NBC Softball’s Ann

This morning I just happened to catch the tail end of an “Today” show interview with Ann Coulter and some other dude I don’t know (I’m bad like that). I’m no fan of this shrill hag, so I was just going to change it. They were talking about race in America and why blacks would vote for Clinton or Obama. But then the wind bag said something that caught my attention.

“I think the first black president should be an American black and Republican”.

So I waited for the little interviewer to call her on it or to correct her. And I waited and I waited. She corrected her about slavery in America, so I know she’s capable. But, alas, the little interviewer just sat back and allowed Dragon Mouth to spout that lie.

Barack Obama is American. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on American soil which gives him automatic citizenship in this country no matter where his parents may or may not be from (his father is from Kenya). Otherwise he couldn’t run for president. Ok, he can run but he could never sit as president. mAnn knows this. But she chose to throw that little lie in because some old granny would be sitting watching her, clutching her pearls, and swearing to God that “no foreign Muslim is going to be the president of my country!” This is what mAnn does. She instills fear, feeds the ignorance, hits below the belt as it is.

But NBC had the opportunity to smack that bitch down this morning. Not only that, they should have reported the facts and not rightwing propaganda (and if you think that Barack Obama is not a citizen of this country, please provide me with a legal definition as of this writing of what constitutes an American citizen). But they let it slide. They helped her feed the ignorance and instill the fear. They not only aided that lying hack, they enabled her. Hard hitting news, my fat ass.

Here’s what the interviewer should have said:

“You say that the first black president should be American, but Obama is an American, having been born here.”

Now, this would be where mAnn qualifies her answers, saying some bullshit about his Muslim father, or the fact that he lived for a while in Indonesia…blah. None of that matters. He was born here, he is a citizen, he has a right to run for and, if elected, serve as President of the United States. What the hell is the problem? Why can’t people get that? I expect mAnn to pull a stunt like this, but it would be nice if there was a news person with the balls to call her on it.

And for your reading pleasure an excerpt of Article II of the Constitution of the United States:^*

No Persons except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

You’ll notice that the words “male”, “white”, and “Christian” don’t appear in there anywhere. And neither is “who’s parents are legal citizens of the United States”.

Edited to add:

You know, these people that are screaming about “immigrants” running for president should look toward California where there is a growing movement to have the Constitution amended so folks can vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Funny, I don’t hear mAnn caterwauling about that. Of course, Arnold is two things Barack isn’t: white and Republican. Oops! Forgot the third: An immigrant. Doesn’t that suck?

_{* I don’t have a link because, like a good citizen, I have a copy of the Constitution in my home. Aren’t you proud?}