Steve King Ponders The 'Telegram From Kenya' Scenario, For The Birthers

You know, we make fun of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) for the way he opposes restricting dogfighting on the grounds that boxing exists, and isn't that the same thing? (No.) But you've got to hand it to King -- the man is an innovator.

Scott Keyes (who I guess is on the Steve King beat these days, not that I'm complaining) catches King indulging in a little bit of Birther Calvinball. He's pretty sure that Obama's papers are legit, but you never know, because reasons:

We went down into the Library of Congress and we found a microfiche there of two newspapers in Hawaii each of which had published the birth of Barack Obama. It would have been awfully hard to fraudulently file the birth notice of Barack Obama being born in Hawaii and get that into our public libraries and that microfiche they keep of all the newspapers published. That doesn't mean there aren't some other explanations on how they might've announced that by telegram from Kenya. The list goes on.

Sure, the list goes on! In this case, we have the "telegrammed birth announcement from Kenya" scenario, in which two Hawaii papers don't notice that they are receiving a telegram from Kenya. Meanwhile, the whole Birther story, distilled to its essence, implies that Barack Obama was spirited into citizenship thanks to a tight-lipped, Ocean's Eleven-style gang of conspirators that included several generations of state officials. In the scenario King offers, I guess none of them could think of a way to alert Hawaiian newspapers to Obama's birth besides sending a telegram from Africa.

"I wish we could come up with a way around this, guys," said the head of the secret Birther gang, "Somehow we were unable to account for the whole 'born in Kenya' thing when we set off on this amazing plan to falsely obtain citizenship for someone born in Kenya."

"Well, we could just have someone send the Hawaiian newspapers notice from Hawaii," said no one, apparently.

King is nevertheless resigned to the situation: "But drilling into that now, even if we could get a definitive answer and even if it turned out that Barack Obama was conclusively not born in America, I don't think we could get that case sold between now and November."

The whole point to Birtherism, though, is that you don't need to conclusively make this case to sell it. It's just that the buyers are all blithering loons.

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Comments

[Miketou]

11:26 PM on 08/03/2012

Seriously, it's getting a little frightening out there. It seems our government is being taken over by the nut cases. Did it ever occur to this fool that maybe Obama was born in Hawaii?

[Long Island girl]

11:22 PM on 08/03/2012

Ignorant jerk

[ashamed of m bachmann]

11:09 PM on 08/03/2012

Steve king and michelle bachman are twins separated at birth. They are both as dumb as they come. Neither one of them should be in politics and frankly I'm surprised they can function without a personal attendant telling them to inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale......swallow so you don't drool, inhale, exhale, swallow......

[nannews]

11:56 PM on 08/03/2012

Michelle and Steve are very, very close in their outlooks...greatly impressed with one another. Tend to spend a lot of time together, exchanging...ummmm....opinions.

[marla singer]

05:30 AM on 08/04/2012

Well, to be fair, she DOES need someone to share (wink-wink) 'opinions' with, since we KNOW Marcus isn't 'up' to the task!

[chazzman4]

11:04 PM on 08/03/2012

Racist, Birthers, Haters, and ri$h Fool$ give it up. You lost the last presidential election fair and square and you are going to lose again!. Fair and square. The American voter is not for sale. This election will be close 290 Eectoral College votes to 245. Koch, Karl, Koch's are going to lose a lot of money. More power to the little people. The 99%er will prevail. Money cannot buy you LUV. If rumny loses Va or Florida the election will be a rump. We will fight state by state Ohio, Penn, Wisc. and Mich are the lynch pin. North Carolina would be icing on the cake. Vote Democratic. Obama/Biden 2012

[freethinkergirl]

12:10 AM on 08/04/2012

X2...F&F

[Tonelook]

11:03 PM on 08/03/2012

When Republicans comment to complain about our calling out the racists among them; just stick to your guns. We have to help this ignorant people see the truth.

[pam123040]

10:57 PM on 08/03/2012

Unfortunately King, Grassley and now our Governor are all embarrassing political figures to our State. Mr. King about lost it when same sex marriage was made legal in Iowa.
We hopefully will take care of this in Nov 2012 when Obama and all Democrats will be elected.
Women remember to vote in Nov.
Obama 2012

[freethinkergirl]

12:11 AM on 08/04/2012

Also remember to help get out the vote...so important this election!!! F*F

[pam123040]

12:30 AM on 08/04/2012

Absolutely!!!!!

[Arleen1]

09:54 PM on 08/03/2012

Birther news: Yuck!

[CJ40inWI]

09:45 PM on 08/03/2012

I'm sure on some planet Mr King that your plan is brilliant and devious and clever, but your weak link is, this is Earth.

[RPDash]

09:20 PM on 08/03/2012

King is just an !diot, plain and simple.

[manfrommars]

09:07 PM on 08/03/2012

some people will say ANYTHING to get some attention

[djrizzo1]

09:45 PM on 08/03/2012

Explainable comments vs. proof of birth. Hmmm...sad if you believe the wack job theories.

[ThanksBobGrant]

11:27 PM on 08/06/2012

Maybe YOU are the "wack job" when you refuse to except the facts as they are.

[chazzman4]

11:13 PM on 08/03/2012

Those of us born in America will always say "I am going home to Russia,China, England, France, Australia, Africa, etc with out ever having set foot in our ancestoral home. You get the picture. Or is logic one of your bad suites. Vote Democratic.
Obama/Biden 2012

[ThanksBobGrant]

12:10 AM on 08/04/2012

Think you are reaching Mr. Liberal.Who the heck calls the country where their parents or grandparents were born their "home country". You had better realize the sham you are supporting..OPEN YOUR EYES

[bxgrrl]

08:53 PM on 08/03/2012

Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, THINK Steve - Read what you said, and THINK. Does this scenario really make sense to you? Because if it does, you need a psychiatric evaluation STAT.

[freethinkergirl]

12:14 AM on 08/04/2012

I hope they can get a group discount for the rest of the l00ns....F&F

[proggirl]

08:49 PM on 08/03/2012

If I were in King's district, I'd wonder how he found time to represent my interests when he was so busy making all these pronouncements.

[conniec]

10:34 PM on 08/03/2012

I think we could probably say the same thing about nearly EVERY Republican in Congress. Voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act over THIRTY times??? What an incredible waste of time and money.

[florida wasp]

08:48 PM on 08/03/2012

Well I guess in 2016 they can retroactively find Obama ineligible to be president.

[chazzman4]

11:31 PM on 08/03/2012

If rummy can "retroactively" retire from bains, even thought he signed documents and attended meetings of his sole ownership company (which his income tax return will prove) or he lied on his application to run for governor of Mass. There is a Seven Year Residency Requirement to run for the highest state office (Governor) There is one thing I hope goes viral on the internet: If rummy wins, what will he use to swear his OATH ON the King James Bible or the book of mormon?? inquisitive minds want to know. Lets hope it never gets to that stage. Vote Democratic. Obama/Biden 2012

[sacmom3]

08:20 PM on 08/03/2012

From now on instead of making Christmas fruitcake, I'm making a Christmas Steve King.

[bxgrrl]

08:55 PM on 08/03/2012

I wish I could mark this as a favorite more than once!

[freethinkergirl]

12:15 AM on 08/04/2012

We need more to use as water savers in our toilet tanks....F&F

[sacmom3]

12:21 AM on 08/04/2012

Lol