Obama Citizenship

?21st Century Thomas Paine? Summoned to White House?

By Phil

As of the time of this posting, the video, above, has received 1,390,173 views; another video, below, done by the same gentleman has received 2,810,499 views. It is these two videos that have led to rampant speculation that Dr. Bob Basso (Mahalo.com profile) — who styles himself as Thomas Paine — has been summoned to the White House (special thanks to ZAPEM for the heads up).

WorldNetDaily reports:

The man who created two phenomenally successful “We The People” YouTube videos urging Americans to stand up against Congress and reclaim their republic now ? or perhaps lose it forever ? reportedly has been summoned to the White House by President Obama to discuss the subject matter of the short films.

Bob Basso, who posts videos under the name funbobbasso on YouTube, has created videos in which he portrays Thomas Paine, author of the “Common Sense” pamphlet that made the case for independence during the American Revolution.

Basso, whose website offers his services as a motivational speaker, uses the YouTube presentations to condemn “non-representing representatives” and warns, “Only when they feel the almighty wrath of ‘We The People’ marching in the streets from California to New York shouting ‘We’re mad as hell and we want our country back’ will they get the message they work for you.”

He was scheduled this week to appear on the “Jerry Doyle Show” when he told the radio host that Obama had personally invited him to meet in the White House “to discuss the disturbing nature of the videos.”

According to a spokesman for Doyle’s show, at the time when Basso was supposed to be calling in for the show, he was unavailable. Basso reached the show several hours later, explaining he had been flooded by media calls and literally was unable to call out.

The result, the spokesman said, was that Basso promised to provide Doyle with the first exclusive interview after he meets with Obama, provided the invitation still stands after the meeting was leaked to the press.

The spokesman said information about the meeting has not been made public, and show producers are waiting to see what develops. A WND message left for Basso was not immediately returned.

The Doyle show reaches about 3 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, and is the fastest growing show in Talk Radio NetworkEnterprises’ history with more than 240 stations. …

Referring to “progressives,” he said, “We had another word in 1776. We called them traitors.”

Basso is the author of the best-selling book “This Job Should Be Fun” along with 10 other books, including “Lighten Up Corporate America!”

A former award winning news director for NBC TV and visiting professor at UCLA, Basso has a Ph.D in communications.

Doyle’s distinctive repertoire includes former Wall Street insider, TV star and jet pilot. He has starred in many made-for-TV movies, but is best known as the character Michael Garibaldi on the Emmy winning Sci-fi television series “Babylon 5,” which ran for five years.

MaggiesNotebook, however, makes the following observation:

I assume the report that actor Bob Basso, who portrays Thomas Paine so brilliantly, really has been “summoned” to the White House.

What I’m not so clear about is the report that he was “summoned” there, as WND daily says: “to discuss the disturbing nature of the videos.” They are awaiting confirmation of the meeting, so stay tuned. If you haven’t seen this “disturbing” video, you can view it below.

If this report is true, and the ominous “summons” puts Bob Basso in a bullseye for censorship, then we’d better move those tea parties up to, well, maybe tomorrow. You know, it would take a lot for me to believe that the White House might want to “discourage” (strong-arm) an amazing work like this one - but, today, I realize that this is the Barack Obama administration and our freedom of free speech is in peril.

Recall that retired Navy officer Walter Francis Fitzpatrick III was contacted by law enforcement for his similarly strong-worded letter characterizing the President as a “traitor” to the US Attorney General’s office in the eastern district of Tennessee. Attorney Stephen Pidgeon also reported his own scenario as well.

Here is the first video Dr. Basso produced:

Glenn Beck recently interviewed Dr. Basso:

-Phil

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on March 28, 2009 (boomark / email).