Monday, October 20, 2008

THE AFRICAN MICHELLE OBAMA TAPE STORY: WAIT, IT GETS STUPIDER

Last week, many of our pals in the right-wing blogosphere actually fell for a bizarre post on a blog called African Press International that purported to be a transcript of a telephone rant by Michelle Obama -- albeit a Michelle Obama who, to judge from her syntax, learned to speak English somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa:

... Mrs Obama was angered and she came out loud with the following: ... "it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband's face and yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband's adoption by His step father. The important thing here is where my husband's heart is at the moment. I can tell the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by a foreigner; says Michelle Obama on telefon to API." ...

But there's more: API, which insists it will soon release the recording of the conversation, says it's now being represented by an American lawyer.

And not just any lawyer:

...The release [of the recording] has taken long due to the fact that API wanted to clear all legal hurdles and be safe from getting sued by any one. API and a US Law firm - LAW OFFICES OF PHILIP J. BERG has just entered into an agreement giving the law firm the right to represent API in all matters that may arise due to the Michelle Obama interview and the release of the tapes in the US....

That would be this Philip J. Berg:

...In 2005 he was fined and sanctioned $10,000 for having committed a "laundry list of unethical actions."

"Other attorneys should look to Mr. Berg's actions as a blueprint for what not to do when attempting to effectively and honorably perform the duties of the legal profession," Joyner wrote.

"This court has grown weary of Mr. Berg's continuous and brazen disrespect toward this court and his own clients. Mr. Berg's actions ... are an enormous waste of judicial time and resources that this court cannot, in good conscience, allow to go unpunished," Joyner wrote.

Berg is also a 9/11 truther.

But the subject of Michelle's alleged rant has, in fact, been the focus of Berg's life for some time now: the citizenship status of Barack Obama:

Pennsylvania's former deputy attorney general and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter Philip J. Berg has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania accusing presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of lying about his U.S. citizenship, which would make him ineligible to be president.

...The suit ... says Mr. Obama's mother went to Kenya late in her pregnancy and ended up giving birth there. It also claims that later in life, Mr. Obama declared himself a citizen of Indonesia.

...Mr. Berg said he was contacted about filing the lawsuit by a member or associate of the group PUMA....


His efforts to demonstrate that Obama is ineligible to be president have been unceasing. This has made him the hero of an astonishing number of Free Republic threads. He blogs about the lawsuit at the site ObamaCrimes.com. He also appears on fringe radio shows such as the show hosted by Pastor Butch Paugh, a neo-Confederate.

Berg, Jerome Corsi ... there's probably a great book or magazine article in all this ("The Gang That Couldn't Swift-Boat Straight"). Meanwhile, I hope a recording is released, just so we get to hear how embarrassingly fake it is.

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