Now, we have a new conspiracy theory for a new age. The adherents of this theory believe that Barack Obama isn't a natural born U.S. citizen, and therefore not qualified to be President. It's been around for some time, having gotten started during the 2008 election. This theory seems to be getting lots of play lately in the popular press. They must be bored with covering Micheal Jackson's death by now.
While I feel funny coming to the defense of President Obama, this is ridiculous. Here's an image of his birth certificate:
Image credit: click here for full size
If you believe that's not genuine, read this analysis by FactCheck. Most state health departments have records of birth certificates. All that's required to confirm that a certificate is valid is to ask the board of health that issued it. That's what FactCheck did.
If you still don't believe Barack Obama is a natural born citizen, because this is all some vast liberal conspiracy on the part of the Hawaiian health care system, then I have some advice for you. You're a fucking idiot. You make the most dimwitted Truthers look like clear-eyed geniuses in comparison. So, don't touch anything. Ever.
UPDATE (July 23): If your computer can play Comedy Central clips, check out this one. It's Jon Stewart administering a smackdown to Lou Dobbs and a few other birth conspiracy theorists. This is an example of why people take him more seriously than the "real" news anchors.
2 comments:
The Birther CT is not about rational thought. No CT ever is. People are still banging on about JFK and how it was really the KGB, the CIA, the Mafia or some other nefarious organization rather than the two-bit looser Lee Harvey Oswald who killed Kennedy.
Deconstruction cult the CLOB (Certificate of Live Birth.) It is about not so subtle racism. Obama is melanin enhanced after all. It is also about his odd name as well. Because the "Islamofascist" threat is the right wing threat de jure any one with a "Arab" name is suspect.
The president thus presents a twofer for the paranoid right wing bigots. He is obviously unqualified because he is black and he is Muslim. Damn the inconvenient facts, he is unqualified to be President.
It is quite incredible that such a super compromising, centrism for centrism sake, conventional wisdom following politician should be colored as such a existential threat to the nation. That he would be portrayed as some kind of evil genius that somehow hoodwinked HRC and Johny Mac into not uncovering a vast conspiracy.
Unfortunately part of the electorate is cuckoo for coca puffs and their is damn little we can do about it.
We have seen this before with the election of Bill Clinton. Crazed, marginal characters going off the deep end and taking the Elephant Party with them. We saw Ruby Ridge and Wako as the ultimate end point of right-wing CT ideology.
In Clinton's final term we saw the Elephants waist our time with Kenneth Starr investigating every bogus charge ever dreamed up Richard Mellon-Scaife's fevered brain. Kenny's court of the Starr chamber finally settled on the "perjury" angle because of the infamous bj Monica gave Bill in the White House. Who would imagine a cheating husband might lie about an affair?
The birthers are perfect storm of right-wing sour grapes. They can not get over the fact that a Democrat and a black man on top of that crushed them in the general. The defeat must be explained away because the wingnuts "know" they are the only "true Americans." They don't handle rejection to well. So by a little projection of how they do business, it must mean the other side must have cheated. Thus the cult of the CLOB and the obsession about ACORN.
This is about small-minded authoritarians being upset that the rest of the nation has gone ahead without them. It is about the rest of the nation responding to " my way or the highway" with "by all means, take a hike and don't let the door hit you were the good lord split you."
I'm loathe to get inside the heads of these people, but there are certainly those among the Republicans' constituency who feel a sense of entitlement. To them, the country really does belong to white christians only. How much that has to do with the birther's conspiracy theories, I can't say, but it does seem logical that there's a connection.
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