Birthers Raise The Dickens With Mark Levin!!! (Or, Levin Let Live???)

The Birthers Kept Dragging Up The Ghost Of Poor Emer de Vattel To Scare People

Once again, an insistent Birther crashes another party and provides a good dose of buzzkill. This time, it was Mark Levin’s book signing tour for The Liberty Amendments. Here are a few excerpts, that I paragraphed to make easier to read, and the entire transcription is at the link below:

Mark Levin:  Before we jump in, all I can say is, Wow!  You guys, open your microphones a second.  Thousands of people at both booksignings.  Wasn’t that unbelievable?

Staffer: There were a lot of people there, it was great.

Mark Levin:  And the people were just spectacular, weren’t they?  Except for one guy in New Jersey which I’ll talk about later.

Staffer:  [chuckles]

Mark Levin:   This… this birther stuff is way, way out of contr…”Now Ted Cruz” … I swear I almost hit this guy… “Ted Cruz is not a citizen!”  No, he’s born to an American mother, no he’s born in Canada to an American mother.  So all you pregnant ladies traveling overseas:  According to certain birther, uh, groups, if you have a child while you are on vacation, they’re not Americans.  They’re not natural-born Americans.  I just thought you’d wanna know, if you were thinking of your kid as a potential presidential candidate, uh, because they say so.  They have no historical background whatsoever… None!  But it’s, it’s just amazing!  Absolutely stunning!

and:

Mark Levin: Just a wonderful group of people, uh, we were in Bookends, Ridgewood, New Jersey, and everyone was respectful until…and it was hot outside, it got hot, hotter than uh originally forecast and it was a very long line, and you know we try to go through it quickly out of respect for everybody in line, but I also try to be respectful to everybody in line.  Um…but this fella [breathes out] gets in my face and first of all he points to some obscure note on page I don’t know whatever and he said [cough] excuse me folks, and he says “You were wrong about this, you were wrong about”, and honestly I, I, I didn’t have time to read it, and I’ll go back and check it, if I’m wrong about it I’ll fix it, and that happens sometimes in these books when you’re going into the notes, you might put a word when you mean another word, or a state when you mean another state, so I’m going to check it out, I just haven’t had time.

And then he goes, he says uh “And Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president.  He’s not a natural-born Citizen.”  And I thought to myself, you know I, this is not a subject that I have studied so thoroughly, but he’s born of a mother who is an American citizen.  Doesn’t that make him a natural-born Ci…  “No, but he was in Canada when he was born!”  Okay, but she wasn’t Canadian, she was an American citizen!  She was an American citizen.  And so, the issue isn’t what the Constitution says in that regard, the issue is how do we interpret that.  And the way I interpret it is, his mother’s an American citizen, so he’s an American citizen!

That’s not a constitutional issue, that’s an interpretive issue… or, a statutory issue if Congress has passed some law subsequent to that to enforce that provision of the Constitution.  So, the face of the Constitution isn’t terribly helpful.  If he was born of non-citizens in a foreign country that would be easy, and there’s a lot of easy cases.  So the guy gets in my face, and he starts pointing and pointing, and I looked at him and I pointed back, and I cursed, unfortunately, but the, because, uh you know, he was…he was a nutjob.  And I thought to myself: Why do you come here and do that?  Is this, is this sort of the way you…you  excite yourself or something?

and finally:

Mark Levin: But what particularly bothered me about this guy…he was disrespectful in his conduct to everybody else standing there. They were pleasant, talking to each other, you know…listening, watching and so forth.  I’m a big boy; I’ve seen this and a thousand times worse.  But he was quite obnoxious.

There is a lot more at this link:

http://theridgewoodblog.net/radio-host-mark-levin-addresses-ted-cruz-eligibility-issue-with-ridgewood-resident/

This is not something new with the Birther issues.  I don’t knock the Birthers for expressing their opinions with passion, but it would be nice if they occasionally took the time to remember that all they have really, truly are just. . . OPINIONS. And when it comes to the value of those OPINIONS, these little things we call COURTS and JUDGES have a whole lot more relevant and meaningful OPINIONS. For the same reasons that an Umpire’s OPINION that the runner is safe, or out, is a lot more relevant and meaningful than either the players’ OPINION or the people in the stands’ OPINION.

Whether or not Ted Cruz is eligible is not yet chiseled in stone. After a court decides, and the appeals are settled, then the question will be answered. In the meantime, most people who have read the various legal cases think that he is.  In a previous post, I took the time to frame the question in the way I see it being framed in a future lawsuit, and then I answered the concerns the way that I think a real judge would.

https://birtherthinktank.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/apuzzo-order1.pdf

This is also another reason why the Birthers are so stuck in their rut. They have way too much passion, and way too little detached reflection about the issue. They are so convinced that they are right, that they aren’t able to read and comprehend what decisions like Wong Kim Ark (1898) are really all about. At least, that is my OPINION. But when it comes to Ted Cruz, there hasn’t yet been a candidate with his particular background.  There hasn’t been a candidate born overseas and made a citizen by an act of naturalization. There isn’t a judicial decision which directly covers him. So, his eligibility is still an open question.

Or as Mark Levin said above:

And so, the issue isn’t what the Constitution says in that regard, the issue is how do we interpret that.  And the way I interpret it is, his mother’s an American citizen, so he’s an American citizen! That’s not a constitutional issue, that’s an interpretive issue… or, a statutory issue if Congress has passed some law subsequent to that to enforce that provision of the Constitution.  So, the face of the Constitution isn’t terribly helpful.

That is not an OPINION. That is a FACT!

Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter

Note 1. The Image. This is Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghost of Jacob Marley from Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. I could not trace it back to a particular production.

Note 2. Mario Apuzzo, Esq.’s response to the above Order. The above order generated a response from Mario Apuzzo, Esq. His response is linked, and included in the original post here:

https://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/with-2020-foresight-the-once-and-future-apuzzo/

Note 3. The Dickens. For ESL’s this is a word play on Charles Dickens, the author of A Christmas Carol, and the phrase, raise the dickens, which means:

raise the dickens (with someone or something)

to act in some extreme manner; to make trouble; to behave wildly; to be very angry.

John was out all night raising the dickens. That cheap gas I bought really raised the dickens with my car’s engine.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/dickens

Note 4. Puns That Might Have Been. Well, I checked out the map, because I was really hoping that Ridgewood N.J. was a suburb of Philadelphia. I was just dying to make the Image Easter Egg:

“He’s Been Phil. Spectred???”

(from the Simon & Garfunkel song.)

Note 5. The Prequel. Mark Levin is not real fond of Birthers in the first place, having once said on his radio show:

I want you to listen to me on my social sites. Marco Rubio was born in Miami, Florida. He is a natural born United States citizen. And if I get any more of this Birther crap up there. . . this is a warning, and I don’t care who you are, you’re going to be banned. Okay? This is a site I put up for rational people. Marco Rubio was born in Miami, Florida in 1940, excuse me, 1971. He’s 40. There’s no debate. So take that Birther crap somewhere else. Just a warning. . . got it? I’m not into all that crap. You can go somewhere else for that.

Mark Levin
Sept. 28, 2011