ask Kaine about the interesting press event Donald Trump held last week, supposed to be about the whole "birther" thing. Trump had, if you recall, a bunch of Medal of Honor winners and retired flag officers endorse him, one by one for a half hour or so, after which he briefly stated that Hillary's campaign in 2008 had started the "birther" notion, Trump had finished it, and that Barack Obama was born in the USA. End of story, end of event.
Kaine, of course, had to deny that anyone in Hillary's old campaign had possibly had anything to do with the notion. So to deflect, he used the term "bigoted lie" -- twice.
Now, I'm 65 and have used a lot of words and a lot of phrases in my lifetime. "Bigoted lie" is not one of them; I certainly have not used it twice within 90 seconds. So I think we can be pretty sure that the phrase was slipped to the good senator by the Language Control Committee of the Hillary campaign, to make sure that somehow the listener heard the term "bigoted" in association with Donald Trump. Twice in just that usage, in fact.
Now, all that would be fine, except for a few things.
Whether or not anyone cares about where Barack Obama was born anymore, is pretty much already decided. We only have to endure his presidency for about four more months, and hopefully all the harm that he can cause has already been done and can, equally hopefully, be undone. If someone somehow discovered "evidence" of his being born in Kenya or Indonesia or Mars, nothing is going to happen. ISIS is already upon us, jobs are scarce, the debt has already gotten to $20 trillion, Guantanamo is mostly emptied, our cities are still a mess, Keystone pipeline still is unapproved.
No one cares anymore where he was born.
What is a problem is hurling around the term "bigoted" as often as Kaine and Hillary and their lackeys and sycophants do. It is a problem because the people who promoted the "birther" idea, starting with the Iowa Clinton campaign worker who supposedly was fired "immediately" after suggesting Obama was born overseas, were all in political mode.
If it was a "lie", and we at least all agree now that the evidence points to Obama having been born in Hawaii, it was a political one, not a "bigoted" one. It has been an article of faith among the left, the press and the Obamists (but I repeat myself) that you cannot criticize Obama because he is (half) black. That continues now, laughably, by the campaign of the person whose campaign started the notion.
No, not only is it a "bigoted lie" but it is intended to "de-legitimize the first [black] president." I quote the latter spouting, dreamed up by the Hillary Language Control Committee, because it's important to do so. It is important, because the notion that Obama's father's race, and not Obama's contemptible politics and failed presidency, is what the birthers wanted to de-legitimize has to be pushed by the left, so as to avoid, you know, talking about his politics and how their implementation has failed the country.
We are, as a nation, so tired of the notion that everything has to be about race. It would be rather nice if someone, and I don't know who, has the independence as well as the fortitude to stand up and tell the Clintons that trying to make this issue, which is dead already anyway, about race, is an embarrassment to their campaign.
Trump did the right thing. I'm not sure he should have been on the "birther" story for the years before, but he finally put it to rest. Hillary needs to do the same thing.
Because not to do so is ... well, a "bigoted lie." There, I used it.
Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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